Relief for Galthie as Montpellier end losing run

The pressure eased slightly on coach Fabien Galthie as Montpellier ended a run of seven successive defeats with a thrilling 23-20 victory over Toulouse in their Top 14 clash on Saturday.
A penalty with under two minutes remaining by Teddy Iribaren sealed victory for the hosts and gave them their first win since October 11.
For Toulouse -- who had their own blip earlier in the season with five successive defeats -- it was only their second loss in the last 10 matches.
Galthie, who has until recently enjoyed immense success with Montpellier including guiding them to the 2011 French championship final, was delighted, though he admitted the performance left a lot to be desired.
"This is a huge win and an immense relief," said the 45-year-old former France captain.
"You can't put a price on this win. The injury to Francois (Trinh-Duc, their fly-half who broke his leg in the last game they won back in October) really hurt us badly. We have had a chain of events subsequently that has been complicated and traumatising."  
Benoit Paillaugue gave Montpellier a 6-0 lead early on with two penalties but the visitors reduced the deficit through former All Black Luke McAlister with a penalty in the 25th minute.
Toulouse head coach Guy Noves attempted to rectify a serious problem in his front row as they came under increasing pressure in a succession of scrums close to their try line by sending on Vasil Kakovin for Kisi Pulu, who had had a torrid time, with only 29 minutes on the clock.
However, it made not a jot of difference as Montpellier won the next scrum and Paillaugue this time decided to spread the ball with Jonathan Pelissie feeding Wynand Olivier.
The 31-year-old South African centre made no mistake stretching out his arm to touch down when he was tackled short of the line -- Paillaugue converted for 13-3.
Kakovin's introduction as a saviour for the front row wasn't a success. He was sin-binned in the 37th minute as the scrum collapsed under Montpellier pressure.
However, it was Toulouse who struck the final blow of the first-half.
- Clerc's 88th try -
A superb run by Maxime Medard from a penalty awarded in the final minute ended up with Vincent Clerc going over for the 88th try of his Top 14 career -- McAlister converted to send Toulouse in only 13-10 down.
Despite being a man down, Clerc struck again a minute into the second-half -- McAlister converted for 17-13.
However, the Toulouse scrum was still creaking and Pulu, who had had to come back on when Kakovin was sin-binned, was yellow-carded in the 50th minute and shortly afterwards Montpellier were awarded a penalty try as the referee's patience ran out.
Paillaugue converted for 20-17.
McAlister levelled with a penalty but Iribaren held his nerve to give the hosts a much needed confidence boost ahead of games with Castres and defending champions Toulon.
Toulon went back to the top of the table with a 30-6 win over Lyon later Saturday, shrugging off a host of injury absentees to overcome a poor start which had seen them trail 6-3 at the interval.
New Zealand flanker Chris Masoe grabbed two tries for the European champions with his second score coming in the last minute, which secured a bonus point. Australian winger Drew Mitchell also scored a try.
Clermont moved back into second place with a 19-10 win over Castres which left the 2013 champions rooted to the foot of the table.
Former All Blacks winger Zac Guildford scored Clermont's only try off an intercept in the second half.
The win was achieved the hard way for Clermont after they had flanker Julien Brady red-carded at the end of the first half for head-butting Yannick Caballero.
Racing Metro celebrated their signing of All Blacks star Dan Carter with a three-try 27-8 home win over La Rochelle.
Source: AFP