Saturday 19th May 2007
Preeti VIrdee from Twickenham Stoop

22 - 16

Having been subjected to the vapid round ball cup final thing over lunch in the media room, finally at 5 o'clock the contenders came out onto the sun-drenched turf of the Twickenham Stoop to warm up. At this point I was still debating on where my favour may lie for this potentially interesting tournament finalé. It took all of a blink or two of the eye to make that decision - the French side were so jaw-droppingly stunning tanned Adonises that unfortunately for Bath, the pale and weather-beaten English boys were not even going to get a look in.

At 5.34pm, the 10,000 and some-odd crowd was ready with bated breath as the match kicked off. The stadium was awash with blue wherever you looked; the loyal supporters of Bath had arrived en mass...alongside 300 Clermont supporters. And under the watchful eye of the Welsh referee, it took approximately one minute for Kiwi Tony Marsh [right], former Clermont captain and French International to be substituted by Fijian International, Seremaia Baikeinuku as a head blood injury poured rivulets of scarlet down his face. Meanwhile the French World Cup team hopeful, young stud Anthony Floch engineered a situation for the simply gorgeous captain and French wing, Aurélien Rougerie to charge into the Bath 10m area and offload to Baikeinuku who almost made it to the tryline but was hauled back for the forward pass. Somehow the Bath defence managed to drive Rougerie towards the tryline and a penalty gave the French team an opportunity for notching up the first points on the board. But Aussie Brock James missed the posts by a furlong.

Bath then had the same opportunity in Clermont territory as Sydney-born Shaun Berne kicked to touch, but the ball fell behind the tryline. Twelve minutes into the game, with the vast majority of the game played in Bath territory, they were awarded a penalty allowing the enchanting Olly Barkley [left] to put Bath ahead 3 - 0. No sooner had they taken the lead, Bath gifted Clermont another penalty, but as English luck would have it, James missed a second time; what could have been a 6 - 3 lead to Clermont was in fact 0 - 3. Halfway through the first half, and finally a third penalty kick went Clermont's way and they equalised the score, 3- 3.

Clermont saw every slight gap in the Bath defence as a try scoring excuse, and they consistently attacked with ferocity; minor handling errors on their part did not permit them to capitalise on the openings they created. And just as momentum gathered, proceedings halted again for Marsh to be checked out in this, his last game for the French side. Clermont continued to dominate the game, but dropped back to 14 men as Kiwi Sam Broomhall was sent to rest for ten minutes in the sin bin. And Bath were having no such goal kicking deficiencies as Olly booted yet another penalty through the posts with less than two minutes to go to half time: Clermont 3 - 6 Bath. The boys in blue slowed the game down to prevent Clermont from scoring from a scrum 5m out before the Ref called half time.

A minute into the second half and this time it was Bath's turn to sub a blood replacement, as pretty blonde Welshboy Tom Cheeseman [right] was brought on for Samoan International Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu. The Ref let play continue around and across injured Thibaut Privat, and finally Julien Malzieu repeated try scoring threats worked out as he crossed after five minutes of play. James' kicking returned to form and converted the try as Sam Broomhall returned from the sin bin, Loic Jacquet replaced Privat, and Aussie Chris Malone discovered what it will be like for him next season when he transfers to Quins as he replaced David Bory. Clermont 10 - 6 Bath.

