Pau maintained their perfect record in this season’s Challenge Cup while there were also wins for the Dragons and Stade Français.
Results
Friday
Agen 21-40 Pau
Dragons 15-0 Enisei-STM
Stade Français 39-24 Krasny Yar
Agen 21-40 Pau
Stade Armandie
Pau secured a third successive victory in the European Challenge Cup to put themselves in control of Pool 3 following a 40-21 triumph over Agen.
Simon Mannix’s men have enjoyed an excellent start in Europe’s second-tier competition and they dominated early on against the Top 14 strugglers.
Three tries in the first quarter from Adrien Planté, Malik Hamadache and Giovanni Habel Kuffner moved the visitors into a 21-0 lead.
It was initially all too easy for the away side but they began to make mistakes, seeing Thibault Daubagna sin-binned, and Valentin Saurs responded for the hosts.
Fabrice Metz then became the second Pau player to be yellow carded and Akapusi Qera reduced the arrears at the interval.
Mannix’s team regained their composure during the break and secured the bonus-point a minute into the half through Planté.
Although Sean Dougall received a yellow card, his team’s third of the contest, and Qera scored once again, Jérémy Hurou and Dougall completed the win for the visitors.
The scorers:
For Agen:
Tries: Saurs, Qera 2
Cons: Verdu 3
For Pau:
Tries: Planté 2, Hamadache, Habel Kuffner, Hurou, Dougall
Cons: Daubagna 4, Hastoy
Yellow Cards: Daubagna, Metz, Dougall
Agen: 15 Loris Tolot, 14 Lucas Tolot, 13 Alban Conduche, 12 Jérémy Russell, 11 Valentin Saurs, 10 Hugo Verdu, 9 Lucas Rubio, 8 Akapusi Qera, 7 Marco Kotze, 6 Léo Ghirard, 5 Corentin Braendlin (c), 4 Christiaan van der Merwe, 3 Vakhtangi Akhobadze, 2 Paula Ngauamo, 1 Giorgi Tetrashvili
Replacements: 16 Clément Martinez, 17 Fernandez Correa, 18 Kamaliele Tufele, 19 Cédric Touchkaieff, 20 Jessy Jegerlhener, 21 Paul Abadie, 22 Ryan Dubois, 23 Johann Sadie
Pau: 15 Mathias Colombet, 14 Adrien Planté, 13 Benson Stanley, 12 Jale Vatubua, 11 Bastien Pourailly, 10 Brandon Fajardo, 9 Thibault Daubagna (c), 8 Peter Saili, 7 Sean Dougall, 6 Giovanni Habel Kuffner, 5 Daniel Ramsay, 4 Fabrice Metz, 3 Malik Hamadache, 2 Laurent Bouchet, 1 Geoffrey Moise
Replacements: 16 Lucas Rey, 17 Jérémy Hurou, 18 Matthew Tierney, 19 Masalosalo Tutaia, 20 Lekima Tagitagivalu, 21 Christopher Kaiser, 22 Antoine Hastoy, 23 Florian Nicot
Referee: Tom Foley (England)
Assistant referees: Hamish Smales (England), Adam Leal (England)
Dragons 15-0 Enisei-STM
Rodney Parade
Dragons moved to the top of Pool 1 in the Challenge Cup after overcoming a stubborn Enisei-STM side 15-0 at Rodney Parade.
In an atrocious first half, which saw the Russians put the hosts under plenty of pressure for little reward, it was Adam Warren’s try that separated the sides at the break.
The second period was not much better as conditions worsened, but Aaron Wainwright did increase the hosts’ advantage 13 minutes into the half.
Warren then crossed the whitewash for his second but the Newport-based outfit failed to gain a potentially crucial try bonus-point.
