HOME AND AWAY DAMIAN BROWNE: Mark Roddentalks to the former Connacht and Northampton secondrow who has adapted well to life in the south of France with Top 14 club Brive

THIS TIME last year Damian Browne was nearing the end of a season to forget at Northampton Saints, having suffered two serious injuries in succession that saw him spend most of his time on the sidelines.

Twelve months on, both his surroundings and his fortunes have changed significantly. After leaving England for the south of France, the former Connacht secondrow is now an important member of a Brive squad that is pushing hard for a top four finish in the French Top 14.

The 28-year-old won the club’s player of the month award in January and was recently rewarded with a fresh two-year contract that he was only too happy to sign.

Born and bred in Galway, Browne made his first move abroad in 2004 when he left Connacht for Northampton.

“I did struggle in my first year over there,” he says. “I was 24 and it was a big change moving away from friends and family, your routine and what you’re used to. But rugby-wise, it was fine. I was happy with the way I was playing and I thought it brought more out of me.”

While Browne enjoyed his four years at Franklin’s Gardens, Northampton had mixed fortunes. In his first year, they fell to Toulouse in the quarter-final of the Heineken Cup and two years later they lost to eventual winners, Wasps, in the semi-finals.

Their form in the Guinness Premiership was not so good however, resulting in relegation in 2007. To make matters worse, Browne spent much of his final season on the outside looking in.

“I was out for about eight months. I tore both my bicep tendons, one after another. I only played the first six games of the season and then I did my left bicep tendon. Then in my first game back I did my right hand.

“It was a frustrating year for me with things just piling up like that. I felt my rugby had gone a bit stale and I felt I needed another change.”

A call from ex-Northampton colleague, England’s World Cup-winning hooker Steve Thompson, alerted him to the fact that Brive were keen. Thompson encouraged Browne to visit the club and he signed in May.

The presence of four of Browne’s former Saints’ team-mates in a multinational squad that includes Thompson, Ben Cohen and another former Connacht secondrow, Christian Short, has made the transition easier.

“I didn’t think it would be so relaxed. Even around the rugby club everything is pretty laid-back, which is very enjoyable,” says the former Ireland under-21 international. “Everything outside of rugby is very enjoyable too. It’s a very outdoor kind of lifestyle. For example, a group of us go out mountain biking and a few times we’ve been out in the Dordogne kayaking. It’s different to what I’ve done before but the weather helps a lot.”

Despite a more relaxed approach, Browne says there can be no doubt about how seriously Top 14 rugby is taken in France, whether it’s from reading the twice-weekly rugby paper, Midi-Olympique, or experiencing the atmosphere around the town in the lead-up to games.

“It’s funny because you don’t realise until you come to France and you see how huge and how important the Top 14 is to the town and to the club,” he says.

“They follow it religiously. In Brive, there’s a bunch of maybe 20 people who come and watch you train every day. Earlier on in the season against Clermont, there were close on 200 people watching you train two days before the game.”

Brive have recovered from a testing start that saw them prop up the table, and have lost only one game since November. They now lie in fifth place and have a Challenge Cup quarter-final against Worcester to look forward to on April 11th.

The club’s success hasn’t come easily, however, and Browne cites away games against some of the bottom teams – Castres, Mont de Marsan and Dax – as among the most physical to date.

“I think Brive are one of the better clubs because we don’t have that historical French mentality that when they travel, they don’t win. I talked to some players and they say that if their team goes down by a try or two tries away from home, that’s it. But we don’t really buy into that.

“But obviously the competition in the Top 14 is huge and when you come up against a team when you’re on the road, they expect to win at home. So you always know it’s going to be a tough game.”

French captain Lionel Nallet of Castres, Perpignan’s Nathan Hines and Toulouse’s Argentinean lock Patricio Albacete were some of Browne’s immediate opponents that stood out. But he has plenty of competition at his own club, who signed in bulk in the off-season.

“The backrow is very competitive and there are four guys in the secondrow who could play no problem every week – myself and Arnaud Mela swap quite a bit and then there’s Christian Short and Johan van Zyl. One of those four is going to get left out every week. It’s difficult for the coaches but I’m sure it’s not a problem that they mind having.”

Brive are due to face Toulouse and Clermont-Auvergne in an exciting run-in as they seek a place in the Top 14 semi-finals. However, even a place in the top six – and Heineken Cup qualification – would be a huge achievement for a club more concerned about the opposite end of the table in recent years.

“When we did sit down at the start of the season the main goal was to make the Heineken Cup,” he says. “So hopefully we’ll stay in the top six and next year I’d love to get an Irish team in our group. For me, it would be brilliant to get a Leinster or a Munster in a group with Brive.”