Pro D2 Notebook: Try-scoring Johnny Matthews and thoughts after Round Five
The try-scoring exploits of Johnny Matthews have continued in France
©TRU
Let’s open in Biarritz: Montauban are struggling, the maul forms, Johnny Matthews controls the ball at the back and scores.
Sounds familiar to many Glasgow and Sedgley Park fans.
The analytical question underneath the nostalgia is stronger:
Is Johnny Matthews simply benefiting from the modern hooker’s position at the back of a maul or has he possessed an unusual try-scoring instinct throughout his career?
The evidence increasingly points toward the latter hypothesis, but we can test it through the TRU archive over the coming weeks.
What's next for Johnny?
The league pauses before Round Six on 8-9 October. Montauban vs Brive immediately gives us Matthews and the British contingent against one of the three unbeaten early leaders, Narbonne host Oyonnax and Agen’s position in the bottom two makes their home game against Dax increasingly significant.
The first five rounds therefore leave us with three continuing questions rather than a collection of scores: Can anyone break the Oyonnax-Brive-Provence trio? Are Biarritz becoming the fourth genuine promotion contender? And which of Colomiers, Agen and Nevers can arrest an unexpectedly poor start before it becomes a season-long relegation problem?
TRU Pro D2 Notes
The first five-match block has sharpened several of the themes we identified last week rather than overturning them.
The biggest development is the emergence of a genuine three-team breakaway: Oyonnax Rugby, CA Brive and Provence Rugby have all reached the first break five wins from five. Oyonnax lead on 23 points, Brive and Provence have 21, with Biarritz three points further back on 18.
From our previous 'Notebook', we wondered whether Oyonnax could win without simply overwhelming sides, whether Provence could negotiate difficult games and whether Brive’s narrow victories demonstrated promotion credentials. Round Five supplied three different answers.
Oyonnax reverted to spectacular mode, beating Nevers 56-35 and scoring eight tries. They were 21-0 ahead after 11 minutes and 35-7 up at half-time. Five matches have now produced 205 points and a +90 differential, comfortably the best figures in the competition.
Brive’s 41-26 victory over Colomiers was arguably more significant than the score.
Last week we asked whether Colomiers’ 66-point explosion against Dax represented the beginning of their season. At Brive, they scored four tries but still lost by 15. Brive scored five themselves and remain unbeaten. Colomiers, last season’s regular-season runners-up, are now 13th with one victory from five.
Provence supplied the opposite evidence. They trailed Aurillac 17-10 but replacement forwards Andréa Pontanier and Eliott Yemsi helped turn it into a 24-20 victory in the final 10 minutes. Five from five doesn’t necessarily mean five dominant performances. Increasingly, it means Provence are finding different methods of winning.
The chasing group has changed
Biarritz are becoming difficult to ignore. Their 32-20 win over Montauban was their third successive victory and puts them fourth on 18 points. Soyaux-Angoulême, Grenoble and Dax are all on 14, with Montauban eighth on 13.
Soyaux-Angoulême may be the sleeper story. Agen led for much of Friday’s game before Angoulême produced a ferocious final quarter to win 36-22. They have won all three of their home matches and are in fifth place, which represents an excellent opening block.
Grenoble have also changed the narrative we were developing. After their remarkable comeback at Nissa last week, they beat Valence-Romans 20-17. Two successive wins have taken them to sixth. The concern remains consistency rather than capability.
Dax’s 45-17 bonus-point demolition of Nissa deserves recognition, too. Their points difference remains negative despite sitting seventh, which illustrates how wild their opening month has been.
The relegation picture is already uncomfortable
Our previous 'Notebook' described Nevers as perhaps the best winless side in professional rugby: four defeats by a combined nine points.
Oyonnax changed that argument.
Nevers conceded eight tries and 56 points. They remain bottom with four points, but the nature of defeat was completely different from their first four. Their consolation is that they scored five tries themselves. Their problem is that 0-5 has replaced 'unlucky' with something considerably more serious.
Immediately above them are Agen on five points and Nissa and Colomiers on six. Béziers’ 34-24 derby victory over Narbonne was therefore important. They climbed to 11th and are now on eight points rather than carrying their poor opening block into the break.
Valence-Romans are fascinating. They have lost four of five yet possess a +1 points difference and four bonus points. That’s another statistic worth monitoring. They may be considerably better than 10th place suggests.
British and Irish watch: Johnny Matthews is now much more than a sidebar
Montauban lost at Biarritz, but Johnny Matthews scored both of their tries. The first came after 24 minutes and the second from another driven maul after the break. Montauban’s lineout remained one of their strongest weapons despite the defeat.
That takes Matthews to four tries in his last two matches.
More importantly for TRU, the method is familiar. La Dépêche’s post-match analysis specifically identifies Montauban’s lineout and driving maul as their major attacking weapon and Matthews’ ability to judge when to detach and finish as an important part of it.
The wider 'Montauban-British' connection remains substantial. England scrum-half Jack Maunder is currently particularly important because injuries to Joe Powell, Maël Castel and Hugo Zabalza have left him as the club’s only available senior specialist nine. Daniel Brennan was also used from the bench at Biarritz.
But Matthews is the story because TRU possesses something most French outlets don’t: The beginning of it.
Max Ashcroft and Johnny signed for Sedgley Park Tigers together.
Max packed down at loosehead, Matthews at hooker, and the TRU archive contains photographs of them playing together.
Matthews subsequently scored tries in extraordinary numbers in National Two North (2016/17 - 28 tries in 29 games) before doing precisely the same thing at Glasgow, where he eventually accumulated 51 tries and became the club’s first player to score five in one match. He was also the URC’s leading try scorer in Glasgow’s 2023/24 title season.
.jpg "Max Ashcroft (left) in action for Sedgley Park")
