Brive bank on bonus points

Correziens captain looks forward to easier second half

Brive are currently lying third in their Pool, seven points behind leaders Newcastle and two behind Borders, but they have played both their away matches against the top two teams.

Borders travel to the Stade Amédée-Domenech on Saturday, as Brive seek to score a four-try clear win that sends them second, and then – should they do the business against Borders – Newcastle are the visitors on the final Pool day on January 21 for a winner-takes-all encounter.

Les Correziens picked up both bonus points with four tries in their 25-22 defeat at Borders last weekend and captain Jerome Bonvoisin believes those points will swing the balance when it comes to quarter-final qualification.

“Getting the two bonus points has kept us in contention for qualification and I can’t over-state how proud the whole club is of the guys who went out and played that game in Scotland,” said back row forward Bonvoisin.

“We had to put out a young side last weekend as we have a lot of pressure from the domestic fixtures, so for them to have scored four tries in an away fixture against a seasoned Borders team is pretty impressive.

“Winning at home is very important to us but, given the performance of last week’s team, I think we will give them another opportunity to prove themselves, rather than completely changing the line-up.

"We have a good record at home and the supporters are excellent so we hope to get a good result."

Brive do indeed have a good record at home. The only blemish, as such, on their home record is a 19-19 draw with Bayonne back in September.

Since then, they have won all their home matches, including victories over Bourgoin, and most notably, Toulouse.

Many French clubs are using the Challenge Cup as a training ground for the next generation of players, either to give the first team a rest or, in some cases, to look at alternatives when the first team needs a tweak.

Toulon, Narbonne and Montpellier have been particularly prominent for this, and Brive have also been experimenting along the way, with a good deal of success.

“We were looking at the European Challenge Cup as an opportunity to try new things and give some of our younger players the chance to get some high quality rugby without the pressure of the Top 14, but things are starting to look good for us in terms of qualification," continued Bonvoisin.

“With home games against Borders and then Newcastle and the only away fixture one against L’Aquila, we have a good run-in and we would certainly like to see ourselves in the knockout stages of the tournament.

“We escaped injury at the weekend and given the excellent performance of our team, the only likely change to last week’s side will be the return of Damien Minassian who had to be replaced last week at the last minute by Peyo Capdevielle.”