Given the accuracy of my predictions, my advice to you all is to avoid picking my lottery numbers as the English clubs hit form this weekend to claim several sizeable scalps in the third round of the European Champions Cup.
The only English defeat of the weekend came in Pool 1 where Sale were defeated by, ironically, the other English side in the group, Saracens. A try by Owen Farrell after a mesmerising run by Charlie Hodgson was the stand out moment in a tight and physical encounter, but the big story occurred across the Irish sea as Clermont Auvergne became the first French side to win away at Thomond Park in Europe, blitzing Munster with two early tries from Fritz Lee and Wesley Fofana. The men in red never recovered from this position, and fans of the province will be concerned by the lack of enterprise and invention from their side, despite the undoubted talent in their ranks and the admirable attitude that saw them claw their way back into the game.
In Pool 2, however, the French side was on the wrong end of the result as Castres continued their domestic woes with a surprising home defeat at the hands of Wasps – who, in a superb display, picked up a try bonus point in the process. Nathan Hughes was once again immense for the now Coventry-based club, regularly ploughing his way through defenders and grabbing a try as part of a 17 – 32 victory, but it was their ex-neighbours, Harlequins, who really caught the eye by turning over the mighty Leinster at the Stoop in one of the most eagerly anticipated clashes of the weekend. In a sometimes scrappy game, the return of Joe Marler and Chris Robshaw proved instrumental in providing the set-piece and breakdown dominance which seemed a million miles away when their pack was being humped all over the Rec last weekend. Nick Easter was also in fine form and everywhere in defence and attack, picking up a try alongside winger Asaeli Tikoirotuma, who picked off a loose pass from Rob Kearney (the full back having a shocker all round, to be honest) to help Quins to a fine 24 – 18 win.
Pool 3 also saw an English side turn over a recent European Champion, as the Leicester Tigers ground their way to a 25 – 21 victory over reigning Kingpins, the mighty Toulon. Despite all the star power on show, all the tries came from mistakes rather than moments of inspiration, but that’s not to detract from what was an entertaining and ferociously physical spectacle at Welford Road. The French domestic champions had breakaway tries from Bryan Habana and Drew Mitchell to thank for them staying in touch in a match where they were largely surprisingly outplayed by their domestically-underperforming opposition. The likes of Brad Thorn (who picked up his first try since decimalisation), Dan Cole, Owen Williams and Ben Youngs in particular were all magnificent for the East Midlanders, who have set up a monster clash across the channel next weekend. Ex-Tiger Martin Castrogiovanni also had some strong words to say on his return to Welford Road in an unusual post-match rant, which is worth checking out.
In the pool’s other fixture, Ulster went to script and picked up a bonus point win to haul themselves back into contention for qualification, running out 24 – 9 victors over the Scarlets. Darren Cave was at the centre of all that was good for the Irish province, with Tommy Bowe and Ruan Piennar adding more than just a touch of class as well.
The only French side to pick up a win all weekend were Toulouse, who were unconvincing in their 19 – 11 win over Glasgow in Pool 4, with their compatriots Montpellier taking an absolute hiding at the hands of Bath – winless before Friday night – at home. The hosts may be a bit flaky when it comes to European rugby, but nobody expected the level of dominance that the West Country side brought over the channel – although Mike Ford was left ruing his side’s inability to claim a bonus point, despite having picked up 3 tries by the 50 minutes mark in a 5 – 30 win. In truth, though, they played the filthy conditions superbly, picking some fine tries and making the most of some of the hosts’ indiscipline which saw them pick up three yellow cards.
The first game in Pool 5, however, certainly went to script, as Northampton cruised to a bonus point 15 – 38 win over Treviso in Italy, with Luther Burrell claiming the bonus point try in just the 48th minute. The real nailbiter, however, was at the Liberty Stadium where the Ospreys snatched a 19-all draw against Racing Metro. The French giants had taken what looked to be a decisive lead as Francois Van Der Merwe ploughed his way over in the first half, but superb hands and angles of running – coupled with a never say die attitude – saw Josh Matavesi dive over with just 5 minutes remaining to grab a deserved draw, although Racing realistically remain in control of the pool.
