By Leipziger
January 24 2007

It’s crunch time in Europe, as Brive visit Kingston Park tomorrow looking to cement their place at the top of Pool 3, whilst the Falcons need 5 points and ideally a lot of tries to keep up hopes of qualifying for the quarter-finals in the spring. Something like the corresponding match last season, in October 2005, will do nicely. The former European champions were put to the sword 51-19 at Kingston Park in the opening match of the pool, with Jamie Noon, Matthew Burke, Tom May and Colin Charvis (2) the scorers.

However, whilst we doubled Brive and had a 100% record in the European Challenge Cup last year, back in October our French opponents turned the tables at the Parc des Sports Municipal, winning 41-12 with a huge seven scores on a scorching afternoon, with Burke and the referee (penalty try!) scoring our tries.

We were also defeated in France in the next round by Montauban, to go with wins at home against Montauban and Padova.

The Falcons stand second in the pool with 11 points, two ahead of Montauban who host Padova on Friday night, and will undoubtedly get five points. They then visit Brive on the final matchday, when we are in Padova. Therefore a win on Friday should guarantee us second place in the pool, however even with 21 points qualification may not be possible, depending on what happens in the other pools. More on that next week, it’s still a bit complicated now.

Our two French opponents were in action against each other last Saturday, with Montauban beating Brive 11-16 away, Gloucester legend Terry Fanolua scoring Brive’s only try. This was a second successive Top 14 defeat, Brive having lost 19-3 to Albi just before Christmas after a successful double header against Padova.

Fanolua is joined in the backs by the dangerous French internationals Ludovic Valbon, who was on the scoresheet against us in October, and Sebastien Bonetti, and the infamous Sukanaivalu “French for Rhino” Hufanga of Tonga. A familiar face in the forwards is former Harlequin Luke Harbut.

Brive arrive in the North East looking for a first ever Challenge Cup win in England in seven attempts, having been beaten at London Irish in successive seasons 1999/00 (37-21) and 2000/01 (35-8), Harlequins in 2003/04 in the quarter-final, Worcester (15-29) and Saracens in 2004/05 (19-6) and last year at Gloucester in the quarter-final (46-13) to go with their mauling at Kingston Park.

Their most celebrated victory however was against an English club, against Leicester in the 1997 Heineken Cup Final, a game which is remembered fondly and still sells merchandise in the Brive club shop.

In the absence of the ineligible Joe McDonnell, Matthew Burke returns as captain at full-back having recovered from concussion. Andy Buist and Brent Wilson replace Mark Sorenson and Russell Winter respectively, and Jon Golding is at loose-head. John Rudd will come up directly against his alter-ego Mr Hufanga, and some guy called McCarthy is on the bench. Anyone know who he is?
15 Matthew Burke (captain)
14 Tom May
13 Mathew Tait
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 John Rudd
10 Toby Flood
9 Lee Dickson
1 Jon Golding
2 Matt Thompson
3 Micky Ward
4 Jason Oakes
5 Andy Buist
6 Geoff Parling
7 Ben Woods
8 Brent Wilson

Replacements:
Johnny Williams
Andy Long
Mike McCarthy
Cory Harris
Joe Shaw
James Grindal
Loki Crichton


Valbon does not make the Brive team this weekend, with Fanolua and Bonetti in the centres. Jerome Bonvoison captains the side from flanker.
15 Nicolas Leroux
14 Sukanaivalu Hufanga
13 Sebastien Bonetti
12 Terry Fanolua
11 Farid Sid
10 Luciano Orquera
9 Tim Clark
1 Luke Harbut
2 Jawad Djoudi
3 Petrisor Toderasc
4 Johan Van Zyl
5 Charl Van Rensburg
6 Jerome Bonvoisin (captain)
7 Fabien Domingo
8 Simon Azoulai

Replacements (from): Franco Pani, Pierre-Philippe Lafond, Denys Drozdz, Alexandre Maleyrie, Jean-Baptiste Péjoine, Maxime Petitjean, Norman Ligairi, Amédée Domenech, Palisson.

On Sunday we saw what a loud atmosphere full of passion and fight can do for our boys – make yourself heard again tomorrow! Do your bit for the cause!!