Carizza, Imhoff to face Clermont in Top 14 Semi

Pumas pair Manuel Carizza and Juan Imhoff will start for Racing 92 against Clermont Auverge in the first of the Top 14 semi-finals set to take place on Friday evening at Roazhon Park in Rennes. The two sides split their two previous meetings during the regular season, with Racing victorious 20-16 in December and Clermont getting the edge 26-20 in May

The match features two star-studded lineups with only five of the 30 starting players yet to play test rugby. Internationals from seven different countries are set to take part with World Cup veterans present on both benches.

Kickoff is set for 8:45pm local time. The winner will advance to the Top 14 final to contest the Bouclier de Brennus in Barcelona against either Toulon or Montpellier in front of an expected crowd of 98,000.

CLERMONT AUVERGNE
1 Raphael Chaume 2 John Ulugia 3 Daniel Kötze 4 Flip van der Merwe 5 Sébastien Vaha’amahina 6 Damien Chouly (capt.) 7 Alexandre Lapandry 8 Fritz Lee 9 Morgan Parra 10 Camille Lopez 11 Nick Abendanon 12 Wesley Fofana 13 Aurélien Rougerie 14 David Strettle 15 Scott Spedding

16 Pellow van der Westhuizen 17 Thomas Domingo 18 Paul Jedrasiak 19 Vito Kolelishvili 20 Ludovic Radosavljevic 21 Brock James 22 Noa Nakaitaci 23 Davit Zirakashvili

RACING 92
1 Eddy Ben Arous 2 Dimitri Szarzewski (capt.) 3 Ben Tameifuna 4 Bernard le Roux 5 Manuel Carizza 6 Wenceslas Lauret 7 Yannick Nyanga 8 Chris Masoe 9 Maxime Machenaud 10 Dan Carter 11 Juan Imhoff 12 Henry Chavancy 13 Johan Goosen 14 Joe Rokocoko 15 Brice Dulin

16 Camille Chat 17 Khatchik Vartanov 18 Juandré Kruger 19 Antonie Claassen 20 Xavier Chauveau 21 Marc Andreu 22 Albert Vulivuli 23 Luc Ducalcon