Aurillac led for two minutes in the whole derby, between the 77th and the 79th. That was the only moment Brive’s perfect run wobbled.

Two minutes in front, and no more

The derby was decided in the last three minutes. Aurillac went ahead for the first time in the 73rd, through an Irakli Mtchedlidze try, then went five points clear in the 77th with a Jack Strachan penalty: 28-26. Two minutes later, John Cooney put Brive back in front with one last kick, 28-29.

Before that, the Corrèze side had led for almost the entire game. Yanis Charcosset opened the scoring as early as the 5th minute from a driving maul, Gatien Masse added a second in the 23rd, and Brive were ten points up at the break, 10-20. Tim De Jong’s yellow card just before half-time was not enough for the Cantal side, who came back through Tedo Abzhandadze in the 47th but never managed to hold on to their lead.

Five penalties from five, after three games without attempting one

John Cooney scored 19 of Brive’s 29 points: five penalties and two conversions, without a single miss. It was the first time this season the Irish scrum-half had attempted a penalty. Over the previous three rounds, against Valence-Romans, Agen and Nice, he had kicked only conversions, nine in all for 10 points.

Put another way, he scored two thirds of his season total at Aurillac. His 29 points put him seventh among Pro D2 scorers, behind none other than Jack Strachan, who has 44 for Aurillac.

Across his career, those 19 points are his second-best haul in a Brive shirt, after the 20 he scored against Vannes in August 2025. And his five penalties equal his record for a single match, set at Clermont with Ulster in the Champions Cup in December 2021.

Four wins, two of them away

Brive are the only Pro D2 club to have won all four of their games. Valence-Romans beaten 23-21 at home, Agen thrashed 37-14 away, Nice outclassed 38-17, then this derby snatched in the Cantal: seventeen points in the table, three more than Oyonnax, who play their fourth game at Agen this Friday.

The two away trips count as much as the two home games. Brive have scored 127 points and conceded 80, and have never lost control of a match, apart from two minutes on Thursday night.

What became of the previous four-from-four sides

Eighteen clubs before Brive won their first four Pro D2 games. Limiting it to the Top 14 era, which began in 2005, there are sixteen, and seven of them went up the following season: Auch in 2007, Toulon in 2008, Lyon three times in 2011, 2014 and 2016, Pau in 2015 and Vannes in 2024.

The other nine stayed in Pro D2. Aurillac, as it happens, made this perfect start in 2015. Albi did it twice, in 2010 and 2014, without ever going up. And the 2021-2022 season saw three clubs start four from four, Colomiers, Mont-de-Marsan and Montauban, with none of them reaching the top flight the following year.

So a perfect start says little about promotion, but it roughly doubles the odds. Just under one club in two goes on to make it, against two promotions for fourteen clubs every season.

Aurillac score and concede more than anyone

Aurillac leave with the losing bonus point, their sixth point in four rounds, from one win and three defeats. The Cantal club have conceded 173 points since the start of the season, the highest total in Pro D2, but have also scored 143, the highest total as well.

Jack Strachan, with 44 points, is the division’s top scorer. Aurillac’s problem is not in front of the posts.