How La Rochelle almost scored a wonderful opening try

44 Seconds into the La Rochelle and Munster Champions Cup match of 16, fans were still searching for their seats or getting a cool drink at the bar when Tawera Kerr-Barlow over for the opening try but la Rochelle's fans roars turned silent when the TMO picked up that Teddy Thomas stepped on the touchline. 

The try was not awarded and Munster went on to win 25-24 but we broke down how La Rochelle almost scored a wonderfull try!

1. From the restart, Craig Casey box kicks from inside his own 22.

2. La Rochelle gathers the ball on Munster's 10m.

3. La Rochelle regroup on attack with two sets of pods.

4. Kerr-Barlow plays the first pod of forwards.

5. The second pod of forwards receice the ball from Ihaia West. The big difference with this play is the ball is going to the outside player and not like in the previous frame where Kerr-Barlow played the middle player.

6. Uini Atonio plays Jack Nowell out the back and Andrew Smith is too late to make the tackle on him.

7. Nowell plays Oscar Jegou who takes it up and plays Thomas

8. In this frame, you can see how hard Jean Kleyn works on the inside of Thaakir Abrahams. If the second rower were a few seconds slower, Abrahams had to go for Jegou and Thomas would have had more time and space but because Kleyn went for Jegou, Abrahams could focus on Thomas. Also note the support line Kerr-Barlow is running (top of frame)

9. Thomas burns Abrahams on the outside. Jack Crowley makes a low tackle that opens up the offload to Kerr-Balow.

10. From the back angle you can see how long the pass from West to Antonio was and how many defenders they skipped with one pass.

11. This is the frame where Thomas stepped out into touch.

An almost great try from a simple but effectice attacking setup.