Metronomic Wisniewski saves Grenoble
Jonathan Wisniewski's 22 points inspired Grenoble to a 32-11 thumping of Top 14 title hopefuls Toulouse on Saturday to all but secure their elite status for another season.
Grenoble, who had lost their last four games, plunging them into the midst of a relegation battle, outscored Toulouse two tries to one and brought to an end a five-match winning streak for the visitors.
Toulouse produced an insipid performance which may have had something to do with the speculation surrounding the future of their long-serving head coach Guy Noves, who is on the three-man short list for the France job post the World Cup.
Victory lifted Grenoble onto 52 points, five points clear of second-bottom Bayonne, who ended up at the wrong end of a 38-20 thrashing by play-off hopefuls Bordeaux-Begles, with one match of the season remaining.
Bayonne are a point adrift of third from bottom Brive, who were also at the wrong end of a 32-12 thumping by 2013 champions Castres, who in the process all but ensured they stay up after a season to forget.
Both Brive and Bayonne round off their campaigns with home matches next weekend, against Stade Francais and La Rochelle respectively.
Stade Francais will prove formidable opposition as they ran out 35-21 winners over Montpellier on Saturday to ensure they sealed a place in the post-season play-offs for the first time since 2009.
Stade — who gave Pierre Rabadan the captaincy for the day and allowed him to take the applause of the crowd by coming out on his own at the beginning of the match as he is to leave the club after 17 seasons — went top thanks to the bonus point victory.
However, Toulon, also on 70 points, and Clermont, who are on 67, play each other on Sunday in a rematch of the recent European Champions Cup which the former won for a record third successive time.
Montpellier, by contrast, have slim hopes of reaching the play-offs, their gamble mid-season of replacing Fabien Galthie with South Africa's 2007 World Cup winning coach Jake White having failed to produce the desired result.
Lyon were relegated on Friday after losing to surprise packages Oyonnax, who consolidated their play-off hopes.
Grenoble didn't begin like a team that was lacking in confidence as they surged into a 10-0 lead.
"It's been a difficult two weeks for us, we have barely slept with the anxiety," admitted Grenoble captain Fabien Gengenbacher.
"But today we showed character and class and this should be enough to keep us up."
Nigel Hunt, playing despite having broken a hand a few weeks ago, capitalised on a loose Toulouse pass just outside the visitors' 22 and the 32-year-old Samoan ran it in to touch down.
Wisniewski then landed a superb conversion from the right-hand touchline to add to the penalty with which he had opened the scoring.
Wisniewski added two more penalties to give Grenoble a 16-0 lead before former England fly-half Toby Flood finally opened Toulouse's account with the final kick of the first half to send them in trailing 16-3.
Grenoble's fly-half, though, restored the 16-point advantage shortly after the restart and the hosts were given a reprieve when Maxime Medard went over for a try which was ruled out for a forward pass.
Flood slotted a penalty to make it 19-6 with just under half an hour remaining, but Wisniewski replied in kind soon afterwards.
Grenoble, though, suffered a blow in the 63rd minute when the indefatigable flanker Fabien Alexandre was yellow-carded but Toulouse failed to make much of an inroad into the deficit, save for a penalty by Flood.
Indeed it was the home crowd who were sent into raptures as 29-year-old Wisniewski converted a superb penalty with five minutes to go for a 25-11 lead.
And he was not finished as he showed his creative side in the dying minutes, a deft kick into the Toulouse try area being fumbled by Vincent Clerc into the hands of Daniel Kilioni, who gratefully touched down — Wisniewski converted to round off a deserved victory.
Top 14 results:
Grenoble 32 Toulouse 11
Bordeaux-Begles 38 Bayonne 20
Castres 32 Brive 12
La Rochelle 18 Racing-Metro 18
Stade Francais 35 Montpellier 21
Oyonnax 28 Lyon 10
Top 14 table (played, won, drawn, lost, points for, points against, bonus points, total points):
Stade Francais 25 15 1 9 591 549 8 70
Toulon 24 15 0 9 675 486 10 70
Clermont 24 14 1 9 579 428 9 67
Toulouse 25 15 0 10 550 482 6 66
Oyonnax 25 14 0 11 497 461 6 62
Bordeaux 25 12 0 13 679 555 12 60
Racing-Metro 25 12 3 10 498 487 6 60
Montpellier 25 11 2 12 520 487 7 55
La Rochelle 25 10 5 10 508 614 4 54
Castres 25 11 0 14 499 574 8 52
Grenoble 25 11 0 14 602 706 8 52
Brive 25 11 0 14 475 619 4 48
Bayonne 25 9 1 15 477 536 9 47
Lyon 25 7 1 17 440 606 7 37
Agence France-Presse
