Montpellier down Dragons amidst storm

MATCH REPORT: The Dragons slipped to defeat in their Challenge Cup opener against Montpellier in merciless conditions in Newport on Friday.

The European game went ahead despite Storm Darragh with an official crowd of 4,012 braving the extreme elements at Rodney Parade.

After an entertaining first half in south Wales against Dragons, it was the French side who headed into the dressing rooms at half-time the happier.

Madosh Tambwe opened the scoring for the visitors in the 12th minute before teammate Marco Tauleigne added to their tally.

The home side were not down and out though, and Taine Basham quickly responded with a try to mark his 100th appearance in the best way possible. This was shortly followed by Angus O’Brien who forced Dragons’ second try of the encounter over the line to head into the break with the score poised at 14-18.

Dragons Interim Head Coach Filo Tiatia praised the manner with which his side battled back against Montpellier in Europe – but admitted they were left to rue missed opportunities at a stormy Rodney Parade.

Taine Basham and Angus O’Brien grabbed first-half tries as the Men of Gwent rallied from 18-0 down to trail by just four at the break.

A tight but ultimately scoreless second period saw the Dragons fail to capitalise on opportunities as they were forced to settle for a solitary point in the Pool 2 opener on home soil.

“The mood is quite sombre and the realisation of opportunities missed again,” said Tiatia.

“We weren’t clinical enough and there were some moments where we did not play as a team. We just have to learn faster.

“The character of the team and the DNA of this place is Gwent and blue collar. They try and work hard for each other and we managed to get back into the game.

“We’ve just got to review it and be honest with each other, focus on some of the things that we need to be better at.

“You see moments that were much better than last week, some of the young guys learnt some valuable lessons and they will be better for it.

“We want to expose some of our youth,” he added.

“Some of them are not quite ready yet, but at some point, they have got to be exposed, otherwise they won’t get a chance.

“All the Welsh teams have got small squads and we’ve got to try and rotate players around so we can be better. They always want to be better.”

Dragons now face a trip to the northeast of England to tackle Newcastle Falcons in Round 2 on Sunday (November 15).

The scorers:

For Dragons:
Tries: Basham, O’Brien
Cons: O’Brien 2

For Montpellier:
Tries: Tambwe, Tauleigne
Cons: Barreau
Pens: Barreau 2

Teams:

Dragons: 15 Angus O’Brien (captain), 14 Rio Dyer, 13 Harry Wilson, 12 Aneurin Owen, 11 Ewan Rosser; 10 Will Reed, 9 Morgan Lloyd; 8 Aaron Wainwright, 7 Taine Basham, 6 Ryan Woodman, 5 Matthew Screech, 4 Joe Davies, 3 Dmitri Arhip, 2 James Benjamin, 1 Josh Reynolds
Replacements: 16 Sam Scarfe, 17 Aki Seiuli, 18 Chris Coleman, 19 George Nott, 20 Barny Langton-Cryer, 21 Dane Blacker, 22 Cai Evans, 23 Jared Rosser

Montpellier: 15 Julien Tisseron, 14 George Bridge, 13 Thomas Darmon, 12 Arthur Vincent (captain), 11 Madosh Tambwe; 10 Aurelien Barreau, 9 Alexis Bernadet; 8 Marco Tauleigne, 7 Youssouf Soucouna, 6 Nicolas Martins, 5 Tyler DuGuid, 4 Florian Verhaeghe, 3 Mohamed Haouas, 2 Lyam Akrab, 1 Enzo Forletta
Replacements: 16 Vano Karkadze, 17 Luca Tabarot, 18 Wilfrid Hounkpatin, 19 Jules Veyrier, 20 Alex Becognee, 21 Ryan Louwrens, 22 Thomas Vincent, 23 Christa Powell.

Referee: Morne Ferreira (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Aimee Barrett-Theron & Christopher Allison (South Africa)
TMO: Marius Jonker (South Africa)