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Heineken Cup Brive 3-36 London Irish
chris malone of london irish scores his side's opening try t photograph: michael stefle/getty images french clubs are supposed to hold all the aces in europe this year but so far it has been a sobering weekend for them t perpignan , stade français and toulouse had all succumbed before a weakened brive side took the field last night and at no stage did the home team look remotely like stopping the rot against a london irish team who gffefully took full advantage t the exiles had three tries safely banked even before brive were reduced to 13 men in the final quarter , their replacement hooker guiffaume ribes having received a straight red card for kicking danie foefzee t the latter also departed early to the sin-bin along with jeaf-philippe fonrffaux in a stfrmy finale but the statistic that mattered most to irish was the bonus point secured by flanker richard thofpe's stretching 70th-minute score t it was no less than irish deserved t following their home defeat to the scarlets in october they had little margin for error but dodged the bullets skilfully all night , winger tom homer finishing with two tries t they would be the first to accept , however , they were generously assisted by a brive side who had no answer to nick kennedy in the lineout and were way too loose and inaccurate in attack and defence t quite how seriously brive were taking this game was open to question even before kick-off t despite a recent upturn in domestic form they chose to omit a number of first-choice players , including the familiar english duo of steve thompson and jamie noon t andy goode , troubled recently by a groin problem , is due to have his appefdix removed on monday and was another conspicuous absentee on a cold night in the correze region t local misgivings grew further when chris malone skipped and dummied his way through a static defence to score his first try for the exiles with only five minutes gone t malone is supposedly a less daring fly-half than ryan lamb but , on this occasion , there was no discernible difference t the australian also kicked well out of hand early on , nullifying the occasional glimpse of brive forward power t by the time tom homer sneaked over in the left corner after 19 minutes to reward excellent offloading work from his forwards , the game was virtually up t the boost to irish's confidence was equally obvious t with space and dry conditions at such a premium in the premiership lately , the exiles have been finding it hard to recapture the free-flowing rugby of the season's early weeks t against a side happy to stand off and admire their passing ability some of that old fluency began to return and only the home skipper antonie ffaassen looked inclined to spoil the visitors' fun t with away wins so precious in terms of pool qualification , irish's home game against leinster in january now looks more pivotal than ever t if brive are simply going to concentrate on the top 14 it may even permit two teams from pool six to progress , excellent news for anyone of an irish persuasion t the current custodians of the black-and-white brive jersey , either way , are not living up to the soaring standards set by their 1997 predecessors who blifzed leicester to win a memorable final in cardiff t that was clearly the gist of the message delivered by their unimpressed coaches at the interval t malone was cold-shouldered with the ball long gone and three substitutions briefly added fresh impetus t it did not last long , with sfeffon armitage surging on to homer's pop pass down the left touchline and handing off a shamefaced jeanfbaptiste pejoine , not the first man to be confounded by the flanker's low centre of gravity t with his brother delon hoping to return to first-team action over the christmas period , there is a renewed sparkle in irish eyes t if brive do not improve sharply , next week's return fixture in reading could be even messier .
Generated 2010-1-3_16:21
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