At home, Clermont lost heavily 44 to 29 against Leicester and made the task of qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions Cup very difficult.
However, ASM saves an offensive bonus point.
And that the first minutes were complicated for the Clermontois.
Worse still, it was the whole of the first period that was difficult.
This quickly translated into the score, with Scott's try thanks to his very good reading of the game, helped by Belleau's hazardous pass 40 meters from the poles (4th, 0-5).
Pollard is then precise with the transformation, then on a penalty at 35 meters (21st, 10-0).
Three minutes later, the Clermontois reacted.
The reaction is what qualifies the match for the locals.
In the 24th minute, Delguy tackled the ball in the opposing goal after good work by Simone near the touchline (24th, 5-10).
But the English were really impregnable in these first 40 minutes.
Harry Simmons eliminates Raka with supersonic support before flattening (31st, 7-17).
As if that were not enough, Fritz Lee received a yellow card a minute later for an uncontrolled gesture (32nd).
The double sanction is then inevitable.
After a new collective action from the English, Dan Kelly resists the tackle from Raka to increase the score, in particular with the transformation of Pollard (35th, 7-24).
But as said before, the Clermontois worked in reaction mode.
And only a minute later, after a breakthrough of almost 60 meters from Raka, Simone once again did a good job close to her line before serving Fourcade for the try (36th, 12-24).
The very undisciplined Clermontois caused a tenth fault, securing three new points for Pollard (40 + 4th, 14-27).
A badly exploited highlight
Back from the locker room, the dynamic was different.
It was the Clermontois, through Belleau, who took advantage of a mess to score a quick try (42nd, 19-27).
This time, it was Leicester who worked on reaction, with Scott's immediate try for the double taking advantage of a defense error, synonymous with an offensive bonus (45th, 19-32).
Then, at a very high pace, Jedrasiak also goes there with his try after a marvelous fake pass to deceive his vis-à-vis (49th, 24-34).
Since the hour mark, the domination was clearly in favor of the Clermontois.
Much more disciplined defensively, they were also offensively, with several opportunities and good sequences of possessions.
Unfortunately, despite Belleau's last penalty (72nd, 29-34), the locals couldn't tell the difference.
After a quarter of an hour of strong time, the Yellow and Blue are punished by the penalty of Gopperth (76th, 29-37) then by the test of Cronin at the end of the meeting, transformed by Gopperth (80th, 29-44 ).
The Clermontois will have to try to achieve a feat next week (January 21), by winning on the lawn of the Stormers, if they want to hope to qualify for the rest of the Champions Cup.