{"id":241806,"date":"2026-01-13T01:35:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T01:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/241806\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T01:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T01:35:20","slug":"stuart-hogg-plays-challenge-cup-villain-in-win-over-connacht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/241806\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuart Hogg plays Challenge Cup villain in win over Connacht"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stuart Hogg kicked Montpellier<\/a> to a 33-31 European Challenge Cup<\/a> victory over Connacht<\/a> as the French side clawed back a 17-point deficit to maintain their 100 per cent Pool 1 record.<\/p>\n

The hosts got off to the perfect start at the Septeo Stadium when centre Thomas Darmon<\/a> went over early on, with Leo Coly<\/a> adding the conversion, but it was all square by the 11th minute when scrum-half Ben Murphy<\/a> touched down and Sam Gilbert<\/a> obliged from the tee.<\/p>\n

Tries from Lyam Akrab<\/a> and Dylan Tierney-Martin<\/a>, both of which were converted, made it 14-14 and it was the visitors who surged into a 24-14 lead courtesy of winger Finn Treacy\u2019s effort and five more points from Gilbert\u2019s boot.<\/p>\n

Gilbert took his personal tally to 16 points when he crossed six minutes into the second half and added the two points, giving the Irish side a 17-point cushion.<\/p>\n

However, winger Melvyn Rates<\/a> and replacement scrum-half Alexis Bernadet<\/a> touched down to give the hosts hope, setting up a grandstand finish during which prop Valentin Welsch<\/a> scored under the posts to level it at 31-31.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Montpellier <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Connacht <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That left Hogg with the simplest of tasks to kick a second successful conversion and secure a victory which left Stuart Lancaster\u2019s men with only two bonus points to show for their efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stuart Hogg kicked Montpellier to a 33-31 European Challenge Cup victory over Connacht as the French side clawed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-241806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}