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P. Reau (62'), I. Kitwanga (75', 79')
Tries
B. HOUSTON (21'), B. Hadinegoro (37'), T. Carol (70')
J. Laharrague (62', 75', 79')
Conversions
J. Strachan (21', 70')
J. Laharrague (3')
Penalties
J. Strachan (5', 45')
This match said more about resilience than sparkle. Stade Aurillacois left Raoul-Barrière with a single-point win because they defended with conviction for an hour and piled just enough on the board to survive the last five minutes. AS Béziers Hérault finished in a rush, but the damage had been done by their earlier softness in contact and a night of missed tackles.
The hinge moments were clinical: Aurillac struck either side of the interval and again at the 70-minute mark. That sequence kept the scoreboard ticking while Béziers flailed in the red zone until the 62nd minute. The visitors’ final try, from Thomas Carol with 10 to go, didn’t end the contest, but it did set the target Béziers were always chasing. Two late tries hauled the hosts to the brink; they ran out of time because Aurillac had spent the previous 70 minutes winning the collisions and exiting cleanly enough to keep the game in the right areas.
Look at the texture, not the headline. Aurillac made 132 tackles and missed only 12. Béziers missed 25. You could see it in the way Angus Staniforth and Boris Hadinegoro kept punching holes on kick return, and in how Aurillac’s pack kept resetting the gain line in defence. Béziers had a shade more ball and fewer penalties against, but they didn’t convert pressure into points until too late, and they coughed up four lineouts to blunt their maul threat. The scrums were tidy both ways; the difference came after first contact.
CARRIES
CLEAN BREAKS
TACKLE
TACKLES MISSED
TURNOVERS WON
PENALTIES CONCEDED
POSSESSION
SCRUMS
LINEOUTS
Aurillac’s backfield was the release valve and the weapon. Angus Staniforth ran for 111 metres and twice sliced Béziers open, forcing them to defend back-foot ball for long stretches. Boris Hadinegoro was decisive around the ruck — a snipe before the break for his try and 81 metres from 10 carries told you how often Béziers lost the inside shoulder. Those breaks flowed from a pack that worked: 17 tackles from Hugo Huurman, 16 from Martial Rolland, 13 from Skip Jongejan and a dozen from Lasha Tabidze. It wasn’t flashy. It travelled.
With ball in hand, Aurillac were selective rather than expansive, and Jake Strachan managed the gaps. Two penalties — one right after half-time — and two conversions were important, but his value was in nudging Béziers back to the corners and making them start again. When the chance came on turnover ball at 70 minutes, Carol finished, Strachan added the two, and at 25-10 it looked safe. It just about was.
Béziers will point to the finish, and they should. The bench changed the tempo. Ian Kitwanga brought energy and ruthlessness, scoring twice in the last five minutes, and Joseph Laharrague kept them alive from the tee and attacked the line with intent all night. Paul Reau finally broke Aurillac on the edge on 62 minutes and Paul Recor and Sias Koen carried with purpose through the second half. But these were fixes to problems they had created: too many passive tackles early, too many slips in the tramlines, and a lineout that coughed up momentum. When your outside centre, Pierre Courtaud, misses four, and your loosehead slips three, the cumulative effect is territory ceded and energy burned.
The margin flatters Béziers more than Aurillac. For 70 minutes the visitors were in control — not cruising, but dictating. Then a run of penalties and loose exits invited pressure and Béziers, to their credit, found a sharper shape and better speed around the corner, with Gabin Kretchmann adding punch. If the game lasts three minutes longer, maybe it flips. It didn’t, because Aurillac’s first-up tackling and earlier scoring run forced Béziers to chase from too far back.
None of this lets Aurillac off their late-game sloppiness. Eleven penalties away from home is playing with fire, and the final minutes were a lesson in how quickly a grip can loosen. But the broader read is positive: the defensive system is functioning, the back three are live, and the lineout held under pressure. Back-to-back wins lift them into the congested middle and set up next week with a bit of tailwind — tidy the discipline and the end-game composure, and this will look more sustainable.
For Béziers, this can’t be filed under hard luck. The rally shows there’s fight in the group and the bench options have bite, but they’re living off spurts. Until they fix their tackle efficiency and tidy the details — cleaner edge defence, more secure lineout ball — they’ll keep giving teams a head start they can’t afford. With Provence coming, the stakes don’t ease. The takeaway is simple: start like they finished, or keep paying for the first hour.