European Champions Cup Star Man: Ben Youngs
Challenge Cup: Edinburgh, Cardiff and Newcastle win as coach declares ‘French sides don’t care’
We’re used to seeing some pretty lop-sided results in the Challenge Cup, but there was nothing run-of-the-mill about Cardiff on Saturday, who turned in an energetic and enterprising display in an otherwise scrappy game to claim a bonus point 24 – 14 win over London Irish, with Lloyd Williams scoring the try of the game after good work by Cory Allen and Richard Smith. Elsewhere, the other Exiles – of the Welsh variety – came dangerously close to winning their first game of the season after leading 13 – 6 at half time in Edinburgh. But the Scottish side ran in three tries after the break to condemn London Welsh to yet another defeat and stay top of Pool 4.
Arguably the weekend’s finest result though came in France on Thursday as Exeter Chiefs won their first game away against French opposition in some style, destroying La Rochelle 10 – 36 in a bonus point win. Their fine result was matched in the North-East of England, where the Newcastle Falcons picked up a bonus point win at home against Stade Francais – the achievement made all the more impressive considering Dean Richards had made 13 changes to the side which had played Sale just 5 days earlier. The game was on a knife edge, with just 2 points separating the sides with 14 minutes to go, until Noah Cato crossed for the match’s decisive score, giving the hosts a 30 – 23 win.
Elsewhere, there were wins for Oyannax, Bordeaux-Begles, Dragons, Connacht and Gloucester, and there was also a gem of a comment from Grenoble coach Bernard Jackman (of former Leinster and Ireland fame) in the wake of his side’s thrashing of Rovigo, who branded the competition “Pointless” and “unsustainable” in its current format.
European Challenge Cup Star Man: Gareth Steenson
Try of the Week: There may have been some more fluid tries, and the run by Charlie Hodgson (who now looks like a vicar) for Saracens’ score was sublime, but in light of the conditions, Leroy Houston’s touch down for Bath’s third try against Montpellier was a work of art, with fabulous handling from George Ford and Henry Thomas in the build up.
Hero of the Week: I was going to hand it to Josh Matavesi for his late effort to rescue a point against Racing Metro, but instead I’m awarding it jointly to Dan Cole and Brad Thorne. Cole has just come back after 10 months out following serious neck surgery, Thorne is roughly 72 years old. Both played 80 minutes against the best club side in Europe and both were utterly superb. Incredible engines.
Villain of the Week: When we say “nobody wants to see fighting” on a rugby pitch, we do, but it has to be a good old fashioned face-to-face slugfest (preferably between props), and not the cowardly forearm from behind, as Antoine Battut demonstrated on Chris Cooke on Friday night. A really pathetic attack all round which did his side no favours whatsoever, and he was lucky not to see red.
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
It was great the see The Blues win comfortably. I was very surprised to see that London Irish were favourites – that old ill informed thing I suspect. The people tipping don’t know what The Blues are like so assume a low Pro 12 team must be really bad, even compared to a basement English Prem team. If we can win again up there next Sat then we qualify but … who gives a stuff really? The broadcasters, the fans and the media have really made it clear that this is a nothing competition. The English really ballsed up the second tier comp, all while laughably actually trying to say they’d make it more important. The old comp had two things going for it – qual. for the top comp for the winner and some big teams dropping down from the groups of the top comp. Without either of those, with the addition of hilarious mismatches (amateur eastern european teams and disinterested French teams) they’ve taken a decent-ish UEFA cup type thing and turned it into the Johnstone Paint Trophy. It’s a perfect microcosm of what the English Elite are going to do with rugby – pull up the drawbridge, make it more elite, less well spread. Let’s just watch Sarries play Toulon for the trophy every year with a couple of makeweights and vaguely surprising results along the way in the groups just to fill the schedules.
Find this view quite interesting. The French have never been that interested in the lower tier comp – how has that changed? Unless their second string pulled them into the knock-out stages then we rarely saw a French team put out their first choice team. It is quite common for French teams to care more about the Top 14 than the Top Tier tournament as well.
Other than the top tier dropping down (which always really annoyed me personally), what has drastically changed? And how would you have it?