Bath did come out at the beginning of this half invigorated and fired up, and made headway into the Clermont 10m, but the lattter had other ideas and forced them all the way back to the halfway line. The Argentinian veteran, Gonzalo Longo was chomping at the bit to get onto the pitch from the subs bench as Clermont had a man over on the far side on the favourable side of the Bath 10m line, but as handbags were drawn, the French team were lucky to get just a slapped wrist as Olly found touch just inside the halfway mark. But the Bath backlash was short-lived as captain Steve Borthwick was penalised for holding onto the ball, giving Tony Marsh to end his career in France with a magnificent try after fourteen minutes. With James missing another goal kick, the score rose to 15 - 6. Ref did not notice Canadian lock Jamie Cudmore attempting to flatten Rugby World Cup winner Danny Grewcock by rolling across him for no apparent reason as play continued across the other side of the pitch. Almost halfway through the last forty minutes of the game and Clermont drove Bath out of their territory yet again and regained possession, as Rougerie then Malzieu charged along the length of the touchline to the Bath 10m line; the ball was deftly manoeuvred as James chipped ahead and scored himself under the posts. As he converted his own try to seriously widen the gap to 22 - 6,, Bath looked dangerously close to being blown out of the park; moments later Clermont stole the ball from a Bath lineout. I lost concentration momentarily as Bath replacement, Andy Williams danced around in front of me, and in the meantime the English side made wholesale replacements to try and stem the flow of points in the wrong direction.

The fresh blood appeared to have the desired effect as Bath's attacking improved tremendously, and New Zealand Maori Joe Maddock [left] dodged around every Clermont defensive player to score directly under the posts. Olly converted beautifully to tighten the divide: 22 - 13. The Bath crowded erupted to deafening levels, which I'm not sure I'll ever get used to having been one of the shoutees for most of my life. As Bath continued to make headway, a lineout 5m from the Clermont tryline drove the supporters into a frenzy as lock Peter Short crossed the line, but the video Ref deemed the action as a no try due to lack of downward pressure.

With less than ten minutes to go, Clermont worked their way deeper into Bath territory but a Bath clearance kick moved played right back in the opposite direction; the Clermont lineout continued to worked perfectly, but Bath managed a neat turnover ball and despite Clermont's magnificent tackling, eventually the pressure forced a penalty to Bath which allowed Olly to take the score to within a converted try. There were still four minutes to go and the score was sitting comfortably at 22 - 16 for our friends from across the Channel.

From here on in the match became edge-of-seat magic, as possession swung one way then the other, and Clermont seemed to lose a little focus; complacency was not an option here. Bath managed to make what became the final play almost work for them - a huge drive for the tryline from a lineout seems to disintegrate after what seemed like an eternity, but just as Bath found space and a spare man in just the right place, a forward pass crushed all hopes of victory as Joe Maddock looked on in disbelief.

The exceedingly handsome try scorer, Julien Malzieu [right] was awarded European Challenge Cup Man Of The Match as the 300 strong French fans made more noise in joy than one would think possible! But it was not just the French that were celebrating their win and qualification into next year's Heineken Cup; thanks to Bath losing, next in line for a place in the senior competition were NEC Harlequins [or Harlequins as they will be known next season] so all the staff at the Stoop were in celebratory mode too.

At the subsequent press conference, Bath Rugby was represented by captain Steve Borthwick and England prop Matt Stevens; there were many words of wisdom in hindsight, plenty of "it was a huge opportunity missed...perhaps we could have handled the last three weeks differently...last couple of weeks were very good...the Bath squad is worth more than the final premiership position"; I think the scoreline spoke for itself. And interestingly, since neither Bath nor London Wasps were involved in the Guinness Premiership play-offs and final, the London team asked Bath for a match in the meantime since they both needed the practice; inexplicably, Bath declined, and coach Steve Meehan claimed "we manufactured something better" - evidently not quite good enough though.

Obviously Clermont held a post-match press conference too with supremely gorgeous captain Aurélien Rougerie in the driving seat alongside their Kiwi coach, Vern Cotter, but unfortunately for me I don't speak much French so I had to just ogle hopelessly for a while and listen to the sexiest accent on the planet. I'm afraid I can't play that back for you, but I can provide you with gratuitous photos of the man himself...

And now that ASM Clermont Auvergne have been crowned European Champions, one would think they deserved a well earned rest, but alas the French domestic is not yet over, so they continue on to the semi-finals as they sit third in the league table, and hope to make it a double celebration at the end of the French season. Bonne chance Clermont!

To view the RFTG European Challenge Cup Gallery, click here

Photography: Jill Tipping