Champions Cup round-up: Dan Carter turns back the years, Johnny Sexton needs protection and Sarries bow out

Vintage Carter guides Racing through

It’s safe to say that since his Webb Ellis Cup winning performances at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, legendary All Blacks fly-half Dan Carter has not been at his best.

But on Sunday at the Stade Marcel-Michelin, 36-year-old Carter turned back the years with a stunning display to propel Racing Metro in to the semi-finals of the Champions Cup with a 28-17 victory over reigning Top 14 champions, Clermont.

The visitors from Paris were trailing 7-16 when Carter, who moved to Paris after the 2015 RWC, came on in the 59th minute and changed the match.

Within five minutes he had set up a try for wing Marc Andreu, to give the 2016 finalists the lead.

The former Crusaders playmaker’s ability to find space and keep the ball alive then created the momentum for replacement second-row Boris Palu’s try that in 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.

Carter’s career at Racing is winding down. His place in the starting line up has already been usurped by former Springbok No10/15 Pat Lambie and he departs to Japan in the summer.

He looked like fizzling out but now he is fizzing again.

“We have a huge urge to win the Champions Cup,” Carter said afterwards.

“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 (who they meet in a semi-final in Bordeaux in three weeks’ time) are a class side and we will have to pull out something special.”

Cullen says hands off Johnny

An angry Leinster boss Leo Cullen called for more protection for star No10 Jonathan Sexton after the Dublin based team advanced to the semi-finals of the Champions Cup with a hard fought 30-19 victory over Saracens in front of a bumper crowd of 51,700 at the Aviva Stadium.

The Ireland fly-half has been used to borderline hits at international level.

But Sarries tested the patience of referee Jerome Garces in a game that was close to test match intensity.

There were a number of incidents in the first half where the Leinster coach and Sexton both felt his gained some unnecessarily late attention.

The British and Irish Lions star was on the receiving end of some thumping hits from Maro Itoje, George Kruis and Schalk Burger.

But the most obvious came from scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth’s high hit, which was seen by Garces and resulted in three points from Sexton in the 27th minute.

“It was tough on Johnny because he had been played off ball a few times in the first half.

“It’s hard for him not to get frustrated,” said Cullen.

“There were three or four incidents when he got hit, played late off the ball.

“I think it is important to take those things in the context of the game.”

Red the winner as Scarlets and Munster both go through

England’s interest in the Champions Cup may have come to an end with Saracens’ exit but France and Wales hopes stayed alive.

Scarlets reached the Champions Cup semi-finals for the first time since 2007 with a fiercely-contested 29-17 triumph over La Rochelle in front of a capacity crowd at the Parc y Scarlets on Good Friday.

Rhys Patchell and Scott Williams claimed second-half tries for the Scarlets in Llanelli, while the ever-reliable Leigh Halfpenny contributed 19 points from the kicking tee as the hosts made La Rochelle pay for their indiscipline.

In a frantic first half La Rochelle struggled to stay on the right side of the law at the breakdown, allowing the metronomic boot of Halfpenny to chip away at the scoreboard as the Wales full-back kicked all four of his penalty kicks.

Despite their indifference in defence, Top 14 heavyweights La Rochelle kept the game in the balance with captain Romain Sazy seizing an opportunistic try in the right corner, before Alexi Bales’ three-pointer on the cusp of half-time trimmed the deficit to just two points.

But Patchell and Williams five-pointers closed it out in the second half despite replacement Pierre Boudehent try.

The match of the round came in Limerick where Munster edged out French glamour club, the all-starred Toulon.

Afterwards head coach Johann van Graan paid tribute to his “group of warriors” following the epic 20-19 Champions Cup quarter-final win.

South African van Graan, in his first season in charge of the Irish province, is now planning for a European semi-final trip to France after Andrew Conway’s sensational 74th-minute solo try helped the two-time champions edge past Toulon in front of a sold-out crowd.

Appearing in a record 17th Champions Cup quarter-final, Munster had trailed by six points when Chris Ashton crossed for a 64th-minute try for the French heavyweights, who lifted the title in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

However, Conway’s try and Ian Keatley’s all-important conversion wrenched victory away from the visitors’ grasp.

Van Graan said: “It was an incredible game of Rugby. I thought two great sides, two great clubs that went at each other for 82, 83 or 84 minutes. There were a lot of ebbs and swings in that game.

“I thought they started really well. I thought we fought our way back into it.

“Leading 10-6, we got some momentum straight after half-time, put points on the board. We scored a try, they scored a try. We were six points down. We plan for situations like this. It is easy to plan it, it is very difficult to execute it.

“We scored a fantastic try (through Andrew), converted it to kill the game there for the last few minutes. I think gratitude is the main word. It is a fantastic honour to coach a group of warriors.

“If it gets better than this it is going to be something amazing because like I said before, all the odds were stacked against us, I don’t think a lot of people gave us a chance, but if you have 23 guys who believe, a coaching and management staff that believe, a squad of players who believe and a club that really believes, you can do the unthinkable and you can make dreams come true.”