Biarritz bag record points haul

Biarritz produced an efficient display to beat Northampton 17-8 at Franklins Gardens.

Biarritz produced an efficient display to beat Northampton 17-8 at Franklin's Gardens and ensure that The Saints would have to travel to San Sebastian to face the French side in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

The hosts dominated the first half but could not find a way to the French try line as Biarritz stood strong, if unadventurous, but they did produce the goods in a powerful second half spell to win the match and bag a record points total in the Heineken Cup group stages.

Last year's beaten Heineken Cup finalists have hardly been out of second gear during the group stages this season, and they again used up a minimum of effort to brush aside Northampton's challenge.

The French outfit somehow got to half time at 3-3 despite having two men in the sin-bin, but they produced a powerful second half burst to wrap up the game as a contest and ensure that they achieved their goal of finishing as top seeds and earning a home quarter-final tie with The Saints.

Northampton started well and Biarritz offered nothing going forward in a tetchy opening half an hour, which ended with Carlos Spencer kicking the hosts into a deserved 3-0 lead.

Sereli Bobo was a touch unfortunate to be yellow carded after 34 minutes, as the sin-binning was probably more due to a cumulative effect of persistent Biarritz offending.

Biarritz were then reduced to 13 men when second-row forward David Couzinet followed Bobo into the sin-bin for his dangerous stamping offence which could have resulted in a red card on another day.

The French side were now missing a back and a forward but stood firm in defence, despite continuing to offer precisely nothing in an attacking presence and seemingly happy to concede a narrow defeat to ensure home advantage in the last eight.

Saints could not find a way through and Biarritz somehow managed to haul themselves level in stoppage time at the end of the half courtesy of a fine Dimitri Yachvili drop-goal from just inside the 22.

Biarritz emerged for the second half with just a man down as Bobo came back on, and their 14 men nearly went ahead when Yachvili hit the post with a simple penalty three minutes after the break.

The visitors looked a changed side in the second half and as they finally looked to attack, they crossed the line with the breakthrough try to take the lead.

Italian centre Andrea Masi stepped through the Northampton line before going over, and Yachvili converted his try for a 10-3 Biarritz lead.

Spencer then missed a relatively simple penalty chance as things continued to fall apart for Saints, and that miss was punished further when Biarritz bagged their second try of the match.

Masi again did well when gathering Yachvili's pass following a line-out, as he took two men out when offloading in the tackle to Bobo, and the devastating Fijian made no mistake as he galloped over, with the conversion making it 17-3.

Saints did manage to grab a late try when hefty substitute Soane Tonga'uiha drove over from close range to make it 17-8 and give the Northampton fans some hope heading into the quarters.

Biarritz will obviously fancy their chances on home turf when the two sides meet in the last eight, but there were enough feisty exchanges during the match to ensure another hard-fought contest in San Sebastian.