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V. Ekuasi (11'), S. Ahmed (17'), D. Papunashvili (34'), S. Amone (50')
Tries
G. Cros (29', 58')
E. Herve (12', 35', 50')
Conversions
L. Broncan (29')
E. Herve (45', 78')
Penalties
L. Broncan (6', 8', 40', 62')
This told us two things straight away: US Montauban still know how to win an arm-wrestle at Sapiac, and CA Brive’s unbeaten start was more fragile than the table suggested. What it didn’t tell us — at least not yet — is exactly where the game turned. Until we see the full post-match detail around breakdown returns, penalty geography and ruck speed, we’re guessing at the balance of the fight rather than measuring it.
Even without that granularity, one signal is hard to ignore: four tries to two. Montauban didn’t dominate the game so much as they finished better when they found front-foot ball. When Brive banked early threes through Leny Broncan, the hosts answered with punches that landed — Vaiolini Ekuasi and Stéphane Ahmed in the first quarter, then Dachi Papunashvili before the break — and those moments shaped the whole night. The second-half hinge was simple and familiar: score first after the restart and make the chasers do the chasing. Enzo Hervé’s penalty on 45 minutes pushed the gap out, and Siosifa Amone’s close-range finish five minutes later gave Montauban the cushion they needed.
The outline numbers hint at a different, messier undercurrent — Brive carried plenty of threat, and Montauban had to make a lot of tackles to live with it.
CARRIES
CLEAN BREAK
DEFENDER BEATEN
TACKLE
MISSED TACKLE
TURNOVER WON
TURNOVERS CONCEDED
PENALTY CONCEDED
YELLOW CARD
POSSESSION
SCRUMS
LINEOUTS
If those metrics hold, they underline a paradox: Brive broke the line more often and beat more defenders, but Montauban cashed in better in the red zone. You can file that under decision-making as much as execution. Broncan’s boot kept Brive in range and Geoffrey Cros finished sharply twice, but a misfiring lineout and a lack of squeeze when it mattered — most glaring with a man advantage after Ru-Hann Greyling’s yellow on 66 minutes — left points on the table. Four losses on their own throw is a lot of field position to hand back at Sapiac.
This wasn’t a procession for the home side either. Montauban conceded too many penalties, missed too many tackles and invited pressure with an untidy spell either side of Cros’s second try. The difference was what they did when they finally played off fast ruck ball. Hervé ran the line rather than just managing it, taking eight carries and beating defenders himself, which helped unlock width for Ahmed and Josua Vici to win gain line out wide. Papunashvili’s 119 metres weren’t hollow yardage either — his try before half-time was the sort that flips mood as much as scoreboards. And in the tight, Ekuasi stitched the effort together with 15 carries and 14 tackles, while Romain Macurdy and Joey Walton quietly emptied the tank defensively.
Brive will be more annoyed than spooked. There was enough there to win this: Aymeric Luc was a constant countering threat from deep, Nic Krone carried hard through traffic and Cros finished what opened up. The bench injected some punch, Lucas Oudard in particular, but the set-piece slippage and a tendency to settle for three in promising zones blunted them. At 29–24 with a quarter to play and Montauban down to 14, you’d expect an unbeaten side to turn the screw. Instead, the hosts forced the final meaningful whistle — a penalty that Hervé knocked over to make it a two-score game and remove the jeopardy they’d lived with for ten minutes.
Does the eight-point margin flatter Montauban? Not really. It reflects a night where one team created more pictures but the other coloured inside the lines. Take away that late penalty and it’s a one-score finish, but that penalty arrived because Montauban, even short-handed, controlled the last exchanges better: exit accuracy, kick chase, and enough breakdown nuisance to slow Brive’s final surges.
What do they take from it? For Montauban, this fits the reset story after their Top 14 bruises: Sapiac can still be a filter for title hopefuls, and their attack has teeth when they earn quick ball. The work-ons are obvious — clean up the discipline and tackle completion, because living off last-ditch defence every Thursday won’t hold through winter. For Brive, the first blot on the copybook is more nudge than alarm. Fix the lineout, be greedier in the red zone, and the underlying shape of their game will win them most weeks. Sapiac remains a tricky trip; the lesson is to make dominance count before the ground starts answering back.
