Rain ruins the day: Racing Metro and Biarritz win dire Heineken Cup matches on Friday
Edinburgh 3-15 Racing MetroBiarritz 17-0 Connacht
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UPDATED:
01:28 GMT, 15 December 2012
Racing Metro kept alive their bid for a spot in the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup with a hard-fought 15-3 win over Edinburgh in a dire affair at rain-swept Murrayfield.
Edinburgh's solitary penalty leaves them with a dismal tally of only 12 points in matches after four Pool One games.
The Parisians earned their win by virtue of their better haul from kicks at goal, with Gaetan Germain booting four penalties and Olly Barkley one, while Edinburgh's counter came from Piers Francis.
The same two sides had served up a 95-point thriller when they met in the same competition last season, with Edinburgh posting a win that was instrumental in their progress to the semi-finals.
Edinburgh's Stuart McInally (centre) is tackled by Racing Metro's Luc Ducalcon
This encounter could scarcely have been further removed, with neither team producing any running rugby of note, and both wasting numerous scoring opportunities with the boot.
With three minutes on the clock, Edinburgh were guilty of crossing as they attempted to run the ball out of defence, and Barkley steered the resultant kick between the sticks to open the scoring.
The visitors doubled their advantage three minutes later when Germain thumped over a long-range penalty following an offence at a scrum just inside the Edinburgh half.
The hosts had barely featured in an attacking sense and their first visit of note to Racing territory yielded a long-range penalty which proved to be just beyond the range of Francis, making his first start for the Scottish outfit.
Edinburgh's Piers Francis tackles Racing Metro's Jacques Cronje on a wet night
The 22-year-old had an opportunity to make amends 10 minutes later from a far more favourable position after an offence at the breakdown, but he fluffed his effort.
The stand-off opened his account for Edinburgh at the third time of asking, clipping over a penalty from 25 metres after 27 minutes.
But he squandered an opportunity to square matters after 32 minutes when he was wide with another straightforward effort after a bustling run by Ross Ford had earned another penalty.
Barkley was evidently afflicted by the same malaise, missing a chance to extend his side's lead just before half-time.
Edinburgh's Netani Talei is tackled by Racing Metro's Karim Ghezal at a rainy Murrayfield
Germain, too, was off target shortly after the restart when his attempt on goal rattled the woodwork. Francis responded with his fourth miss of the night.
The clock ticked past the 50-minute mark without there having been any threat to either try line.
Inevitably the next change to the scoreboard came with the boot. A late tackle by Edinburgh number eight Netani Talei on Barkley earned the Fiji international a yellow card and Germain banged over the ensuing penalty from halfway to stretch the lead to six points.
The scrappy nature of the contest continued. Edinburgh had another chance to claw back three points after Eddy Ben Arous offended, with the Racing prop earning 10 minutes in the sin bin for his troubles. Greig Tonks assumed the kicking responsibilities from the misfiring Francis, but the full-back fared no better.
In response, Germain fired over his third three-pointer of the night, and having found his range he landed another effort with 12 minutes left to play, leaving the Scots 12 points adrift and out of the game.
It was even wetter in France, though, where Biarritz beat Connacht 17-0
In Friday's other match, Connacht were unable to repeat their heroics of a week ago as Biarritz won 17-0 in horrendously wet conditions at the Parc des Sports Aguilera.
Man of the match Dimitri Yachvili kicked an early penalty and converted Iain Balshaw's 31st-minute try to give Biarritz the upper hand and a 10-0 interval lead in the Heineken Cup clash.
There then followed a stop-start second half during which Tiernan O'Halloran and Eoin McKeon caught the eye for the hard-working visitors.
Biarritz were meandering to victory and put the finishing touches to a good night when Damien Traille latched onto his own kick, taking advantage of a fortuitous bounce to put replacement centre Seremaia Burotu over in the final minute.
Yachvili converted superbly with the last kick of the match, the result of which sees Biarritz leapfrog over Connacht into second place with Harlequins looking like runaway winners of Pool Three.
The saturated pitch contained pools of water in certain areas but the ground staff cleared enough of it for the fixture to go ahead as scheduled.
Biarritz's French number eight Imanol Harinordoquy vies with Connacht's forwards
Connacht were expecting a backlash from the French giants, who sacked coaches Jack Isaac and Serge Milhas in the aftermath of their shock 22-14 defeat in Galway.
Laurent Rodriguez and Mathieu Rourre were installed as an interim coaching tandem and they would have been pleased with Biarritz's start.
Their forwards rumbled into the Connacht 22, winning two early penalties, with Yachvili sticking a third-minute kick through the uprights.
As heavy rain continued, Connacht dug their heels in and defended manfully with young full-back Robbie Henshaw secure under the high ball and the mud-covered pack competing in stout fashion.
Biarritz had the first sight of the try line in the 12th minute, Takudzwa Ngwenya sliding towards the right corner after set-piece ball was swung wide. However, the United States international failed to get the ball down with the Connacht cover doing just enough.
It was a tough night for ball handling due to the wet and slippery conditions
Dan Parks, so influential with a 17-point haul seven days ago, went the aerial route in a bid to give the visitors some momentum. Biarritz were territorially dominant though and exerted more control via clever kicking from Traille, Balshaw and Yachvili.
They made a breakthrough on the half-hour mark as they went left from a midfield scrum, with Traille's half break making the initial incision and Jean-Pascal Barraque passing precisely for the supporting Balshaw to splash over in the corner.
Yachvili supplied an excellent conversion from wide out.
Late on in the first half, Eoin McKeon took out the France scrum-half off the ball, but Yachvili slid his resulting penalty effort to the left and wide.
Biarritz's second row Erik Lund (centre) takes on Connacht's fly-half Dan Parks (right)
A sin-binning for Biarritz hooker Benoit August, who got involved in some afters with Johnny O'Connor, presented Connacht with an opportunity to launch themselves forward.
However, Parks sent a subsequent penalty from a difficult position wide and some handling errors robbed Connacht of precious momentum in an evenly-fought third quarter.
An injury to Connacht centre Danie Poolman, who got an accidental knee to the head at a ruck, broke up play for a number of minutes as he was taken off on a stretcher.
Aled Brew ruined a good scoring chance for the home side with a sloppy pass, but they remained on the front foot despite losing replacement Thibault Dubarry to the sin bin.
Biarritz pressed from a Fabien Barcella surge into the westerners' 22 and a five-metre scrum. Connacht held out until Traille opened the way for Burotu to power past Paul O'Donohoe's last-ditch tackle in the left corner.