The scorers:
For Dragons:
Tries: Warren 2, Wainwright
Dragons: 15 Angus O’Brien, 14 Pat Howard, 13 Adam Warren, 12 Jack Dixon, 11 Jared Rosser, 10 Arwel Robson, 9 Dan Babos, 8 James Benjamin, 7 Ollie Griffiths (c), 6 Aaron Wainwright, 5 Rynard Landman, 4 Joe Davies, 3 Lloyd Fairbrother, 2 Liam Belcher, 1 Thomas Davies
Replacements: 16 Gerard Ellis, 17 Luke Garrett, 18 Sam Hobbs, 19 James Sheekey, 20 Ben Roach, 21 Owain Leonard, 22 Gavin Henson, 23 Robson Blake
Enisei-STM: 15 Ramil Gaisin, 14 Richard Kingi, 13 David Kacharava, 12 Sergey Trishin, 11 Federico Giliberti, 10 Iurii Kushnarev, 9 Alexey Shcherban, 8 Dmitrii Krotov, 7 Mikheil Gachechiladze 6 Vitalii Orlov, 5 Evgeny Elgin, 4 Uldis Saulite (c), 3 Innokentiy Zykov, 2 Stanislav Selskii, 1 Andrei Polivalov
Replacements: 16 Shamil Magomedov, 17 Valery Morozov, 18 Vladimir Podrezov, 19 Anton Rudoi, 20 Aleksandr Budychenko, 21 Konstantin Uzunov, 22 Dmitriy Simonov, 23 Maxim Gargalic
Referee: Vlad Iordachescu (Romania)
Assistant referees: Alexandru Ionescu (Romania), Madalin Girbau (Romania)
Stade Francais 39-24 Krasny Yar
Stade Jean-Bouin
Defending champions Stade Francais gained a semblance of revenge by producing a better second half display to defeat Krasny Yar 39-24.
The Russian outfit shocked Greg Cooper’s men in round one of the Challenge Cup and they were very competitive in the first half on Friday night.
Just like in the reverse fixture, Lasha Malaguradze kept the scoreboard ticking over and, after Shane Geraghty had given the Parisians the lead, two penalties and a drop-goal from the Krasny centre took them 9-3 up.
Jimmy Yobo’s converted try put the hosts back in front but Malaguradze continued to be accurate from the tee, kicking his fourth three-pointer of the evening.
However, Stade managed to get themselves ahead by the interval when wing Yobo crossed the whitewash for the second time.
From that moment, the hosts should have stepped on the accelerator but it was Krasny that upped the intensity in the early stages of the second period when Giorgi Pruidze touched down.
Another successful effort off the tee by Geraghty regained Stade’s advantage and they then finally started to find their rhythm.
Siegfried Fisiihoi, Romain Martial and Julien Arias duly secured their first win of this year’s competition, despite Sunia Latu’s consolation for the Russian team.
The scorers:
For Stade:
Tries: Yobo 2, Fisiihoi, Martial, Arias
Cons: Geraghty 4
Pens: Geraghty 2
For Krasny Yar:
Tries: Pruidze, Latu
Con: Malaguradze
Pens: Malaguradze 3
Drop-goal: Malaguradze
Stade Français: 15 Romain Martial, 14 Jimmy Yobo, 13 Théo Millet, 12 Paul Williams, 11 Julien Arias (c), 10 Shane Geraghty, 9 Charl McLeod, 8 Bakary Meïte, 7 Matthieu Ugena, 6 Craig Burden, 5 Hugh Pyle, 4 Mathieu De Giovanni, 3 Paul Alo-Emile, 2 Laurent Panis, 1 Heinke Van der Merwe
Replacements: 16 Lucas Da Silva, 17 Eliès El Ansari, 18 Lorenzo Cittadini, 19 Giorgi Melikidze, 20 Siegfried Fisiihoi, 21 Clement Daguin, 22 Waisea Nayacalevu, 23 Tony Ensor
Krasny Yar: 15 Vas Artemyev (c), 14 Sunia Latu, 13 Giorgi Pruidze, 12 Lasha Malaguradze, 11 Vladimir Chaban, 10 Fangatapu Apikotoa, 9 Vasilii Dorofeev, 8 Aleksandr Khudiakov, 7 Viktor Arhip, 6 Viktor Gresev, 5 Andrei Garbuzov, 4 Andrei Mahu, 3 Azamat Bitiev, 2 Valeriy Tsnobiladze, 1 Grigory Tsnobiladze
Replacements: 16 Andrei Kondakov, 17 Sione Fukofuka, 18 Mikheil Tsiklauri, 19 Egor Zykov, 20 Oleg Prepelitse, 21 Anton Riabov 22 Evgenii Kolomiitcev, 23 Kirill Golosnitskii
Referee: Dan Jones (Wales)
Assistant referees: Rhys Thomas (Wales), Aled Evans (Wales)
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