BRIVE 24
CONNACHT 31
John Fallon reports
CONNACHT SECURED a bonus point victory against Brive this evening in the Challenge Cup.
But they were made fight to the end by a Brive side falling to their ninth successive defeat and who had one player red-carded and two binned.
Connacht should have cantered home but 25 point lead after 43 minutes was whittled down to a seven and an uncessarily nervous finish.
There was little between the teams in the opening quarter but then former Connacht No.8 Abraham Papali’I, red-carded three times in nine months when he was at the Sportsground, was sent off for a no-arms tackle on Shamus Hurley-Langton.
Earlier another former Connacht player Tietie Tuimauga escaped without sanction when he and the other prop Daniel Brennan caught Paul Boyle high, forcing the Connacht captain to go off injured.
New signing Nicolas Sanchez, brought in from Stade Francais to get game-time, gave Brive an early boost when Argentina’s all-time top scorer converted a penalty from the left after nine minutes.
But Connacht got on top and out-half David Hawkshaw scored after a series of penalties to the left and he stopped a gap to get over, with Conor Fitzgerald converting to make it 7-3 after 14 minutes.
Connacht made the most of Papali’i’s dismissal to stretch the home cover and centre Tom Daly finished after a series of surges from a scrum inside the 22.
Brive went down to 13 men eight minutes from the break when lock Tevita Ratuva was binned for a high tackle on Hawkshaw and it took Connacht less than a minute to punish them, going wide for Diarmuid Kilgallen to score in the left corner. Fitzgerald’s superb touchline conversion made it 21-3 at the break.
The small home crowd, incensed by many of the decision of English referee Adam Leal were further outraged before the interval when Hawkshaw escaped sanction for a tackle which left Sanchez with a nasty facial injury which forced him to go off.
There was a further injury set-back for Connacht just before the interval when lock Gavin Thornbury was stretchered off with what looked a serious knee injury.
He was replaced by Niall Murray who came on to join his debutant brother Darragh in the second row. The brothers combined to set up the bonus point three minutes after the restart with hooker Shane Delahunt finishing, and Fitzgerald adding the extras to push the lead out to 28-3.
Brive were just back to 14 men when replacement hooker Vano Karkadze was yellow-carded after 47 minutes but this time Connacht were unable to use the extra men to pull further ahead.
Instead, it was Brive who hit back going into the final quarter with replacement out-half Tom Raffy chipping and touchind down despite the best efforts of Daly, with Thomas Laranjeira converting to make it 28-10.
Fitzgerald added a penalty for Connacht before Brive grabbed a second when Haiti native Kevin Fabien scored in the left corner after he had initiated the move a phase earlier with a superb break. Laranjeira, who broke Connacht’s hearts here with a late penalty six years ago, added the touchline conversion to cut the gap to 31-17 eleven minutes from time.
It got even more precarious for Connacht five minutes from time when Fabien beat Fitzgerald on the outside to score in the left corner, with Laranjeira’s super conversion cutting the gap to a converted try, but that was as close as they got.
Brive scorers:
Tries: Fabien (2), Raffy
Conversion: Laranjeira (3/3)
Penalty: Sanchez (1/1
Connacht scorers:
Tries: Hawkshaw, Daly, Kilgallen, Delahunt
Conversions: Fitzgerald (4/4)
Penalty: Fitzgerald (1/2)
Brive: Seta Tuicuvu (rep: Thomas Laranjeira ’56); Kevin Fabien (Tuimauga 48-57), Nico Lee, Sam Arnold, Wesley Douglas; Nicolas Sanchez (rep: Tom Raffy ’37-41, ’53), Paul Abadie (Enzo Sanga ’53); Daniel Brennan (rep: Nathan Fraissenon ’28), Florian Dufour (rep: Vano Karkadze ’18), Tietie Tuimauga (rep: Pietro Ceccarelli ’47); Renger van Eerten, Tevita Ratuva (rep: Julien Delannoy ’47); Retief Marais, Said Hireche (c) (rep: Matthieu Voisin ’56), Abraham Papali’i.
Connacht: Conor Fitzgerald; Adam Byrne (rep: Byron Ralston ’22), Bundee Aki (Oran McNulty ’68), Tom Daly, Diarmuid Kilgallen; David Hawkshaw, Kieran Marmion (rep: Colm Reilly ’41); Peter Dooley (rep: Jordan Duggan ’47), Shane Delahunt (rep: David Heffernan ’68), Sam Illo (rep: Dominic Robertson-McCoy ’47); Darragh Murray, Gavin Thornbury (rep: Niall Murray ’41); Oisin Dowling, Shamus Hurley-Langton, Paul Boyle (c) (rep: Ciaran Booth ’19).
Referee: Adam Leal (England).
