Du Toit stars as Bath keep hopes alive with Champions Cup win over Clermont
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Bath are not yet certain of qualification for the knockout stages of this year’s Champions Cup but this six-try bonus point victory has given their chances a much-needed boost. While plenty still hinges on the outcome of Saturday’s trip to face Leinster, they are still alive in a pool where every point is having to be earned the hard way.
![[Bath’s Thomas du Toit looks to power through a couple of Clermont tacklers]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/98e8dc2d9e050d607fcf9ff8dd468b108f80f14a/0_0_3023_2076/master/3023.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The Premiership pace-setters may still have to rely on Benetton being well beaten at home to La Rochelle but a losing bonus point in Dublin could now narrowly sneak them through. If they do make it through they will be suitably grateful, not for the first time, to their South African prop Thomas du Toit whose brace of tries added further gloss to a typically strong set-piece performance.
If it did no harm that Clermont were forced to play for almost three-quarters of the game with 14 men following a red card to their Georgian prop Giorgi Akhaladze for a high swinging arm on Max Ojomoh, Bath’s head coach Johann van Graan felt Du Toit and his fellow tight forwards had fully deserved their reward.
How England’s watching head coach Steve Borthwick must wish he could whistle up Du Toit for the looming Six Nations but a couple of other Bath candidates quietly made a case for squad inclusion on a cool, still evening in north east Somerset. Centre Ojomoh and the flanker Ted Hill may not have propelled themselves straight into the starting XV to face Ireland on 1 February but, equally, they offered a further reminder that English rugby has no shortage of talent.
