PARIS - French Top 14 leaders Clermont narrowly avoided a humiliating defeat at relegation-threatened Grenoble on Saturday with a 21-20 win secured with a late penalty from replacement fly-half Patricio Fernandez.
Grenoble's New Zeland flanker Rory Grice (L) and Clermont's French centre Aurelien Rougerie (C) vie for the ball in the air on November 5, 2016
The victory gave Clermont a nine-point lead at the top but until Fernandez hit the winning penalty 10 minutes from time, they were staring at defeat against a Grenoble side who have the league's worst defensive record.
Prop Alexandre Dardet had scored Grenoble's second try of the game which was converted by Jonathan Wisniewski for a 20-18 lead.
But Argentine fly-half Fernandez, who last week contributed 30 points in the 40-16 rout of Brive, kept his nerve with his first kick of the game after replacing Camille Lopez.
Earlier Morgan Parra and Otar Giorgadze had crossed for Clermont for a 15-7 lead at half-time with South African winger Gio Aplon keeping second-from-bottom Grenoble in touch.
Clermont, unbeaten at home all season, still had to ride out a nervy ending to the game when Wisniewski missed a drop goal which could have secured a shock victory for the visitors.
Toulouse also left it late to secure a 16-15 win over Castres at their Stade Ernest-Wallon home.
Missing six of their first-choice squad who are away on international duty with France, Toulouse needed a penalty two minutes from time by Samuel Marquesto steal the win.
Rory Kockott kicked five penalties for Castres but his miss from just 22 metres in front of the posts with five minutes left proved costly.
Bordeaux ran in four tries in an impressive 37-19 win over 2015 champions Stade Francais.
Most of the damage was done in the first half when they stretched to a 27-7 lead with tries from New Zealand No8 Hugh Chalmers, hooker and skipper Clement Maynadier and centre Julien Rey.
Scrum-half Yann Lesgourgues added a second-half try while Kiwi fly-half Simon Hickey kicked a personal haul of 17 points.
Stade, who scored three tries of their own through Hugo Bonneval, Jeremy Sinzelle and Nayacalevu Waisea, remain down in ninth place but just three points off the play-off spots.
All Blacks legend Dan Carter will miss his second consecutive match when champions Racing 92 host title rivals Montpellier later Saturday as the fly-half star recovers from injury.
World Cup winner Carter hurt his calf in the warm-up for last weekend's laboured 16-3 win at bottom club Bayonne and will sit out the visit of Montpellier who are flying high in second spot.
Defending champions Racing must find a way past the league's meanest defence if they are to keep in touch with the play-off spots.
Montpellier, coached by former South Africa World Cup-winning coach Jake White, have conceded just 154 points and only 12 tries.
Montpellier just squeezed past La Rochelle 12-11 last week thanks to a last-minute penalty from Ben Botica, who could start at fly-half against Racing to allow South African star Francois Steyn a break.
Struggling Lyon will look to their Toulon old boys to stun the big-spending, three-time European champions when they clash on Sunday.
In their ranks, Lyon can boast star fly-half Frederic Michalak, full-back Delon Armitage, centre Theo Belan, flanker Virgile Bruni and veteran prop Alexandre Menini, all of whom are former Toulon players.
Even coach Pierre Mignoni has Toulon in the blood -- he is Toulon-born and was a former player and backs coach with his hometown team.
Michalak, now 34 and with 77 French caps in his collection, has played in seven matches this season after ending a four-year spell with Toulon to play for the promoted club.
"He brings the experience we were missing at fly-half," said Lyon skipper Julien Puricelli.
Former England international Armitage played 72 times for Toulon after joining from London Irish in 2012. After four years with Toulon, he too left for Lyon in the summer.