On-fire Fickou leads Stade Francais past Pau

Sydney Roosters, Melbourne Storm to meet in NRL grand final

PARIS, Sept 23, (AFP): France international centre Gael Fickou continued his blistering new life with Stade Francais by scoring two more tries in a 25-13 away win over Pau in the Top 14 on Sunday.

Fickou, 24 and with 35 French caps to his name having made his international debut in 2013 when he was just 18, took his season tally to five in five games with an impressive turn of pace and mazy running.

Stade’s South African coach Heyneke Meyer was left chuffed at an away win after a disastrous season last year that saw the Parisian club finish in 12th position. ball to set Stade off in attack.

Thibault Dabagna’s early penalty was Pau’s sole showing as the first-half finished 22-3.

But the home side got off to the perfect start in the second period, Fijian winger Watisoni Votu touching down a Jessie Mogg kick for a welcome try.

Slick hands saw Votu bag his second from close range with 20 minutes to play.

Stade then suffered a blow when replacement scrum-half, the up-andcoming France under-20s star Arthur Colville, was stretchered off with a nasty-looking right knee injury, having also been yellow carded for the collision which saw his leg buckle and twist under the full weight of Pau full-back Charly Malie.

Toulouse’s French center Francois Cros (center) collapses with Montpellier’s South African hooker Jannie Du Plessis (right) and French scrum half Enzo Sanga (left) during the French Top 14 rugby union match between Montpellier and Toulouse at The GGL Stadium in Montpellier, southern

France on Sept 23. (AFP)

Steyn hit one more penalty as the game petered out amid a raft of replacements that disrupted the flow of the game and saw Stade miss out on a bonus point.

Toulouse play Montpellier in Sunday’s late game seeking to consolidate their place amid the early leaders of the Top 14.

Saturday’s action saw Baptiste Serin help Bordeaux-Begles bring Clermont’s four-match winning streak to an end with a nail-biting 23-19 victory.

Reigning champions Castres suffered their second loss of the season, going down 27-11 to Racing 92, while La Rochelle beat Lyon 30-13, Toulon dispatched Agen 33-3, and Grenoble survived a late flurry from Perpignan to come out on top of the battle of the winless promoted clubs, 31-22.

SYDNEY:

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The Sydney Roosters beat South Sydney 12-4 to advance to their second National Rugby League grand final in five years.

The Roosters will play the Melbourne Storm, who kept alive their chance of repeating as league champions with a 22-6 win over Cronulla on Friday.

Veteran Billy Slater, who scored two first-half tries for the Storm, might not be available for the grand final after he was charged Saturday with an illegal shoulder hit on Cronulla’s Sosaia Feki. of victories in the third and final race when he came second after starting in pole position.

Young Schumacher’s dual wins this weekend in Austria came after claiming a hat-trick of wins on Germany’s iconic Nuerburgring circuit a fortnight ago to seize control of the drivers’ championship for his Italian team Prema Theodore Racing.

Having already won the first race of the weekend in Spielberg on Saturday, Schumacher Jnr started in pole position on Sunday and never relinquished his lead to finish ahead of Prema teammates Marcus Armstrong of Italy and Rus-