Connacht count on defence but is Stade's eye on Bears?

Connacht head coach Andy Friend. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Andy Friend knows that Connacht’s hopes of reaching the knockout stages of the Champions Cup for the first time hang on tomorrow’s lunchtime clash at the Sportsground as a side which regularly punches above its weight hosts one which hasn’t laid a glove on anyone for six years.

Stade, twice runners-up in the Heineken Cup and knockout participants in all but three of the dozen seasons they have been in it, looked like they were about to embark on another golden era when they captured the French championship for the 14th time in 2015.