Racing is not a word associated with Dan Carter’s running style, which is more a languid glide as he assesses his options with defenders wrong-footed, but his cameo from the bench at Clermont Auvergne on Sunday took Racing 92 into a semi-final with Munster in Bordeaux.
Racing were trailing 17-16 when the fly-half, who moved to Paris after winning the 2015 World Cup with New Zealand, came on to transform the match. Within five minutes his break set up a try for the wing Marc Andreu, although Clermont’s protest that the pass was forward was not shared by the TMO, to give the 2016 finalists the lead.
Carter’s ability to step into space and keep the ball alive then created the momentum for the replacement second-row Boris Palu’s try that in effect finished off the French champions, who are highly likely to be in the Challenge Cup next season as they lie ninth in the Pro14, 16 points off the play-off positions with four matches to go.
On a weekend when the intensity and quality of the four matches was virtually international standard it was fitting that one of the leading players of his generation played a leading part. Carter turned 36 last month and his career at Racing before he moves to Japan in the summer looked like fizzling out. Now it is fizzing again.
“We have a huge urge to win the Champions Cup,” Carter said. “It was my priority when I moved to France and this is my last opportunity. We made the final in 2016 and want to go one better but we cannot get ahead of ourselves because Munster are a class side and we will have to pull out something special.”
Munster reached the last four by beating French opposition at Thomond Park, the three-times champions Toulon. More than 74 minutes had gone when François Trinh-Duc’s long clearance kick with his side six points ahead failed to find touch and the ball was kept in play, just, by the wing Andrew Conway who caught the ball high above his head just inside his own half with his left foot millimetres from the touchline.
Conway, who had to pass a fitness test to take his place in the side, had only one thing on his mind when he set off for the line in a run similar to that of the France wing Teddy Thomas in the opening round of this year’s Six Nations against Ireland in Paris.
The Toulon wing Josua Tuisova took himself out of the game by anticipating Conway would pass and the wing set off, having the space to develop a gallop that took him past two defenders and into the 22 where he stepped inside to win the match and guide Munster into the last four for the second successive season.
Racing and Munster were in the same group, both winning at home, and it will be another reunion with his former team-mates for the French club’s second-row Donnacha Ryan. Munster were well beaten in last season’s semi-final by Saracens in Dublin but there is no more obdurate side in Europe, personified by their captain, Peter O’Mahony, who again led by example to edge his side to victory against powerful opponents who thought they had done enough.
With the Scarlets defeating La Rochelle on Friday, after a team without a player who had previously started a European Cup quarter-final overcame first‑night nerves, and Leinster beating the holders, Saracens, in the last of the four matches on Sunday, the Guinness Pro14 provides three of the semi‑finalists. At least one will make the final in Bilbao, with Leinster welcoming the Scarlets to Dublin, a repeat of the Pro12 semi-final last season. The Aviva Premiership, which has provided the winner for the past two seasons, is not represented.
Saracens, like Clermont whom they defeated in the final last season, have dipped after being handicapped by injuries and gave everything in Dublin. It was hard to call the winner after the first half.
The Pro14 used to be seen as a league that contained more froth than substance but the Scarlets, Munster and Leinster all showed that, while they have the eye for a chance, they are prepared to mix it and will not be bullied. The English club game needs wider horizons, starting with how the breakdown is controlled to encourage counter-attacking.
