Agen (AFP)

After his heavy defeat last week on his home ground against Toulon (44-25), Agen won his match against Brive (16-10), a direct contender for the maintenance, Saturday at the 2nd day of the Top 14.

Christophe Laussucq, successor of Mauricio Reggiardo at the head of the formation agenaise, can blow because his team was able to react after its mistakes of the past week.

"This win is good because we know what we play (maintaining, Ed), that each game will be complicated for us this season, and that we remain the favorites for the downhill in Pro D2," said Laussucq, also noting that his team could have made the game easier.

The trip to Pau on behalf of the third day may be an opportunity to confirm the progress of a group that said the manager has "not let go" and who hopes the manager could "break free" with this victory

For Brivists, high level learning is difficult. Already beaten by Pau (33-14) they concede a second defeat in two displacements and without any point.

They preferred, unsuccessfully, to snatch a miraculous victory from the mermaid rather than choosing a penalty to win the defensive bonus in this meeting where they made too many mistakes and they ended up outnumbered with the expulsion of the young Rico Buliruarua.

"There were still some positive things in defense, but also in the melee conquest," said Brive sports director Jeremy Davidson. "It's up to us to put things back in order for our next game at home," he added.

For his first home, next week, Brive welcome Clermont who, despite the absence of 10 internationals, makes an ideal start of competition, with two successes.

In this match of fear, the first period was chopped by the technical faults of two clenched formations. In this fight, there were only very few chances and the Agenais passed in the lead thanks to two penalties of Raphael Lagarde (6-3, 29th).

The Agenais also suffered a blow with the knee injury of the back Mathieu Lamoulie just after the siren.

At the restart, the match opened for a few minutes. Mixed half Paul Abadie infiltrated and scored the first try (13-3, 43). Scotsman Alex Dunbar responded immediately (13-10, 48th). He thus scored his first achievement in the Top 14, it was insufficient.

© 2019 AFP