Stade fall for first time at home

Stade Francais 10 Harlequins 15

Harlequins recorded a memorable victory over Stade Francais in Paris to maintain their 100% record in Heineken Cup Pool Four and move a step closer to qualification for the knockout stages.

The Londoners raced into a 12-0 lead by the 25th minute thanks to tries by Tom Williams and Jordan Turner-Hall and resisted a brave fightback from the French club to hold on for the win in front of a massive crowd of 76,569 at the Stade de France.

All Stade’s points came when Quins’ England scrum-half Danny Care was in the sin-bin at the end of the first half and start of the second half, Juan Manuel Leguizamon scoring a try and his off-colour Argentina team-mate Juan Martin Hernandez booting a conversion and a penalty.

But Nick Evans, who converted Williams’ try, kicked a penalty with 13 minutes remaining and some resolute defending in a dramatic final few minutes secured the win for the visitors.

Quins now have three wins from three and 13 points from their opening three games, and should all but seal qualification to the last eight with a victory over Stade in the return fixture next weekend.

Pom-pom girls, a medieval parade that included a jousting face-off, gymnastic firemen and dancers from the Moulin Rouge were part of the pre-match entertainment served up by flamboyant Stade president Max Guazzini.

With ’Mad Max’ offering tickets for these rare Stade de France club encounters for as little as five euros, there was a near-capacity crowd in France’s national stadium.

What Guazzini, French rugby’s salesman supreme, really wants is success on the pitch but despite all their recent domestic titles, the capital club he took over in 1992 have never won Europe’s biggest prize.

Wins in the opening two matches of this season’s tournament raised hopes this could be their year but Quins sensationally pooped the party.

Stade’s start was explosive, Julien Saubade just failing to touch down in the left corner and a rampaging Mathieu Bastareaud being held up over the line by Nick Easter.

Quins soon settled and took the lead in the 11th minute when Stade full-back Djibril Camara made a mess of dealing with Care’s grubber, winger Williams capitalising by tapping on to ground.

Evans converted and with the hosts’ half-backs Noel Oelschig and Hernandez having off days, the match was there for the taking for the Premiership side.

Indeed they increased their lead to 12-0 14 minutes later following some naivety from Hernandez.

The Pumas star, the last line of defence after a Quins hack-on, crazily tried to offload in the tackle only to fumble the ball forward.

The covering Camara was then driven to the floor by James Percival as he tried to collect, allowing Turner-Hall to gather and scamper down the right wing for an unconverted try.

Hernandez then botched an easy penalty attempt and by the half-hour mark, Stade were already being jeered by the notoriously fickle Paris public.

Care’s sin-binning for cynically slowing down play and Hernandez’s subsequent penalty, three minutes before the break, gave them something to cheer about.

And just before the return of Care in the opening stages of the second half, Leguizamon sped through a gap in the middle of Quins’ defence, danced around Ugo Monye and dived over for a try converted by Hernandez for 12-10.

Back to their full complement of 15, the Londoners regained their solidity and neither side were giving an inch as the game went into its final 20 minutes.

A superb last-ditch tackle from Easter, again on Bastareaud, saved what would have been a certain try for the hulking centre.

And just when it looked like Stade were on the verge of scoring, Care kicked downfield on turnover ball, Hernandez was pinged for not releasing and Evans slotted over a key penalty to put Quins five points clear.

Both sets of forwards twice came to blows in a tense final few minutes as Stade laid siege on the Quins line but the visitors held on to register a memorable victory.