Brive v Connacht Saturday 9th Dec.

Absolutely massive Connacht pack, and Connachta gets to see his dream Aki/Akhi centre partnership.

www.connachtrugby.ie/sligo-man-cillian-g...start-against-brive/

Don’t think many of us saw McCabe being ahead of Coulson at this stage of the season.

Doesn't matter who's on the bench to cover Buckley short of injury they ain't gonna get gametime as evidenced by the season so far

Brive team:

15. Gaetan Germain; 14. Nadir Megdoud, 13. Sevanaia Galala, 12. Benjamin Petre, 11. Guillaume Namy; 10. Thomas Laranjeira, 9. Florian Cazenave; 1. Julien Brugnaut, 2. Mike Tadjer, 3. Demba Bamba, 4. Johan Snyman, 5. Jan Uys, 6. Poutasi Luafutu, 7. Dominiko Waqaniborutu, 8. Petrus Hauman
16. Louis Martin, 17. Simon-Pierre Chauvac, 18. James Johnston, 19. Peet Marais, 20. Fabien Sanconnie, 21. David Delarue, 22. Alfifeleti Mafi, 23. Matthieu Ugalde

Gaetan Germain is the only Brive player you'd say is definitely starting XV, though no. 6 Luatufu has 7 Top 14 starts at 7, 8, and 12(!) to his name this season. As well as dead-eye Germain, our nemesis from a few years back (& honourary clan-member I believe) Laranjeira is at 10.

It looks like 19-yr. old Demba Bamba is making his debut at tighthead (vs. Buckley, good luck with that), he's not listed on the EPCR site and is an espoir (graduating to a pro contract for next year). Replacement loosehead Chauvac is another missing from their EPCR squad so I'm assuming he's another espoir brought in for the night.

The others in the starting XV have between 2 and 6 starts so far this season, so clearly they're resting the first XV but aren't throwing the game altogether.

salmson wrote: Absolutely massive Connacht pack, and Connachta gets to see his dream Aki/Akhi centre partnership.

www.connachtrugby.ie/sligo-man-cillian-g...start-against-brive/

Can't wait for them!

Following on Twitter 19-3 down - reads like a horror show. Muldoon gets yet another yellow

19-10 - my mistake on previous score...predictive text ....and now 19-17 at HT, so seems to be getting better.

19-17 half time.
Dillane and Marmion got over.

Good game so far, both teams giving it a go.

Very bad missed tackle for Pita for one of their tries but he absolutely burried someone shortly after.

It was looking like a car crash for a while there, good comeback.

.26-27 now. Great try from Carty.

Don't know why the ref ignored the fact that your man slid into Kelleher with his hip there.

Amazing result after the first 20 mins. Must qualify now.

Bonus point win. Job done. 5 more at the Sportsground next week and we're in a strong position to win the group going to Worcester. However, the nature of that performance particularly defensively is extremely worrying. Rolling mauls again we were incapable of defending once again and out wide we looked extremely vulnerable again. Bundee and Pita bailed us out so many times when there was an overlap.

Brive were a patched together 2nd team. The first 25 minutes or so was a horror show. To be fair we steadied the ship well and we seemed to have a measure of control in the 2nd half but still we couldn't close out the game. We were hanging on at the end in what with 15 or so minutes to go looked like it should be a comfortable win.

I'm not in the Jack Carty fan club but I thought in the 2nd half he did the sensible things at the right time. He kept them guessing and this was definitely a game to play in the right areas and wait for their mistakes and he kept them pinned back when the space was there. He scored a nice try at an important time too. Not often he makes a successful break but it was an important score.

My other big question mark looking at Connacht over the last couple of weeks in particular is our fitness levels. We looked shot there near the end as we did in Zebre.

This is a very weak group. Provided we don't self destruct or give them encouragement by throwing them a couple of soft scores early on I can't see either Brive or Oyonnax being too committed coming to Galway. We need to get a home quarter final in this competition no excuses.

Borders no.2 wrote: Provided we don't self destruct or give them encouragement by throwing them a couple of soft scores early on I can't see either Brive or Oyonnax being too committed coming to Galway.

Unfortunately they won't be too committed against Worcester either, we look like needing an away win there to be sure of winning the group. (Not counting any French chickens yet of course).