Top 14: Stade Français plunges La Rochelle into crisis

Stade Rochelais can't do it... After two defeats to launch their Champions Cup campaign (Leinster 9-16 and Stormers 20-21), the reigning double European champion is also struggling in the Top 14, since he lost this Saturday on the Jean-Bouin pitch against Stade Français Paris (18-13). The players from the capital scored two tries by Ward (21st) and Hamdaoui (62nd), compared to only one for the Maritimes, by Latu who recently arrived at the club (67th).

Ronan O'Gara's team finished the match with ten men after the expulsion of Jonathan Danty (47th), guilty of a deliberate kick on Ward. In the standings, Paris - which was beaten by Sale (5-28) and Leicester (24-27) in the Champions Cup - finds itself at the forefront in the Top 14 (3rd). La Rochelle, which has only won three of the last ten matches in all competitions, is stagnating in 9th place after a fifth defeat in as many trips this season in the league.

In this duel of losers in the Champions Cup, it was the Rochelais who took things in hand at the start of the match. Confiscating the ball in the Parisian camp, the Maritimes logically opened the scoring thanks to the foot of Antoine Hastoy (0-3, 13th), despite their multiple technical inaccuracies. In the process, the returning member of the Pink Soldiers Habel-Küffner thought he scored the first try of the match, before a fault from Hamdaoui reported beforehand on a La Rochelle jumper (14th). It was only a postponement for Stade Français, which found the fault ten minutes later, Ward running for the try after a lot of work from the passer Marchant (7-3, 23rd). Efficiently, Paris took advantage of Segonds' regulated footing to add three points (10-3, 32nd) while Hastoy, on the La Rochelle side, let slip six points en route (10th, 38th). Dominant in possession and occupation, the visitors were, however, too clumsy with the ball in hand to take the lead at the break.

Returning from the locker room, the meeting never got carried away. Guilty of a nasty kick on Ward, Danty was sent off, leaving his teammates at 14 while Segonds added more momentum to the Parisian counter (13-3, 48th). Victim of Danty's bad gesture, Ward received a yellow before returning to the pitch ten minutes later. Stade Français then took advantage of its numerical superiority to end the suspense, we believed, when Hamdaoui scored the second try at the conclusion of the best movement of the evening, initiated by Barré then Macalou (18-6, 64th). Touched but not sunk, La Rochelle quickly reacted thanks to a ball carried behind the line by the incoming Latu (18-13, 67th). With courage, Ronan O'Gara's team believed in the perfect scenario with one last attack ball to play at the moment of the siren. But as a symbol, her twelfth forward committed this evening buried her hopes of victory, she will be satisfied with the defensive bonus. While for Stade Français, we will undoubtedly only remember the success, as an (early) Christmas present to its supporters.