Does it not make it more appealing as a Cardiff can to know that you can actually win the thing? It really frustrated me that last two years with Wasps. Smashed our groups just to see Leinster drop down a tier and knock us out. Hardly seems fair for a Tier 2 competition.
It was always clear that the aim was to make the Top Tier competition more appealing with more closer fought matches, and for the most part, that’s exactly what has happened.
Really hate the – “Oh we want the best teams to play in the top tier comp and therefore the two best teams from last year should just play each other every year”. It ignores the quite obvious fact that the best two teams change constantly. Having the top 20 (spread among the leagues) seems like a pretty good balance between a fair spread of teams and keeping the competition competitive.
In my opinion, there are two things the competition is missing:
1. Qualification to the big competition for the winners. Without it, the motivation just isn’t there and it seems a bit pointless.
2. More TV rights – Why not have it on terrestrial TV or something? It’s not as if the matches are being televised at all right now.
Another real thing which really frustrates me is the lack of representation for teams from countries like Romania, Spain, Georgia, Portugal, etc. There was, supposedly, going to be a “third-tier” competition but that seems to be brushed under the carpet now and this year’s “qualification tournament” was a farce. The great thing about the old competition was the way in which sides from those countries could compete and some of them did quite well – e.g. Bucharest in 2013/14. The majority didn’t, yes, but where’s the loss? A genuine third-tier European competition should exist – either that or parachute more clubs into the second-tier competition – it wouldn’t come at a major cost and would certainly do those clubs a lot of good.
Jacob, there were explicit mentions that the 2nd tier comp (and the 3rd tier one, but where is that?) would be made more vibrant, more important. I assumed this meant a few things like better scheduling, better promotion and, seeing as this was all being pushed by broadcasters, much more media interest. The opposite is true. Last year I knew who was in the Amlin, how it was going, etc. This year in most groups there are 2 matches that matter – the matchups between the pro teams/the teams that care e.g. Blues/Irish in our group. We have some redundant matches against Rovigo and Grenoble, the latter of which we will only mess up if we fail to turn up and Grenoble are having a Top 14 campaign that means they put a decent team out to go for a home win.
The only televised 2nd tier matches are the ones with English teams in. The likes of Rovigo are thrown into this cup, they’ll get battered with nobody watching, then they go back to their amateur or semi-pro lives having learned nothing except that you need to be a pro to compete. BT compound that by not giving a toss about even reporting their results consistently.
The removal of a top-comp place for the winner seems to have been the key for turning it into a complete “don’t care” fest. The Blues have been in the 2nd tier a few times, this is the first time I’ve really felt a complete sense of apathy from fans and Broadcasters.
I am fine with meritocratic qual for the top comp but reducing it hasn’t made it more exciting for me. I’m not interested in Sale v Saracens, it’s a rerun of their league games.I never wanted the European cup to be about the best v the best. I wanted it to be the best pro teams from each country v each other. I’m not interested in seeing the English have 7/20 teams at the expense of less rep from other countries. I can see the English play each other every weekend. I want European competition.
These are all old arguments, the format is set now so there is no changing it. But the 2nd tier comp is just going to wither away, it’ll end up like the LV – nobody will bother having a full tilt at it as it does nothing for your profile or bottom line. It’ll be a way of exposing young lads to cross border comp.
I’m not sure a great deal has changed in regards to its promotion though. I haven’t followed it as closely because Wasps qualified for the top tier so to be fair I have paid slightly less attention to it.
I find some of your points slightly conflicting though. You think the inclusion of Rovigo is pointless, but you also want more countries involved? Doesn’t that conflict slightly? Or is it simply that you’d rather see more Celtic representation in the top tier?
I agree I’d rather not see many domestic clashes, but last year would there not have been loads of Pro12 matches played out in Europe?
It’s a balance between the two in my opinion. Every team should have representation, but I also go very bored of the Heineken Cup pools being too easy to predict. Two best qualifiers were always decided pre-tournament when the two Italian teams were having 10 points taken off them by everyone. (I know that is slightly simplistic but it did become quite boring to easily predict which groups would have the 2nd place qualifiers in).
However, the inclusion of Italian sides are important so I think it’s a fair compromise to get one of them in. Treviso this year have been really unlucky that all their top players have left them – I think long term one of the Italian teams will be very competitive.
