Stade rally to sink Warriors

Tom Palmer (L) of Stade Francais offloads.

Stade Francais overcame a sluggish start to record a 23-14 victory over Worcester in their Amlin Challenge Cup Pool 1 game at Sixways Stadium on Thursday night.

The hosts were the dominant force in the first half and raced into a 14-0 lead with early tries from Chris Pennell and Marcel Garvey.

But the French outfit gradually grew into the game and hauled themselves into contention on the back of the home side's indiscipline with Felipe Contepomi kicking a total of six penalties.

Having bossed most of the second period they moved clear courtesy of a Paul Sackey try and held on with something to spare to ensure their European campaign started with a win.

Worcester made much the brighter start and were ahead on five minutes when full-back Pennell hit the line at real pace and burst on to a fine short pass from Neil Best to sprint over unopposed. Joe Carlisle added the extras.

Stade looked to be on the verge of responding with a try of their own five minutes later but, in the blink of an eye, instead saw the deficit doubled as Garvey broke away for a superb opportunist try.

Attacking down the left wing, Stade flanker Lei Tomiki looked to offload the ball but saw his pass intercepted by Pennell who immediately launched a kick downfield into space. Showing blistering pace, Garvey reached it first and demonstrated good footballing skills to kick on twice before touching down. Once again Carlisle landed a solid conversion.

Contepomi had the chance to reduce the arrears on 18 minutes only to miss a relatively straightforward penalty opportunity, but he was offered two more before the break.

Crucial penalties

Twice Best was penalised, first at the breakdown and then at the scrum, and on both occasions the Argentina international made no mistake to draw his side within eight at the interval.

Within 12 minutes of the restart the visitors had moved ahead for the first time as Worcester conceded three more soft penalties, the third of which from replacement Tevita Taumoepeau drew a team warning for persistent infringement from the referee.

Contepomi kicked all three chances and, having got their noses in front, Stade began to look much more like an assured and established European act.

They stamped their authority on proceedings with a try of their own through one-time England winger Sackey just past the hour mark.

An initial break from Contepomi set up the attack, but there was a hint of controversy with the home crowd howling for what they thought was a knock-on from Pascal Pape before the ball eventually came back to Paul Warwick who spun out wide for Sackey to scramble over in the corner.

Contepomi could not add the conversion from out wide, but the game was all but up for Worcester five minutes from time when centre Alex Grove was caught offside right in front of his own posts allowing the South American a simple kick to push his side nine points clear.

With 90 seconds to go Carlisle missed a penalty from wide on the right and with it went any faint remaining Worcester hopes.