Without jeopardy, the game is nothing

THE journey time between the sublime and the ridiculous can be speed-of-sound short: Clement Poitrenaud, the quintessence of French rugby cool who even on a rough day measured 9.5 on the Serge Blanco scale of elegant running full-backs, covered the distance in three seconds flat during the 2004 Heineken Cup final between Toulouse and Wasps at Twickenham.

- CHRIS HEWETT

Watch the footage of Rob Howley’s winning try and then try to think of a bigger pratfall at the top end of the sport.

Of course, the self-same trip can also take an age, as the good men of Brive discovered just recently in condemning themselves to another season in the second tier of the club game across the water. What Poitrenaud did to himself and his team in a few quick blinks of an eye, Les Coujous matched only after 80 interminable minutes of self-inflicted purgatory at a packed Stade Amedee-Domenech deep in the Limousin.

What, pray, did Brive think they were doing in their end-of-season semi-final with the rank outsiders of Montauban? How could they take the field with all the players anyone had ever heard of - their status as molten-hot favourites underpinned by momentum, pedigree and home advantage - and still find a way of blowing their Top 14 promotion plans so comprehensively, they could barely see their own grandstand for smoke and debris.

Lest we forget, Brive were the second winners of the Heineken Cup - indeed, the very first to prevail in a tournament involving club sides from the full roster of major European rugby nations. More than that, they produced what still ranks, almost 30 years down the road, as the most gloriously captivating, eye-wateringly outrageous act of rank insubordination in the annals of the competition.