Border Telegraph | Sport | Brown blasts Reivers away

Friday, 5th December, 2008

Published: Wednesday, 1st February, 2006 10:07

Brown blasts Reivers away

By Border Telegraph Sport

Leinster 62, Border Reivers 14

BORDER Reivers must be sick of the sight of Gary Brown by now — the flying Dubliner scored his second successive hat-trick against Steve Bates' side on Friday night as Leinster cut loose for a 62-14 Celtic League win.

Brown took his chance with the cream of Leinster's backline away on Ireland duty to help the Irish province into second in the table.

Bates' men will not need to be reminded, but Brown also scored three times against them in a 50-13 Donnybrook defeat in September 2004.

Still within an away league win since September, Borders were competitive until the finish at Donnybrook on Friday but the gulf in class was overwhelming. Winger Nikki Walker's two first-half tries were the only high points.

Minus half the side that helped them beat Bath in the Heineken Cup, Leinster were still a force. Of course, it helps when you have a fly half of the ability of Argentinian Felipe Contepomi binding things altogether.

The Puma star, whose wife Paula gave birth to a baby girl, Catalina, on Friday morning, crowned a landmark day by scoring a try and kicking 17 points.

Borders' biggest defeat of the season looked on the cards early on — their Irish hosts had a bonus point in the bag by the 28th-minute.

Poor defence allowed Kiwi lock Bryce Williams lurch over for the opener after only two minutes. Contepomi converted, added a penalty and the extras to his own try on 18 minutes to push through the 400-point barrier in Leinster colours.

Reivers' first attack of note on 22 minutes, then garnered them a try. Ben MacDougall muscled his way forward, the ball was recycled and Brendan McKerchar switched play over to the left to put Walker over near the posts. Charlie Hore converted for a 17-7 deficit.

With a minute remaining in the first half, the 23-year-old Walker notched his fifth try in nine league outings, but Leinster still turned around with a 36-14 interval lead.

Hore intercepted a Contepomi pass, Calum MacRae and Garry Law helped bring play into the Leinster half and Walker was put over from 15 metres out. Hore again converted but Brown's first half brace and axed Ireland star Denis Hickie's 50th try for his province had the men in blue bubbling nicely.

A one-sided second half saw Brown (51 minutes), Rob Kearney (59), replacement Niall Ronan (60) and former rugby league player Jonny Hepworth (65) all breach the Borders' cover on a sorry night for the visitors.

Bates said afterwards: `We gave Leinster too many opportunities to come at us in the first half.

“You have to take your hat off to them though. They played with a huge amount of confidence and Contepomi was outstanding.`

Borders, resident in sixth place, resume their league campaign with a trip to last season's champions the Ospreys on February 17.

Leinster - D Hickie; G Brown, K Lewis, J Hepworth, R Kearney (B Burke 63); F Contepomi (capt) (J Sexton 75), G Easterby (B O'Riordan 63); R Corrigan, B Blaney (D Blaney 66), E Byrne, A Byrnes, B Williams (D Toner 65), E Miller (N Ronan 55), K Gleeson, J Heaslip.

Border Reivers - C MacRae; S Moffat, B MacDougall, G Law, N Walker; C Hore, B McKerchar (J Weston 65); P Thomson (capt) (T McGee 64), R Ford (S Scott 57), G Cross, S MacLeod, O Palepoi, K Brown (A Rennick 66), S Sititi, A Miller.

Social Bookmarking What are these?