Gloucester 17-25 Stade Francais: Parisians finally break their European drought
By Keith Moore
Last Updated: 13/05/17 11:38am
Stade Francais finally broke their European drought by beating Gloucester 25-17 in the Challenge Cup final at Murrayfield on Friday night.
The Parisians had lost four European finals prior to the weekend, twice in the top flight and twice in the second-tier competition, before finally finding success in damp Edinburgh conditions with a strong travelling support.
The French outfit were forced to fight back from 10-0 down after a Jonny May try and five points from the boot of Billy Burns, and they were able to overturn the deficit thanks to tries from Sergio Parisse, Jonathan Danty and Geoffrey Doumayrou, before Ross Moriarty scored a consolation try for the Premiership side with time almost up.
Stade's silverware is all the sweeter after the players were spurred on by talks of a merger with rivals Racing 92 in March, though the proposal never really took flight.
Despite the conditions - and the occasion - Stade were happy to throw the ball around from the outset, and did so freely as they enjoyed the majority of the possession in the opening exchanges. Their endeavour eventually proved their undoing, however, as Danty's pass out wide was intercepted by May, who ran all the way to score the first try of the game in the 14th minute.
Burns converted, and after Rabah Slimani was spotted offside by referee John Lacey eight minutes later, the fly-half duly extended the advantage to ten points from the tee.
Burns' penalty was cancelled out by Jules Plisson in the 27th minute when Matt Scott failed to roll away at the breakdown, before Stade conjured up their opening try of the night.
Will Genia picked up the ball from the base of the ruck inside the opposition 22 and put in a clever chip over the defence. Hugh Pyle was first to the ball, and though the second rower couldn't control it in the air, he knocked it backwards and Sergio Parisse was on hand to tidy up the loose offering and dive over the line.
Plisson converted to draw matters level, and things quickly got worse for Gloucester when Willi Heinz was shown a yellow card for a late challenge on the French fly-half.
Gloucester's frustration saw them concede another penalty when Lewis Ludlow cleared Genia out after the whistle had gone, prompting a sideline scuffle, but the Premiership side were able to ride out the personnel deficit for the remainder of the half to go into the break at 10-10.
Plisson had a chance to give his side the lead for the first time in the game at the beginning of the second half, but sent the effort left of the posts.
Gloucester were almost next on the board when replacement Greig Laidlaw kicked behind the Stade defence and the bounce of the ball took out two defenders, with Tom Marshall reacting quickest to dot down, but replays showed the winger had run out of space as the ball went dead at the last second.
Then on the hour mark Danty atoned for his first-half gift to May by finishing off a Stade try after Djibril Camara intercepted a pass from Marshall and slick hands released the inside centre in the left corner. However the try was not converted, and when replacement kicker Morne Steyn missed with a penalty effort in the 72nd minute it looked as though the door was still open for Gloucester.
But a solo score from Doumayrou put the matter to bed, with Steyn then landing a penalty to make it 25-10 to the Top 14 side in the closing stages, before Moriarty crossed near the final whistle to add some respectability to the score.