Paris (AFP) – Lyon ended a four-match French Top 14 losing streak with a 19-16 win over Bordeaux on Friday in what was the last match at their Matmut Stadium home.
The result allowed Lyon, who will move to the Stade Gerland, the former home of the city’s football club in January, to go 10 points clear of Grenoble who occupy the first of the two relegation spots and 12 clear of rock-bottom Bayonne.
A drab first half saw the teams locked at 3-3 at the interval after Frederic Michalak, making just his fifth start of the season at scrum-half, had cancelled out Simon Hickey’s early penalty for Bordeaux.
Hickey and Michalak exchanged penalties again early in the second period before Lyon opened a 13-6 lead after 50 minutes with the first try of the game.
Bordeaux’s Australian winger Adam Ashley-Cooper was deceived by the bounce from Lyon fly-half Mike Harris’s kick-ahead which allowed winger Toby Arnold to score. Michalak kicked the extras.
Bordeaux’s Irish replacement fly-half Ian Madigan cut the deficit to 13-9 with a penalty before Michalak and Jacques-Louis Potgieter, with a monster 40m kick, put Lyon back in charge at 19-9.
Replacement scrum-half Yann Lesgourgues scored Bordeaux’s lone try in the last minute with Madigan converting for 19-16.
It came too late to save play-off hopefuls Bordeaux but it did give them a losing bonus point as they remained in sixth spot in the table.
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