Action from the European Challenge Cup match between Ulster and Stade Francais on Saturday 17 January 2026. Photo: Bob Given. © FRU SPORTS 2026.

European Challenge Cup: Ulster 26 Stade Francais 19

—

by

Bob Given

We are currently carrying out a necessary behind-the-scenes upgrade to how images are stored and delivered on The Front Row Union Sports. With over 770,000 images on the site, we are moving our entire image library to a dedicated cloud storage service. This means images will load faster for you, regardless of where you are in the world, and the site will be more reliable overall.

As we are working on three separate versions of images during the offload process, the site cache sometimes struggles to keep up with which version to display and occasionally post grid images or complete galleries may fail to appear. This is a temporary side effect of the migration process — the image exists and is safe, it is simply in the process of being moved to its new home and identified as being there. A refresh of the page will usually bring them back, however, if it does not please contact john@thefrontrowunion.com stating clearly the post address and we will restore it as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience.

We expect the bulk of the image migration to be completed by the end of June 2026, with a fully upgraded version of the site ready to launch in August 2026. Once that work is done, the site will be noticeably faster, images will load more reliably, and you will not see any further disruption of this kind. Thank you for your continued support of The Front Row Union Sports.

Early Saturday afternoon, Ulster faced Stade Francais an European Challenge Cup fixture at Ravenhill, knowing that a win would give them a home tie in the Round of 16.

This was most definitely a game of 2 halves.

The game was barely a minute old when Tom O’Toole crashed over for Jack Murphy to convert and 7-0 to Ulster.

The Ulster pressure continued with the Ulster backs carving holes in the Stade defence.

Rob Baloucoune added Ulster’s 2nd try

Rob Baloucoune got over on 15 minutes for 12-0, before Stuart McCloskey scored in the right corner. Jack Murphy’s conversion, from the tight angle put Ulster 19-0 to the good.

FRU Sports is funded by subscriptions. To read the rest of all our articles and view all our images you will need to Register and Login using the links at the top of this page.

Your support directly affects the number of matches we can cover.

IF in Doubt, sit them out

Download the UK Concussion Guidelines for Grassroots Sport Here

Corrections

Drop us a note below if there are any corrections required in this article.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Rugby Latest