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LEICESTER TIGERS v BRIVE
THE BIG MATCH
Tigers welcome Brive in the opening game of European competition
FROM BOTH SIDES This is the first meeting of Leicester Tigers and Brive since the 1997 European Cup Final when the French PREVIOUS side made a mark in history as the only MEETING winners who have never clinched their 1996-97 own domestic league title. HEINEKEN CUP FINAL That 1997 team was hailed far and wide as rugby’s great entertainers and ended Tigers’ dreams of lifting European silverware at the first time of asking, winning 28-9 in the final at Cardiff Arms Park in front of a 41,000-strong crowd. Tigers had to wait four more years to be crowned kings of Europe, beating Stade Francais in a famous final in Paris before retaining the trophy with victory over Munster a year later. Brive were in 11th place in the Top14 when the 2019-20 season was suspended after just 17 rounds and had an even record - won 3, lost 3 - in the Challenge Cup, finishing second in their pool behind eventual trophy winners Bristol Bears. Tigers reached the semi-finals in the club’s first-ever Challenge Cup season in 2019-20, losing just once in the pool stages and moving through to the last four when the quarter-final against Castres Olympique was cancelled following a Covid outbreak in the French camp. It was Toulon who ended the run, winning 34-19 in the re-arranged fixture in September.
In a muchtravelled career which started as a teenager at Welford Road and featured two spells with Tigers, fly-half Andy Goode also spent a couple of seasons with Brive from 2008. Goode joined Tigers from Coventry and went on to accumulate 1,799 points in 200 appearances, starting the Heineken Cup Final triumph in Paris as a 21-year-old in 2001 and also the 2007 final against Wasps. At the end of his second spell in 2008, he moved to Brive and had spells with the Sharks in South Africa, Worcester, Wasps and Newcastle Falcons before finally retiring after 18 seasons in the professional game.
