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| Falcons Prepare For Brive Challenge |
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| John Rudd beats a Brive defender |
| 10 January 2008, 2:47 pm |
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| Newcastle Falcons acclimatised to their French surroundings on Thursday, ahead of Friday's crunch European Challenge Cup tie at Brive. |
The Falcons travelled a day earlier than usual to set up base camp in the French town, getting the journey out of their systems as they arrived mid-afternoon on Wednesday.
Thursday afternoon saw the visiting Falcons undergo a training session on the back pitch at Brive's stadium, Parc Municipal des Sports, with the French media attending in their droves to preview a potentially decisive match being shown live on TV in both countries.
Local newspapers, radio and TV have extensive coverage of Newcastle's visit, with fullback Maxime Petitjean interviewed in La Montagne newsaper on Thursday hailing Jonny Wilkinson as “the best player on the planet”.
The Falcons face a Brive team which lost only narrowly at Perpignan last weekend, and is captained by scrum half Jean-Baptiste Pejoine.
Brive's English trio of Ben Cohen, Steve Thompson and Ben Johnston are not involved in the game, with Cohen not registered for Europe and Thompson having been pulled out of rugby duties for the next few weeks while he undergoes an intensive personal fitness regime.
Nonetheless Les Brivistes can boast a strong combination including Fijian World Cup star Norman Ligairi, Tonga centre Suka Hufanga and Italian international fly half Luciano Orquera all being among their star turns.
Friday's game kicks off at 7pm local time, 6pm UK time, and is being televised live by Sky Sports as well as full 80-minute commentary on BBC Radio Newcastle.
CA Brive Correze team to face Newcastle Falcons:
15 Maxime Petitjean
14 Ronnie Cooke
13 Suka Havanga
12 Fabrice Estebanez
11 Norman Ligairi
10 Luciano Orquera
9 Jean-Baptiste Pejoine (captain)
1 Davit Kinchagishvili
2 Jawad Djoudi
3 Scott Franklin
4 Fabien Domingo
5 Charl van Rensburg
6 Alex Manta
7 Jerome Bonvoisin
8 Simon Azoulai
Replacements:
Jean-Philippe Bonrepaux
Luke Harbut
Andres Bordoy
Vincent Forgues
Ryno van der Merwe
Gregory Mahe
Nicolas Le Roux |
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