Fijian flyer Alivereti Raka scored a brace of tries in ASM Clermont Auvergne’s narrow 32-30 loss to Scarlets in the European Challenge Cup quarterfinal on Saturday.
Just three minutes into the match Clermont shed the first blood with a successful penalty from Anthony Belleau.
Three minutes later, Scarlets hit back heavily with a penalty from Leigh Halfpenny and he scored a try while another try from Sam Costelow for a 15-3 lead.
It was the hard work of Irae Simone that brought Clermont back in the match before he was sent off (red card) after match officials found him to make a dangerous foul play on Halfpenny.
A minute later, Scarlets were also reduced to 14 players after lock Vaea Fifita was sin-binned for pulling down a Clermont maul.
Clermont capitalised with Raka latching on to Belleau’s clever crosskick to score, Belleau converted to level the scores before kicking a second penalty.
Minutes before the break, full-back Alex Newsome threw a long wild pass to Johnny Williams to score for Scarlets and Costelow converted for a slender 22-18 lead at half time.
Early in the second half, Scarlets were again reduced to 14 players when scrum-half Davies was sin-binned for a trip on Clermont’s George Moala.
Raka proved the beneficiary as he barged through an attempted Nicholas tackle in the left-hand corner for his second score but the conversion failed.
Clermont got their final try from prop Giorgi Beria and he converted while Costelow kicked a penalty and Ryan Conbeer scored a converted try to seal Scarlet’s win.
