Ireland’s John Cooney turned out to be Ulster’s standout man once again in their Champions Cup victory over Harlequins on Friday night.
If anyone deserves a Guinness Six Nations call-up based on their European performances so far this season, it’s Cooney.
The Ulster scrum-half, who missed out on a place in Joe Schmidt’s Ireland World Cup squad in September, continued his upturn in form with another remarkable performance in Ulster’s 34-10 win against Harlequins at the Twickenham Stoop.
After kicking a match-winning penalty against the Londoners last weekend, he came back to haunt them on home turf, first by kicking the Irish province into an early lead before dotting down twice to wrap up the victory as Ulster made it four wins from four.
Few players have channelled previous disappointment better than Cooney who will be hoping his European heroics will be enough to earn him a spot in Andy Farrell’s pre-Christmas training camp ahead of the 2020 Championship.
For Quins it was a largely disappointing outing, although England prop Kyle Sinckler was given the honour of captaining the side in his first home appearance since going off in the opening exchanges of the World Cup final.
Chavancy makes his mark
Meanwhile in Paris, France’s Henry Chavancy celebrated his 300th cap in style as Racing 92 stormed to a 40-27 win over Ospreys at the Paris La Defense Arena.
The victory was Racing’s third of the Champions Cup competition as the French outfit gear up to face Munster in Round 5 in January.
Meanwhile in the Challenge Cup, it was a familiar face to Championship fans that kept Worcester Warriors in the game against the Dragons in Newport, Duncan Weir kicking a hat-trick of penalties for the away side to keep the score at 13-9 at half-time.
Things weren’t so rosy in the second half for the fly-half however, as he missed his first kick of the night on 53 minutes before his side slipped to a 25-16 defeat with Dragons’ Sam Davies stealing the kicking show.
Another positive for the Dragons was the inclusion of Cory Hill in the starting XV, the lock making his first appearance for the Welsh outfit since the 2019 Guinness Six Nations.
Over in France, Geoffrey Palis played a vital part in Castres’ 22-10 victory over Enisei by scoring either side of half-time in the Pool 1 encounter at Stade Pierre Fabre.
Elsewhere, Brive secured their second win of the Challenge Cup competition in Pool 4 with a 24-10 victory over their Italian visitors Zebre.
