Brive's game against Leinster means zilch to the French side, but will it make them all the more dangerous? John O'Sullivanreports
CLUB ATHLÉTIQUE Brive Corrèze Limousin or Brive to use the rugby vernacular will arrive at the RDS on Saturday night without a point in this season’s Heineken Cup and at face value with zilch to play for in the context of the tournament.
Their performances in the Heineken Cup this season have been hugely disappointing at their own admission particularly when taken in the context of a club who freely brandished a chequebook last summer in recruiting aggressively, bidding both to contend in the French Top 14 championship and Europe.
The shopping list included England internationals Riki Flutey, Jamie Noon, Shaun Perry, French fullback Nicolas Jeanjean, Fijian born, ex Chiefs wing Viliame Waqaseduadua, Wasps prop Pat Barnard and a couple of South Africans in Retief Uys and Scott Zimmermann.
Brive already had a sizeable foreign contingent so a further diminution of French influence in terms of playing personnel meant that 53 per cent (21 players) of the squad were born outside France, including Irish-qualified, former Connacht duo Christian Short and Damien Browne.
Presiding over this cultural hotchpotch at the beginning of the season was the passionately French Laurent Seigne, a coach who had guided the club to their Heineken Cup success in 1997 when they surprisingly thumped the Leicester Tigers in the final and then the following season only narrowly missed retaining the title when losing 19-18 to Bath, having reached the final again.
Seigne coached in Gloucester, Bourgoin and Castres before returning to Brive in 2007. An inkling into his character can be gleaned from his thoughts after the infamous “Battle of Brive” in the 1997-1998 season. A European tie between the French club and Pontypridd was marred by violence on the pitch – two players were sent off – with a further reprise in the Bar Toulzac that night when both teams waded into one another again.
Ironically the teams would meet for a third time that season in a quarter-final play-off. Three Pontypridd players couldn’t travel to the Correze region because police investigations were ongoing relating to the bar shenanigans the previous September.
Seigne admitted in the aftermath: “We prefer not to play against these kind of people. In September they behaved like beasts. Today we played against a semi-civilised team, animals.”
This is from a man who made a virtue of sending out wild-eyed forward packs.
According to the reports in the French press Seigne’s methods didn’t sit easily with some of the current squad and the former French international was sacked last October. Former England and Northampton Saints hooker Steve Thompson – who is close to Brive chief executive Simon Gillham – is believed to be one of a number of the players who did not see eye-to-eye with the former coach.
At that point Brive had lost six and drawn one of their 10 matches in the French Top 14 and been beaten by the Scarlets and Leinster in the Heineken Cup.
Ugo Mola was promoted to head coach, assisted by Christophe Laussucq and Didier Casadei, the latter a prop on the European-winning team in 1997. The turnaround in fortunes – losing twice in Europe to London Irish notwithstanding – has been appreciable, winning five and drawing one of their last eight games.
Toulouse (27-21) and Perpignan (29-9) were among their victims at the Stade Amedee-Domenech – they were hammered 52-10 by Clermont Auvergne at Stade Marcel Michelin – while in their most recent outing they managed to squeeze past Albi 17-15 away from home. The coaching team has placed a greater emphasis on being more aggressive in defence and the contact areas while also employing the maul as a primary attacking gambit.
The primary question in examining this weekend’s clash in Dublin is whether Mola will elect to bring a full-strength Brive team for a match that has little practical import beyond pride. Hooker Jean Phillipe Bonrepaux sounded the clarion call: “We must give everything in the final rounds of the tournament to earn respect and also to honour the reputation of the club. Facing the defending champions will not be easy but we do not want to finish on zero points.”
Bonrepaux did then though go on to highlight the importance of their next week’s midweek clash with Montauban in the French Top 14.
Brive can call upon some hardy annuals up front in Thompson, the pugnacious French international lock Arnaud Mela, Georgian prop Davit Kinchagishvili, Romanian pillar Petrisor Toderasc and their South African-born number eight Antonie Claassen, who has been touted as a future French international when he qualifies through residencyon the strength of his performances .
Behind the scrum Perry, Noon, Waqaseduadua, Australian international Lachlan McKay, French international fullback/wing Alexis Palisson and Puma Horacio Agulla illustrates the quality available to coach Mola. Tomorrow’s Brive team-sheet will illustrate the extent of their ambition this weekend in Dublin.
