French champions Clermont's stuttering start to the season continued with a fourth straight away defeat at Toulouse on Sunday, a worrying trend ahead of next weekend's European Champions Cup trip to Ospreys.

Scrum-half Antoine Dupont was the star for Toulouse with a brace of tries in a 28-18 victory that sent them up to third, just three points behind surprise Top 14 pace-setters Lyon.

Clermont are stuck in ninth and their away-day blues -- they have yet to even pick up a losing bonus point on their travels -- must be a concern for coach Franck Azema.

After Thomas Ramos and Camille Lopez exchanged penalties, Toulouse struck as Dupont scurried over for the first try following a break from Ramos and an acceleration by Yoann Huget.

A second Lopez penalty kept Clermont in touch before the visitors took the lead.

Bullocking runs from full-back Scott Spedding and veteran centre Aurelien Rougerie allowed scrum-half Morgan Parra to scythe over from close range.

Parra converted his own try but Dupont popped up on Huget's shoulder to finish off the wing's break and help send the hosts into the dressing rooms leading 17-13.

The second half started as the thrilling first had left off as Australian fly-half Zack Holmes took advantage of a disjointed defence following a poor Spedding up-and-under to accelerate through a diagonal gap amongst lumbering forwards and dive over in the corner.

Clermont's hopes suffered a blow when charging replacement No.8 Peceli Yato fended off Dupont with his forearm and was shown a yellow card, with Ramos kicking a couple of penalties to give Toulouse a 28-13 lead.

But Toulouse centre Florian Fritz was yellow-carded for a tackle off the ball and immediately David Strettle dotted down in the corner.

But it wasn't enough to snatch a losing bonus as Toulouse won their fourth match in a row.

- 'Technical mistakes' -

Earlier, La Rochelle kept pace at the top with a workmanlike 16-9 victory over Racing 92 in a dire encounter.

Last year's surprise regular-season table-toppers have carved out a reputation for being tough to topple and they were at their stubborn best in frustrating the 2016 champions.

"It might not be our most artistic performance of the season but in terms of determination, the desire to let nothing go, to make up for a friend's mistake, well there we weren't far from perfection," said La Rochelle manager Patrice Collazo.

"There were a lot of technical mistakes, imprecisions, but behind that I saw 15 players determined to make up for each other's mistakes."

The win took La Rochelle up to fourth, just five points behind Lyon while Racing remained in the bottom half.

"La Rochelle were unable to develop their game. Obviously, that made things tight," said Racing's coach Laurent Labit.

La Rochelle's success was built on forward power with a much-changed Racing pack unable to contain them.

Maxime Machenaud, playing at fly-half rather than scrum-half as the injured Dan Carter was missing, gave Racing an early three-point lead from the tee, but the rest of the first half belonged to the hosts.

Alexis Bales knocked over two penalties before La Rochelle launched an attack from a scrum in Racing territory.

With the backline running intelligent lines, New Zealand international No.8 Victor Vito managed to break through a gap and flip an overhead pass to replacement fly-half Vincent Rattez to cross the whitewash.

In the second half, Bales kicked his third penalty following a break from France back-rower Kevin Gourdon and Fijian full-back Kini Murimurivalu.

Racing toiled for long periods deep in La Rochelle territory but lacked the guile needed to break through a disciplined and committed defence.

Machenaud knocked over a third penalty late on but it wasn't enough to snatch a losing bonus point.

Lyon went top with a bonus point 25-6 win at Agen on Saturday as previous leaders Montpellier fell to a shock 31-20 defeat at previously misfiring Stade Francais.

Source: AFP