Rugby: Lausanne overcome Swiss champions

If anyone in Swiss rugby doubted that Stade Lausanne were made of championship material, they surely got the message in deafening fashion on Saturday after the table leaders recorded a crunching win away from home over Swiss champs, Geneva PLO.

Lausanne were inspired in attack, sound in defence and for Lausanne coach, Andy Whitlow "it was closer than the scoreline suggests but we worked them out pretty early on, they couldn’t really change their game plan and our fitness told in the last 20 minutes.”

“This was our big test of the season so far. And no one can remember when Geneva last had a bonus point defeat at home,” Whitlow added. Teams are awarded an extra point if they score four tries or more.

Lausanne fly-half Adrian Stadelmann grabbed two tries. Cyril Cafiero and winger Florent Richard were also on the score sheet.

Although the champions threatened, they failed to pass their opponents’ line but PLO coach, Olivier Achaintre isn’t losing any sleep yet. “We’re not worried. We actually played one of our best matches of the season to date. If there’s any area of concern it’s perhaps our kicking game,” Achaintre added.

He called the clash “difficult, but we enjoyed some long periods of domination. There were some hard decisions over two try possibilities, and we also had three or four clear scoring chances, but they defended well,” he finally conceded.

In a close reflection of PLO’s performance this time last year, Lausanne remain unbeaten after five matches and stand 10 points clear of Hermance in second place, though the latter have a game in hand.

Saturday’s other match saw Yverdon outlast CERN in a war of attrition in canton Vaud. With one try apiece, the game ended 11-10.

On Sunday, Hermance went to face a Zurich team that, aside from a predictable win against BERN, has had precious little to smile about so far this season.

Injured skipper, Josh Bjornson, watching from the sidelines told Swisster: “It was a hard-fought game with a couple of difficult calls by the ref. Late on, one of their guys tripped one of ours and the ref gave a penalty when it should have been a yellow or red card.”

The match hinged on a turnover. With Zurich looking to score, a torpedoed pass struck Yann Staubli to ricochet behind the attacking line: Hermance seized on the fumble for a try.

“We’re obviously having trouble getting things together as a team. We manage a couple of good phases and then it’s a penalty, a knock on or whatever,” said Bjornson.

“We are a strong team but we’re not proving it. We have to get rid of that pride and make the results happen but at the moment we don’t know what’s going wrong,” he said.

Hermance fly-half Iain Wise provided Swisster with this match summary: “We had more chances than them, which we should have put away. We lacked a bit of killer instinct. Bit of niggle going on up front and a keenly contested game,” he said.

With Hermance, Geneva and Yverdon all perched on 13 points in an upper-mid-table battle, the rest of the season looks poised for some intense encounters.

Meantime, Nyon, desperate to get their 2009/10 campaign out of the starting blocks, managed to overcome a spirited Bern side at the Colovray stadium on Sunday. A final result of 24-11 witnessed a try count of four-to-one for the home team and a welcome shift from the bottom of the table to sixth place in front of Zurich and Bern.

Swiss Rugby Union