Stuart Barnes admires the turnaround at colourful Top 14 giants Stade Francais in The Sunday Times.
"In their florid pink shirts, Stade Français could have been a poetic fancy conjured up by Baudelaire after a heavy night on the hashish and absinthe. And for the first five matches of the season one of the most glamorous of all the French clubs performed as if they could not shake off the bleary effects of the night before.
"Stade were languishing 13th in the Top 14. Think the Tigers perched precariously above Leeds in the Premiership and you understand the shock. The Parisians didn’t have a defence as much as a sieve. In those five games they conceded an average of 31 points, including an infamous 40 at home to Montauban, whose modest aspirations are for nothing more than mid-table security.
"That defeat was followed by another 30-point fiasco in Biarritz and that . . . that was followed by action more drastic than anything achieved until then on the field.
"Max Guazzini, their extravagant owner, with a showtime penchant for Moulin Rouge girls and jousting knights, showed the less playful side of his character, dismissing head coach Ewen McKenzie, once an Australia prop, and assistant coach Christophe Dominici, a former Stade and France wing."
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