Brive make it five from five, a first in their Pro D2 history

The match turned in a quarter of an hour. Back to within three points after the interval, Colomiers conceded 24 unanswered points and let Brive move clear for a fifth win in five rounds, a run the Corrèze club had never put together in the division.

Colomiers lasted a half and seven minutes. Trailing 17-0 after twenty-five minutes, the Haute-Garonne side came back to within three points straight after the break, then folded in the quarter of an hour that settled the game.

Twenty-four points in twenty-one minutes

Yanis Charcosset opened the scoring in the 13th minute, John Cooney added a penalty in the 20th and Geoffrey Cros doubled the lead in the 24th for 17-0. Thibault Debaes pulled one back in the 37th, then Simão Broeiro Bento brought Colomiers to 17-14 as early as the 43rd.

Brive answered at once. Between that 43rd minute and the 64th, the hosts scored 24 unanswered points: a Cooney penalty, a try from Aymeric Luc, a second from Cros and a last one from Vakhtang Abdaladze. Théo Lachaud and Martin Dulon brought Colomiers back to 41-26 late on without ever putting the result in doubt.

A start Brive had never managed

Five matches, five wins. This is Brive’s eighth season in Pro D2 and the first in which they have won their opening five rounds. Their best previous start in the division came in 2002-03, with four wins and a draw.

The run is no procession. Two of those five wins were settled by a single point, 29-28 at Aurillac, and by two points, 23-21 against Valence Romans on the opening weekend. Brive remain the only club in the division on five wins, ahead of Oyonnax and Provence Rugby, both unbeaten after four rounds.

Colomiers fail to back it up

Six days after putting 66 points on Dax, Colomiers shipped 41 in Corrèze. They have one win in five rounds, 151 points scored and 156 conceded, the kind of record that speaks above all of inconsistency.

Jérémy Béchu started for the first time this season, four months after the collarbone injury that kept him out of the Pro D2 semi-final. For Brive, Benjamin Lefranc picked up the night’s only yellow card, in the 35th minute.