Edinburgh clinch home quarter-final after thrilling win over Stade Francais

Victory over Stade clinches home quarter-final

Edinburgh showed their new resilience to come from behind three times in the second half and clinch a home quarterfinal in the European Challenge Cup, beating champions Stade Francais with Junior Rasolea’s late try.

The centre – a change for Chris Dean after a warm-up injury – had a fine game even before pouncing on replacement scrum-half Nathan Fowles’ clever chip to lift the capital side to victory.

A nondescript first half turned into a thriller in the second.

While some of the defending won’t have pleased Richard Cockerill the coach couldn’t doubt his team’s guts, with many of them out on their feet at the end but still fighting for the win.

Three times Stade scored tries to seemingly take a grip but Edinburgh responded, a Blair Kinghorn conversion of the late score proving decisive.

Stade’s ferocious tackling stifled Edinburgh’s intent to spread the ball but referee Tom Foley was vigilant at the offside line, allowing Sam Hidalgo-clyne to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Three successive offside penalties brought a warning and the scrum-half’s early counter after six minutes.

Stade forced two kickable penalties themselves but didn’t threaten the home 22. French international Jules Plisson kicked both for a 6-3 lead.

Hidalgo-clyne levelled it on 20 minutes after Viliame Mata was tackled without the ball.

After Jonathan Danty was blatantly offside at a ruck, the referee yellowcarded the Stade centre.

Hidalgo-clyne kicked that penalty to put Edinburgh in front, and was on target again right on half-time for yet another offside by the Frenchmen.

But it took just six minutes after halftime for Stade to get into the lead. A third Plisson penalty was followed by easily their best attack of the game, Sedric Macalou scoring after a series of penetrating drives from his big pack.

Plisson converted, but Stade’s lead lasted just two minutes.

A loose tap at a lineout fell in front of Charl Mcleod. Hamish Watson grabbed the loose ball, handed off a defender and motored away from the cover for more than 40 metres for a try. Hidalgo-clyne converted. Edinburgh wasted a scoring chance by being penalised at a maul.

Plisson landed his fourth penalty, then Stade took the lead when big wing Romain Martial went through a gap in the home defence and Waisea Vuidarviwalu finished off at close range.

Edinburgh kept probing and within five minutes Jaco van der Walt froze the cover defence with a dummy and sliced through from 30 metres out for a try.

The stand-off missed the conversion but landed a penalty to put Edinburgh in front with nine minutes to play, only for replacement prop Giorgi Melikidze to dive through for a third Stade try almost from the restart. Plisson converted.

Edinburgh wouldn’t give up and, with a penalty advantage coming, Fowles’ neat kick into the in-goal area bounced away from the Stade defenders and Rasolea pounced for the try.

Kinghorn took his side into the lead for good with the conversion.