The Stade Français offered itself the Christmas derby and with style by going to beat Racing 48 to 10, Saturday December 24 in Nanterre, during the closing match of the 13e day of the Top 14, the last of the first leg.
With this resounding and improved success, the “pink soldiers” inflicted the first defeat of the season at home to Racing, which remained on six victories in its lair of the Arena.
Stade Français thus ends the first leg in second place in the standings, 7 points behind Toulouse, the leader. Racing is also on the podium, but in third place, two lengths behind its opponent of the day.
Gonzalo Quesada’s men, ultra-dominant in the engagement, scored five tries and only conceded one. The magic boot of Joris Segonds, author of 21 points, contributed to weighing down an addition which risks weighing on the minds of Racing and its coach, Laurent Travers.
The first try of the match was scored by the third line and captain of the French Stade, Romain Briatte, following a grouping near the Racing line. An essay transformed by Joris Segonds (23e). The second was the work of third line Sekou Macalou, who intercepted an unsteady pass from the Scottish opener, Finn Russell, to slip away on trial, still transformed by Segonds (33e).
Racing K.-O. standing
But just before half-time, Racing reduced the mark with a try from scrum half Nolann Le Garrec, validated after watching the video to check if Macalou had not made a touchdown in the en -goal before the “Racingman”. The try was converted by Russell and half-time was whistled with a score of 23-10 in favor of the “Stadistes”.
In the second half, the men in pink pushed completely irrelevant “Racingmen” by scoring three new tries. The back, Léo Barré, hit a candle that he managed to recover with a bit of success to go and score five new points (54e). Then, as tempers flared, with several scuffles, winger Lester Etien resisted the return of three “Racingmen” to score in a corner (73e) the offensive bonus test.
The nightmare then continued for standing KO “Racingmen”, with a fifth and final try from the English winger, Paolo Odogwu, converted by Barré (79e).
“Frankly it’s shameful, I have nothing else to say. The whole team suffered, even the president and the staff. I don’t think you can do worse than that. I think we’re going to have a great Christmas…” ironically summarized Juan Imhoff, the winger of Racing 92, at the microphone of Canal +.
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For his part, Romain Briatte, the captain of the French stadium, was pleased to have succeeded “a dream match”. “We were keen to redeem ourselves after the four defeats last season against Racing, continued the third line. We have an incredible group this year, we will continue to dream. The road is still long, we have two big receptions. »
For the first day of the return matches, next Saturday, Racing will go to Castres and Stade Français will host Pau.
