Looking Back: Leinster v Stade Francais

In the beginning, Stade Francais was something of a stumbling block for Leinster.

This was back when French clubs were the dominant force in the Heineken Cup as Toulouse (1996) and Brive (1997) captured the first two competitions.

The French provided three of the four semi-finalists in 1998, Toulouse, Pau and Brive, and three of them in 1999, Stade Francais, Perpignan and Colomiers, when Ulster made the Irish breakthrough.

Earlier that season, Leinster were humbled home (28-17) and away (56-31) by a high-powered Stade Francais attack.

Stade leaned on the muscle of magnificent France forwards Sylvain Marconnet, Thomas Lievremont and Christophe Juillet to feed the outrageous skills of Argentinean field general Diego Dominguez, Richard Dourthe and Christophe Dominici.

There was a sense of foreboding when the draw pitched Leinster in with the pink-shirted aristocrats the following season.

Mike Ruddock’s men returned from Stade Jean Bouin with a familiar feeling, having been handed a 39-6 drubbing as Dominici and Thomas Lombard both bagged a brace of tries.

Five days later, just before Christmas, in a testament to the unpredictability of this wonderful competition, Leinster turned the tables on their vaunted opponents by the slimmest margin (24-23).

It might just have been Emmet Farrell’s finest hour in blue, playing outside All Blacks scrum-half Stu Foster.

Leinster’s current Head Analyst and Kicking coach showed an array of skills from a perfectly timed pass for O’Driscoll’s second-minute try to a drop goal, two penalties and general command of the strategy put in place by Ruddock.

“The really pleasing aspect of the game is that we played some quality rugby. We needed a quality performance from our half-backs and we got that,” stated the coach.

“I was particularly pleased with Farrell. His distribution was excellent and he also managed to put the ball in behind the opposition when it was called for”.

It was a sign of an evolving Leinster back division in which Brian O’Driscoll and Shane Horgan manned the centre slots, while Denis Hickie waited on the wing like a sniper in the long grass.

At this time, Girvan Dempsey was finding his feet in the back three, developing the attributes which would make him Ireland’s test full-back for the guts of a decade.

The inability of the Leinster forwards to deliver the consistency to compete at the highest levels in Europe was often exposed on French soil and closer to home by the men from Munster.

However, the character to turn a 39-6 defeat into a 24-23 victory against Stade Francais in the space of five days, albeit at home, ranked as a stepping stone on the road to shedding Leinster’s gallic inferiority complex.

OCCASION:  1999/2000 Heineken Cup Pool 1
DATE: 18 December 1999
VENUE: Energia Park

LEINSTER 24 STADE FRANCAIS 23

LEINSTER: Peter McKenna; Denis Hickie, Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, John McWeeney; Emmet Farrell, Stu Forster; Reggie Corrigan, Shane Byrne, Gary Halpin, Robert Casey, Malcolm O’Kelly, Declan O’Brien, Liam Toland (Capt), Victor Costello.

STADE FRANCAIS: Christophe Dominici; Brian Lima, Cliff Mytton, Conrad Stoltz, Thomas Lombard; Diego Dominguez (Capt), Christophe Laussucq; Sylvain Marconnet (Dan McFarland 62), Fabrice Landreau, Pieter de Villiers, Darren George, Herve Chaffardon (David Auradou 48), Marc Lievremont, Christophe Moni (Christophe Juillet 48), Richard Pool-Jones.