Edinburgh v Brive – EPCR Challenge Cup

Following on from their ‘close run thing’ against London Irish in the EPCR Challenge Cup in the previous round, which they lost by a single point, Edinburgh were hoping to make amends against French side CA Brive in this.

However, the early minutes were a touch nervy and Brive opened the scoring after three minutes with a successful penalty from Thomas Laranjeira for 0-3.

However, without giving away the punch-line, that was the last time that Brive were to see any points on the board as another two attempts at goal were wide of the mark. They did get close to the try line on a couple of occasions, but were denied by superb Edinburgh defence.

Edinburgh, for their part, got off the mark in the sixth minute when, debutant lock, Glen Young finished off the job started by Darcy Graham and Hamish Watson and powered over for the try, Emiliano Boffelli adding the extras for 7-3.

In the lead up to the second try, Brive enjoyed some territorial gains, but had to settle for their third penalty, the second drifting wide, which Laranjeira completely miskicked, much to the amusement of the record crowd.

26 minutes in saw Young score his, and the host’s, second try with a 50 metre break down the right from a kick charge-down. By the time he got close to the line, he was starting to fade, but the Jedburgh man made it over to take the score to 12-3. Boffelli then added the conversion for 14-3.

That just seemed to open the taps as Brive were wondering what went wrong, Edinburgh ran in another three tries in less than 10 minutes of play.

The first came from Jamie Richie off the back of a well worked passing move involving Charlie Sheil, Blair Kinghorn and Mesalume Kunavalu, with the Fijian lock providing the final flip pass to Richie who dotted down for the try.

The next came from Darcy Graham in the 36th minute, when the winger launched into the right corner for his try and he was followed in a couple of minutes later by another debutant, Freddie Owsley, who took the long distance scoring efforts to extremes when he collected the ball in his own 22, broke free, kicked ahead, chased, grubbered, chased and outsprinted Brive’s Axe Muller, to score under the posts.

With Boffelli converting two from three, the half time score stood at 33-3!

Two minutes into the second half, Owsley scored his second in, the favoured, right corner, Boffelli once more proving accurate from wide out to take the score to 40-3.

The home support had to wait another 12 minutes for the next try, during which time Brive enjoyed a period of dominance, keeping Edinburgh’s defence busy and just failing to score when the ball was ripped free by Owsley taking a few minutes off from scoring.

But that was about it for the visitors as the home side ran in another four tries. Three within normal time from Ben Muncaster, Hamish Watson and Mark Bennett and the last from Henry Pyrgos in overtime.

With replacement stand off, Charlie Savala, adding sufficient extras to take the final score out to 66-3 in front of a record crowd. at the DAM Health Stadium.

Images from the match will appear here over the next few days