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Storming Stade comeback seals Challenge Cup triumph

Stade Francais celebrate

Stade Francais battled back from 10-0 down to break their European trophy drought with a 25-17 success over Gloucester at Murrayfield.

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Gonzalo Quesada’s men looked set to extend the club’s run of four defeats in continental finals, but dug deep to stun their Premiership opponents in the European Challenge Cup final.

Stade, who missed out on a Top 14 play-off place, initially failed to live up to their status as favourites, falling behind to Jonny May’s try.

Billy Burns added the extras and then kicked a penalty to cap a fine five-minute spell for David Humphreys’ side.

But all that work was undone just as quickly before the interval, with Jules Plisson’s penalty the catalyst.

Italy legend Sergio Parisse crashed over and Plisson converted to level it up, with second-half scores from Geoffrey Doumayrou and Jonathan Danty putting Stade firmly in control.

Ross Moriarty reduced the deficit, but it came too late for Gloucester, whose defeat ensured Northampton Saints will compete in the Champions Cup play-off semi-finals against Connacht.

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H
Head high tackle 3 hours ago
Can Samoa and Tonga ever become contenders when their top talent is skimmed?

I think you have gone in the wrong direction here Nick. I think you need to delve down into the rules etc around Moana Pacifica’s selection policies and then you need to understand that a lot of KIWI BORN rugby players have PI heritage. It appears ok for the 4 home nations to pillage NZ born players constantly without retribution but you want to question whether NZ BORN players should be eligible for NZ? Seems a real agenda in there.

Go back and look at the actual Aims and agenda for MP becoming a entity and you see lots of things enshrined in policy that you arnt mentioning here. EG there is an allowance for a percentage of MP to be NZ eligible. This was done so MP could actually become competitive. Lets be real. If it wasnt this way then MP would not be competitive.

There also seems to be some sort of claim ( mainly from the NH ) that NZ is “cashing in” on MP, which , quite frankly is a major error. Are you aware of how much MP costs NZR Financially?

39 NZ born rugby players played at the last world cup for Samoa or Tonga. PLUS plenty for Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

Taumoefolau is a BORN AND BRED NZer. However I very strongly doubt he will be an AB, but who do you believe he should be allowed to play for? Levi Aumua is ALSO a born and bred Kiwi.

Aumua was eligible to represent Samoa and Fiji for the Pacific Nations Cup in July that year but ended up playing for neither. He IS eligible for his nation of Birth too Nick

He is a Kiwi. Are you saying an NZ born, raised Kiwi cant play for NZ now?

Sorry Nick Kiwi born and bred actually qualify for NZ.

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