HEINEKEN CUP, POOL 1 Dragons (10) 20: Tries: Luscombe, Marinos. Cons: Montgomery 2. Pen: Montgomery. DG: Jarvis. Stade Francais (3) 12: Pens: Dominguez 4. Att: 5,782

Skipper Andy Marinos led the way, claiming a try along with fellow centre Hal Luscombe.

Former Springbok Percy Montgomery added two valuable conversions and a penalty, while fly-half Lee Jarvis added a drop-goal to deny Stade a bonus point.

The French battered away at the Dragons line, but staunch defence limited them to four Diego Dominguez penalties.

The driving rain and a soggy pitch did not suit the French champions, as the Dragons built up a 10-3 lead at Rodney parade by half-time.

Paul Young was held up short of the Stade goal-line and skipper Marinos had ignored an early overlap in a scoreless first quarter.

On the half-hour Montgomery fired the Dragons into the lead with a penalty that went clean between the sticks.

But when referee Tony Spreadbury found fault with the Dragons' binding at the scrum four minutes later, Dominguez equalised with an equally sound kick.

At last came the try the crowd had been wanting when neat passing between Nathan Brew and Luscombe saw the centre race over to touch down, Montgomery converting.

This was an awesome result against the French champions. Dragons coach Mike Ruddock

Visiting coach Nick Mallett sent his Stade players out after the break full of fire and purpose.

Within a couple of minutes, Dominguez had reduced the lead to four points with his second penalty.

But loose-head prop Pablo Lemoine was too pumped up and was given a red card in the 53rd minute after aiming a head butt at Dragons wing Ben Breeze.

The game turned uglier with a couple of punching incidents, which ended with Remy Martin of Stade and Gareth Baber of the Dragons going into the sin bin for 10 minutes.

When rugby resumed, Montgomery charged down an attempted clearance kick from Stephane Glass and Marinos was on hand to score with the loose ball.

Montgomery converted and Dragons were in a comfortable situation with 15 minutes left.

Dominguez put over two penalties to make a dent in the lead, but Jarvis made sure of the points with a fine drop-goal three minutes from the end.

Dragons: Percy Montgomery; Nathan Brew, Haldane Luscombe, Andy Marinos (capt), Ben Breeze; Lee Jarvis, Gareth Baber; Adam Black, Paul Young, Chris Anthony, Ian Gough, Michael Owen, Jamie Ringer, Jason Forster, Ross Beattie.
Replacements: Steve Jones, Rod Snow, Peter Sidoli, Shawn van Rensburg, Rhodri Jones, Sione Tuipulotu, Gerald Arasa.

Stade Francais: I Corleto; T Lombard, S Glas, B Liebenberg, M Bergamasco; D Dominguez, A Pichot; P Lemoine, B August, P De Villiers, D Auradou (capt), A Marchois, C Moni, R Martin, P Tabacco.
Replacements: M Blin, S Marconnet, R Jechoux, P Rabadan, C Dominici, D Skrela, I Vass.

Referee: Tony Spreadbury (England).