The English teams definitely get move coverage – especially when it comes to Tier two, and I understand your frustration here. But Broadcasts pay a fortune to be involved, and English sides bring eyes to screens. Unfortunately but unavoidable in professional sport.
Jacob, in terms of the conflict over Rovigo – I think rugby is a sport where the gap between Pro and Am is massive. Dangerously so in some cases. it’s not like the FA cup where a minnow can cause an upset with a team of postmen and carpenters. In rugby the Pro players are so massive, so gym built that to let them loose on a team of Ams could cause some serious issues.
So I want wider representation but don’t want cart before horse – they need to get up to Pro levels first and then join in.
I agree with completely – the gap is much bigger. Although this is a slightly different conversation to blaming the English for the demise of European competition.
Yeah, you’re right. My sweeping generalisation was too broad there. Apologies. What I should have said, instead of “The English” was “a bunch of businessmen who happen to own a few English clubs at this point in time”. I know of plenty of English people who don’t align themselves completely with this view of Rugby as being best served if run along “Football Premier League” lines.
That’s probably fair enough. Are the English owners any different to the French though? We seem to be being singled out here!
I also think, whilst it’ll thankfully never reach football levels, the commercialisation of the sport is inevitable.
I did reply here yesterday but I’ve just noticed it didn’t actually post.
Completely agree that we don’t want rugby to go that way, and it’ll certainly never go as far. As much as I love rugby it’s too complex to ever be as popular globally as football is. That said, I wouldn’t want to simplify it, I love the game the way it is.
On blaming the English, are they different from the French? Do they not have all the same commercial interest? I guess the main difference is the commercial value of the Top14 is so high, that any club that thinks they may drop out (which it quite a few most seasons) see any European competition as a distraction.
I can’t work out the French’s view on this. They didn’t seem as vocal in the build up other than saying they agreed with the English clubs. Then the English clubs seemed to do the running – could have looked like that cos the media found it easier to quote English rather than French over here I suppose.
Now they have what they wanted they still seem to not give a stuff – Clermont, Toulon and possibly Toulouse want to win it, the rest seem to just give it a lash and drop out of it as soon as they lose 1. I say possibly Toulouse as since their domestic form started wobbling they also seem to have put less focus into the cup.
The French do seem to get bored of it quite quickly. I really that it is the commercial side of the Top 14 – it’s worth a huge amount of money to the French clubs. Competing there is deemed far more important than in Europe. Those clubs you mentioned are probably those that have the squads to compete across both, and it’s therefore worth it.
Hero of the weekend – Castrogiovanni for his awesome put down of Cockers.
Villain of the weekend – Castrogiavanni for making Cockhead look like the good guy
Really dislike the fact that there’s no promotion for winning the 2nd tier, but equally really like the fact that those teams in the 2nd tier stand a fair chance at winning it, and don’t have to slog their guts out to get a good pool position, just for a 1st tier reject to drop down and take them out.
Cole was immense. Had Chiocci on toast and although he didn’t snaffle any turnovers he still did well to make himself a nuisance over the ball. Only been back a month but already knocking hard on Wilson’s door, who I must say I feel sorry for. He’s taken his chance well in Cole’s absence and has done very little wrong whilst rarely taking a backwards step in the scrum, Cole is just a quality prop when fit though. Hopefully we’ll see him return to his 2012 form in time for the 6N and WC.
Can anybody remember the last time Corbs and Cole lined up together? It can’t have been as far back as NZ 2012 could it?
2012 sounds about right. But I don’t think Corbs will ever stay fit for long. Him and Croft seem to be two guys who just can’t stay fit.
I am hoping they may be able to… Remember when there were guys like Wilkinson, Sheriden and Shaw who couldn’t stay fit for long, but they managed to get a good run of games and extend their careers beyond the length people were expecting. Tait also seems to have got over the regular serious injuries he was suffering. Whether that is because they went to play for Toulon where the climate and a less gruelling schedule helped them avoid injuries I don’t know. I always remember an article by David Flatman where he said some guys (like him) are unfortunately just injury prone, all the gym work in world can’t overcome, in his words, having the ‘cartilage of a new born baby deer’. Hopefully they won’t be another Rees or Ferris.