French wing Damian Penaud was the catalyst for a brilliant Bordeaux-Begles recovery from a good Hollywoodbets Sharks start at the Stade Chaban-Delmas on Sunday afternoon as the Top 14 team ended the Pool phase of the Investec Champions Cup with a thumping 66-12 victory.
The winners scored 10 tries and 66 unanswered points from the 12th minute onwards to send the Sharks spiralling out of the Champions Cup and into the EPCR Challenge Cup that they won last year.
Bordeaux Bègles complete the pool phase with a perfect record 💯💯
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 19, 2025
The Hollywoodbets Sharks fall out of the top four after a 54-point defeat 👇#InvestecChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/S2bLQ4Y96q
The Sharks were the last remaining hope in the Champions Cup, with the Vodacom Bulls and DHL Stormers already out, so there will be no local representation in the elite European competition from here.
It was a humiliating afternoon for the Sharks after it started so well and at the end of it all there was one man who stood taller than any other - Bordeaux and France international wing Penaud scored six tries to go with the three he scored the previous week in Exeter to make it a phenomenal nine across the last two games.
The Sharks heard so much about the perhaps over-hyped so called GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) Antoine Dupont when Toulouse visited them the previous week that they could probably have been forgiven thinking that Dupont was French rugby and French rugby was Dupont and it didn’t go further than that.
Well in the south western France winter sunshine at the Romanesque stadium that the Springboks made their return to overseas touring after years of isolation by playing the French Espoirs (Youth) in October 1992, Penaud delivered a reminder to the Durbanites that there are other great players that have driven the French success of recent years.
FIRST HALF HAT-TRICK SET IT UP
He scored a hat-trick of tries in the first half to get his team out of a bit of a hole against a Sharks team that started off on fire and produced a thrilling seven minutes of rugby that saw them score two good tries and propel them into a 12-0 lead.
That wasn’t part of any pre-match script in a game where Bordeaux, who have swept all before them this season, started as strong favourites to win by a wide margin, but thanks to Penaud they ensured the groundwork was laid for a reversion to the initial script of Bordeaux dominance.
Penaud’s first try was regulation stuff for a wing as space was created for him by Irish flyhalf Joey Carbery, playing fullback in this game, joining the line.
The second was typically opportunistic, with a Yaw Penxe pass near his own 22 not finding a fellow Sharks player but instead finding Penaud who delivered in his typically X-factor style.
The third try, just before halftime and the one that put his team in the lead for the first time after a first half where the Sharks were marginally the better team but just didn’t take all their chances, was perhaps the best as it came from a position where you wouldn’t expect a wing to be as he popped up at first receiver and drove himself over the line.
Later in the game, when the contest was long since done and dusted, he kicked for himself and scored, then ran onto a Matthieu Jalibert kick, and rounded it all off when he was put in space for a breakaway and a run of 60 metres to cross for his sixth. Not that listing his try contributions would adequately sum up Penaud’s contribution to the home team’s winning performance or his sheer class.
He was a constant presence, a constant thorn in the Sharks side, and a constant threat to their defensive system.
GAVE LIFE TO ULSTER FANS
His three first half tries meant Bordeaux gave themselves the air that powered their dominant second half as they powered themselves into a position where Ulster fans, watching from afar, were given unlikely hope.
After Ulster picked up five log points in their win over Exeter Chiefs on Friday night, it required a 28 point Bordeaux win, while denying the Sharks a bonus point, to get Ulster into the round of 16 on superior points difference.
When Bordeaux went 40-12 up that would have been when the Ulster fans would have been nervous.
For it stayed at that score, the boundary between them going through and the Sharks going through, for quite a while.
But with 14 minutes to go Penaud ran onto his own kick for his fourth try and a 47-12 lead for Bordeaux put Ulster in the prime seats and that it was it for the Sharks.
HAD NOTHING LEFT
They had nothing left against a by then completely dominant Bordeaux team and the hosts just ran through them after that to win by more than 50 points.
It never looked like being that in the first half, particularly when the Sharks started so strongly.
They won the first scrum penalty to set up an attacking lineout, and from there young Jurenzo Julius showed off his excellent hands as he swivelled towards the line and then offloaded for flyhalf Siya Masuku to score a try he converted.
Just a few minutes later, and with seven gone, it was fullback Hakeem Kunene, selected into the starting team at the 11th hour after Yaw Penxe had been chosen at fullback, who went over in the corner after another impressive buildup.
Beautiful hands by the Hollywoodbets Sharks 🤩🏉
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 19, 2025
Hakeem Kunene crashes over in the corner 🙌
đź“ş Stream #InvestecChampionsCup on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw pic.twitter.com/nY602oTdeG
At that point the commentators were talking about a statement performance.
But then cae an 11th minute statement scrum from Bordeaux, who destroyed the Sharks unit, and Kunene was lucky to just get yellow for a head high tackle in the buildup to Penaud’s first try.
The Sharks were down to 14 men and there was just a four minute gap between his first try and his second as Bordeaux drew level.
THIRD TRY WAS WHAT SWUNG IT
For the rest of the half the Sharks looked the part although their defence was repeatedly stretched by the Bordeaux wide game and their tempo and their combination of power and flair.