Parisienne Daze
Tigs line
By Ian Birks
December 8 2003
Stade Francais took the first leg of the 2004 HEC in Pool 1 against an under performing Leicester Tigers. Saturday's game in Paris saw Domingues keep up his impressive kicking record against Leicester to take the home team to a six point lead from two early penalties in the first half.
Leicester defended well against a persistent Stade attack, to keep the French from going over the line. Most of the first half seemed to consist of big kicks from the French and big tackles from the Tigers. One of these try saving tackles came from Gibson who downed Brian Liebenberg as he charged towards the Leicester line.
The now obligatory cross field kicks from Stade Francais were smothered by both Vesty and Baxter before the home side rumbled through the middle of the field, only to have their plea for a try refused. Referee Alan Lewis adjudged that there had been a double movement by the French ball carrier before he had placed the ball on the try line, the score stayed at 6-0.
Stade's first try was controversially awarded following a brilliant
raking run from Bristol old-boy, Augustine Pichot. Pichot chipped on and
Thomas Lombard followed up the kick, knocked on then failed to control the
ball behind the try line. Referee Alan Lewis' first and correct
decision, to award a knock on was signaled, only to be overturned by the
intervention of the touch judge who indicated a try. Quite how either
could fail to see such a blatant fumble and the lack of controlled,
downwards pressure on the ball is a mystery when we saw it from 30m away!
The conversion was slotted by the veteran Dominguez to put Stade in to a
commanding 13-0 lead.
The Tigers replied quickly with a try from Sam Vesty just before the halftime whistle. Gibson crashed through the Stade defensive line and managed to get the pass away inside to Smith out of the tackle. Ollie threw a spectacular, speculative pass over his head to the full back for the day Vesty who had a relitavley easy run in and dive.
Pez missed the conversion, and the teams left the field with the score at 16-5 after Dominguez had slotted his third penalty kick of the day.
It took Stade 11 minutes to of the second half to increase their lead from a Liebenberg try. This was after a missed penalty from Dominguez.
The French centre chased his own downfield kick, which looked to have been covered by the Leicester winger, John Holtby. Holtby slid over his own try line, knocked the ball backwards but lost control of the ball. Before he could rescue the situation, Liebenberg dived on to the loose ball and the try was awarded, despite Holtby's claims that he had touched the ball down in the in goal area.
Leicester struck back within a few minutes with a now familiar Pez try. There was half a gap in the Stade defense, Pez stepped off is right foot leaving Dominguez on the floor, and ran in unopposed. After converting his own try, the visitors were within eight points with the score standing at 23-15
Dominguez found himself just outside the Tigers 22, when Moody ran through
to attempt to charge down yet another kick. The penalty was given against
Moody when Diego fell to the ground as if pole axed. There seemed to be
very little contact in the incident, and I would have to agree with Lewis
when he told referee Lewis that Dominguez had 'dived like a bitch'. Not
very eloquent, but accurate.
Incredibly, Dominguez was revived b the magic sponge and managed to compose himself to slot the penalty to take the home side to an unassailable 26-15 lead.
Shortly afterwards, in the final moments of the game, a long range drop goal from Corleto rattled off the right hand upright and somehow managed to rebound onto the padding on the lower left hand post.
All in all, a flattering result for the home side. Although Tigers did enough to come second, they were not 11 points worse than Stade Francais.
Apart from the decisions already mentioned there were a few other things that swung the game into the favour of the French side :
- A Pez kick that appeared to have gone over was given by one touch judge but not by the other; result - no points awarded,
- The persistence shown by the Tigers to give the ball away by throwing in long, ignoring one of the best set of jumpers in the world in Johnson, Corry and Deacon. When we throw short / mid line, we win 9 out of 10, when we throw long we lose possession every time! Why do we not play to our strengths?
This was nt a classic game of rugby: there was a lot of kicking which Vesty, to his credit, dealt with very well, some dubious refereeing decisions from one of the best referees in the world and poor communication between the touch judges. Stade played to the conditions and played the referee better than Leicester and were worthy winners. Leicester had flashes of brilliance, but will have to find some way to maintain thee high levels of intensity for the full 80 minutes and play to their strengths if they want to win any silverware this season!
Final score
Stade Francais 26
Tries Lombard, Liebenberg
Conversions Dominguez 2
Penalties Dominguez 4
Leicester Tigers 15
Tries Vesty, Pez
Conversions Pez
Penalties Pez
Teams
Stade Francais
Corleto, Lombard, Hernandez, Liebenberg, Bergamasco, Dominguez, Pichot, Marconet, August, Lemoine, Auradou, Marchois, Moni, Martin, Rabadan.
Bench: Blin, De Villiers, Bado, Bergamasco, Poulain, Skrela, Vass
Leicester Tigers
Vesty, Baxter, Smith, Gibson, Holtby, Pez, Healey, Rowntree, Richards, White, Johnson, Deacon, Corry, Back (c), Balding.
Bench: West, Morris, Kay, Tuilagi, Tuilagi, Moody, Tierney.
KO 16:00
Weather: cold, drizzle and slight breeze.
Other HEC results from Week 1
Fri 05-Dec-03
Pool 4 Celtic Warriors 34 v Calvisano 25
Pool 6 Llanelli 14 v Saints 9
Sat 06-Dec-03
Pool 1 Stade Francais 26 v Tigers 15
Pool 3 Leinster 32 v Biarritz 6
Pool 3 Sale 26 v Cardiff 24
Pool 4 Agen 27 v Borders 8
Pool 5 Bourgoin 17 v Munster 18
Pool 5 Treviso 12 v Gloucester 33
Sun 07-Dec-03
Pool 1 Gwent 24 v Ulster 15
Pool 2 Leeds 29 v Neath / Swansea Ospreys 20
Pool 2 Edinburgh 23 v Toulouse 16
Pool 6 Wasps 28 v Perpignan 7