The China Mail - Toulon edge out Bath as Saints, Bears and Quins run riot

Northampton collected a bonus point as they thrashed the Bulls 50-5 to join Bordeaux-Begles at the head of Pool 4 on a perfect 10 points from two games, while Bristol are only a point back after they trounced Pau 61-12 in a nine-try romp.

Harlequins went one better by running in 10 tries as they hammered Bayonne 68-14 in Pool 3.

In Pool 2, Bath are a single point ahead of the other five teams after Castres shut out visiting Edinburgh 33-0 earlier in the day and Munster beat Gloucester on Saturday.

"It was a massive battle between two good sides. It came down to the last few minutes and they scored at the end," Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan told Premier Sports.

"There was one point in it with 20 minutes to go and it's a fantastic place to play rugby."

In a tight game of swinging momentum, Toulon and Bath seemed to be taking it in turns to score tries.

Brian Alainu'uese, Nacho Brex, Gael Drean, Lewis Ludlam, and Teddy Baubigny, with the final move of the game, touched down for the hosts.

Ted Hill, Santiago Carreras, Arthur Green and Louie Hennessey struck for the Prem champions to earn them a crucial bonus point, but Baubigny's last-gasp score denied them a second one.

Mateo Garcia kicked 20 points for Toulon while Finn Russell booted four conversions and two penalties for the visitors.

"It was a test for us, we did well," said Toulon captain Charles Ollivon.

Wing George Hendy scored a hat-trick as last year's beaten finalists Northampton notched up eight tries in a one-sided thrashing of a Bulls side, which rested several key players.

Bulls had fought valiantly to trail only 14-5 at half-time despite Saints' domination, but the second-half sin-binning of Alulutho Tshakweni allowed the floodgates to open.

Ollie Sleightholme touched down twice and Henry Pollock, Alex Coles and Josh Kemeny also scored, while Stravino Jacobs dotted down for the visiting South Africans' only points.

It was raining tries at Ashton Gate too as Bristol ripped through the Pau defence with ruthless efficiency.

Prop Ellis Genge opened the scoring in the first minute before Benjamin Grondona, Kieran Marmion, Kalaveti Ravouvou and Gabriel Oghre added more first-half scores to effectively end the contest before the interval.

After the break, Benhard Janse van Rensburg, Joe Batley, Aidan Boshoff and Santiago Grondona piled on the misery for Pau, who scored two tries themselves through Fabien Brau-Boirie.

Fly-half Tom Jordan converted eight of Bristol's nine tries.

- 'A lot of guts' -

Earlier, Quins bounced back from their defeat at Leinster last week to put them in Pool 3 contention behind the Irish province and Stormers.

Fly-half Marcus Smith sparkled in the London sunshine as his kicks put Caden Murley and Kieran Treadwell in for the first two tries to start the rout.

Props Fin Baxter and Pedro Delgado gave the hosts a bonus point by half-time.

In the second period, scrum-half Will Porter touched down twice while Treadwell scored his second try.

Smith added one try of his own, as did replacements Sam Riley and Jamie Benson, with Lucas Paulos and Tom Spring crossing the whitewash for the overmatched Basques, who are bottom of the group alongside Leicester.

Smith converted all but the last of his team's 10 tries.

"It's obviously nice to come back home after that shift last week where the lads played with a lot of guts," said Smith.

"We talked about getting back here in front of our friends and family and putting on a show."

On Saturday, Glasgow fought back from a 21-point half-time deficit to topple record six-time Champions Cup winners Toulouse 28-21 to ruin Antoine Dupont's first start for more than eight months.

X.So--ThChM