Frenchman also spat at Stringer 14 years ago

The Stade Francais scrum-half who spat at Peter Stringer in the Amlin Challenge Cup on Saturday has done it before — to the same player.

It emerged yesterday that Jerome Fillol, who wrote to apologise to Stringer for the incident on Tuesday, had spat at the former Munster player during an Ireland U21 game in 1999.

Stringer had said after the match that he had only been spat at once before but couldn’t remember by whom or when.