Friday 12 September 2014 21:57, UK
Sireli Bobo piled more misery on Castres as La Rochelle cruised home 41-16 to move out of the bottom two at the expense of their visitors.
The promoted side are yet to pick up a point on the road, but on home soil they had already beaten Toulouse, and this win was even more convincing.
For Castres, it means they have now lost four of their first five games, and the tension clearly got to them in the second half as they lost their discipline, both defensively and in general.
La Rochelle took full advantage scoring four tries through Jean-Pascal Barraque, Bobo twice and Kini Murimurivalu, to secure a bonus-point success.
Castres looked some way off their best, but they were given a boost when La Rochelle lost their skipper Uini Atonio for ten minutes after he caught Didier Combezou with a high tackle.
Even that wasn't enough for the visitors though, and they quickly levelled up the numbers with a yellow card of their own, Rodrigo Capo Ortega harshly sin-binned for pushing in the lineout.
Scrum-half Jean Audy made a perfect start to the evening and made it 19-9 at the break.
La Rochelle stretched their lead thanks to Bobo with Audy's simple conversion making it 26-9.
With a 17-point lead La Rochelle were able to start dreaming of a bonus-point win, but Castres dampened the mood with an immediate response through Combezou.
Grant then gave the visitors the chance to get right back in it when he knocked the ball on in his own 22, but La Rochelle got the nudge on in the scrum, and their rush defence forced Remi Lamerat into a knock-on.
The home side added their third try after 55 minutes with Castres looking out of ideas.
Alofa Alofa and Uini Atonio made ground down the left, before the ball came back to the right, and with an overlap, Murimurivalu stepped inside to go over for the try as the Rochelais led 34-16.
The visitors were being outplayed in every sector of the game, with their scrum crumbling in the second half.
But in the end it was a fumbled pass that proved costly, as Bobo collected the ball deep inside his 22 and showed he still has plenty of gas, even at 39-years-old, to race 90 metres for the bonus-point score.
