Brive buckle at Kingsholm

Gloucester through to last four

Gloucester exorcised their domestic demons by booking a place in the European Challenge Cup semi-finals courtesy of an empathic seven-try 46-13 victory over Brive on Saturday – albeit in front of Kingsholm's second lowest crowd of the season.

The home side gave a first start to 19-year-old Ryan Lamb, an England Under-21 squad member, at fly-half in place of French 'A' international Ludovic Mercier.

In the pack, after worries earlier in the week whether they would be able to field a recognised front row, Patrice Collazo and Gary Powell were the two props.

There was no place in the 22 matchday squad for Terry Sigley, who won an appeal on Thursday after being sent off in last weekend's local derby defeat by Bristol for an alleged stamping.

Jack Forster was among the replacements after the RFU agreed to release him from the England Under-19 World Championship squad.

Brive, presently in the bottom half of the French league table, just missed out on a place in the final of this competition last season, qualified for the quarter-finals of this season's competition having finished as one of the best pool group runners-up, where they finished behind Newcastle.

Gloucester made an impressive start with Lamb getting an early opportunity to settle any nerves as he landed a 20-metre penalty from just to the right of the posts.

Five minutes later he added the conversion of the opening try from number eight James Forrester, who picked up from the base of a 10-metre scrum to power himself over the line.

Midway through the half Forrester, halving been given a close pass by second row Alex Brown, bulldozed his way past five defenders, bursting 30 metres down the left touchline to score his second try with Lamb adding the conversion from out wide.

Brive, whose backs never looked confident in the early stages as they sought to offload the ball at the earliest opportunity, finally got on the scoreboard with a 15-metre penalty from in front of the posts from fly-half Maxime Petitjean.

A second penalty followed five minutes later from the same player, from a similar distance just to the left of the posts.

But Gloucester stretched their lead just before the interval as scrum half Peter Richards picked up from the back of a 10-metre ruck and squeezed through the Brive defence to touch down.

This was followed by another as wing James Simpson-Daniel gave a pass inside to England centre Mike Tindall. Lamb failed to convert both leaving the home side 27-6 in front.

Ten minutes into the second half and Brive were temporarily reduced to 14 men when hooker Jawad Djoudi was sent to the sin-bin by Irish referee Donal Courtney for a deliberate knock-on.

Gloucester took advantage of the extra man as prop Gary Powell gave the scoring pass to Richards to score his second try in the right corner.

With the visitors still a man down Gloucester scored their sixth try with openside flanker Andy Hazel going over from close range.

Brive rarely looked in the game even when back to full strength and Gloucester crossed the line again through wing James Simpson-Daniel, with Lamb finally his target again with both conversions.

With only five minutes remaining Brive finally breached the Gloucester line as replacement wing Yves Donguy sprinted 60 metres down the right to score the visitors' only try – which was duly converted by Petitjean.

Brive then had a second player yellow carded as Damien Neveu was sent to the sin-bin for persistent offside.

The scorers:

For Gloucester:
Tries: Hazell, Tindall, Richards 2, Forrester 2, Simpson-Daniel
Cons: Lamb 4
Pen: Lamb

For Brive:
Try: Donguy
Con: Petitjean
Pens: Petitjean 2

The teams:

Gloucester: 15 Olly Morgan, 14 James Simpson-Daniel, 13 Mike Tindall, 12 Anthony Allen , 11 Mark Foster, 10 Ryan Lamb, 9 Peter Richards, 8 James Forrester, 7 Andy Hazell, 6 Peter Buxton (captain), 5 Alex Brown, 4 Jonathan Pendlebury, 3 Gary Powell, 2 Mefin Davies, 1 Patrice Collazo.
Replacements: 16 Rob Elloway, 17 Jack Forster, 18 Adam Eustace, 19 Luke Narraway, 20 Haydn Thomas, 21 Ludovic Mercier, 22 James Bailey.

Brive: 15 Yohan Dalla Riva, 14 Charly Platek, 13 Clément Marienval, 12 Nicolas Couttet, 11 Martin Bottini, 10 Maxime Petitjean, 9 Damien Neveu, 8 Damien Chouly, 7 Fabien Laurent, 6 Tunufai Tavalea, 5 Samuel Chinarro, 4 Denys Drozdz, 3 Rudy Cheron, 2 Jawad Djoudi, 1 Daniel Rodriguez.
Replacements: 16 Julien Campo, 17 Petrisor Toderasc, 18 Yvan Manhes, 19 Simon Azoulai, 20 Jean-Baptiste Pejoine, 21 Sébastien Bonetti, 22 Yves Donguy.

Referee: Donal Courtney (Ireland)