2023-05-14 00:21:32
By losing at home to Castres this Saturday (13-16), Brive officially recorded his relegation to Pro D2, even before the last day of the Top 14.
Brive, weighed down by injuries and insufficient recruitment this season, saw its last hopes of remaining in the Top 14 fly away on Saturday after its home defeat to Castres (16-13).
One day before the end of the championship, the Corréziens are seven points behind Perpignan, who had put pressure on them by winning a little earlier against the Toulouse leader (26-21).
This epilogue hung in the face of the CAB, good last since February 18 and which had already not passed far from the correctional last season.
A disastrous start to the season
Thanks to a final success on the ground of a demobilized French stadium (33-17), he had escaped the still uncertain barrage on the ground of the unfortunate finalist of Pro D2.
Unlike the last exercises, the Coujoux could not count this time on the presumed weakness of the only promoted of the season, Bayonne, real scratching hair throughout.
The Basques have redistributed the cards of the red zone between the other small budgets of the division, namely Castres, yet finalist last year, Pau and Perpignan.
Simon Gillham’s club has this time accumulated too much delay, in particular due to a catastrophic start to the season. On his first four receptions, he fell three times in his Stadium, which cost his place to Northern Irish manager Jeremy Davidson after the rout against Stade Toulouse in mid-October (45-7).
Long-time injuries
Nothing went in the right direction for the Corréziens, deprived for a good part of the season of several key players like Saïd Hirèche, Setareki Bituniyata, Luka Japaridze, Thomas Laranjeira or even Joris Jurand.
These absences forced them to throw in the deep end of young players (Léo Carbonneau, Mathis Ferté, Tom Raffy) due to insufficient recruitment (7 arrivals, 13 departures), because forced by the DNACG (National Aid Directorate and management control), which blocked the payroll until the arrival of funds from the English investor and majority shareholder Ian Osborne in early October.
During this season in hell, there was indeed a burst around the end of the year celebrations. Two days after the formalization of the arrival of Patrice Collazo as manager, the Brivistes offered themselves the regional shock against Clermont (20-16) after eight minutes of additional time. In the process, they won in Lyon (30-27) before disposing of Toulon (26-17), the former club of Collazo.
The new breath was not enough
This improvement, which coincided with the arrival of Argentine international fly-half Nicolas Sanchez as an additional player, unfortunately did not follow.
Penultimate in the standings on the evening of their success on the RCT, with a 7-point lead over Perpignan, the CAB then lost the match they absolutely should not lose, in their lair, against their Catalan rival (24 -22).
Without perforating players in its pack, suffering cruelly from efficiency in its game behind, the Corrèze club then chained seven defeats in a row since the end of January and sank dangerously until its fall.
Brive, who has been playing in the top flight since 2019, will aim next season to find it immediately, as confirmed by the recruitments of Welsh international third line Ross Moriarty and New Zealand fly-half and Maori international Jackson Garden-Bachop.
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