Cardiff Blues battled back to within a try of the French champions but squandered a hat full of chances in the final ten minutes. In the end, two penalties apiece from Juan Martin Hernandez and David Skrela were enough for the French side to clinch their second win of the pool.
But the bonus point for Cardiff has kept their hopes of reaching the last eight well and truly alive.
Stade led just 9-3 at the break as the wet conditions hampered both teams in the first half. Cardiff played into driving rain while Stade struggled to get to grips with the stiff breeze as passes wet astray and Hernandez missed with his opening effort.
The Argentina fly half landed his second on ten minutes but his team’s handling errors gave the Blues scraps to feed off and Blair equalised on 22 minutes. But just a minute later, Cardiff lost outside half Nick Robinson with a recurrence of his groin injury and were forced to shift scrum half Jason Spice to the key position with no outside halves on the bench.
Hernandez nudged Stade further ahead before making way for France fly half Skrela who gave the Parisians a 9-3 lead on the stroke of half-time. Skrela extended the lead further on 51 minutes but his fumble in front of the posts almost let in Spice for the game’s opening try, before Blair added a penalty.
The Blues had lived off scraps but turned the screw on their hosts in the final 12 minutes, Xavier Rush, Gethin Jenkins and Rees all going close.
But try as they did, they could find the final blow to get past a stubborn Stade defence that held firm against the tide of Blues shirts and pouring rain to clinch the win.
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