Peter Bills salutes Clermont Auvergne following their Top 14 victory, but again calls attention to the state of the scrum in The Independent.
"Exorcising a demon is always a pleasurable activity and few come bigger than French club Clermont Auvergne's achievement at the weekend of becoming French champions for the first time in their 99-year history.
"To do it, Clermont had to banish the memory of 10 finals, every one of them lost dating back to 1936. This was their fourth consecutive final and they had lost in 2007, 2008 and 2009. So credit Clermont and their New Zealand coaching duo of Vern Cotter and Joe Schmidt, as the latter now heads for Leinster to replace Michael Cheika as head coach.
"In truth, Clermont's victory, by 19pts to 6 in the final over Perpignan, was no classic. But it contained, as too many matches do nowadays, an absolute absurdity that the International Rugby Board surely needs to address to restore proper values of fair play."
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