Peter Jackson: Champions Cup tarnished if losers already giving up the ghost
Matt Healy of Connacht goes over to score his side's first try despite the attention of Virimi Vakatawa of Racing 92 during the Heineken Champions Cup Pool B Round 1 match between Racing 92 and Connacht at La Defense Arena in Paris, France. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
The credibility of the Champions’ Cup is in danger of being dealt a grievous blow by a famous old English club who seem to have qualified as champion losers.
By the sound of it, Northampton Saints intend writing off Saturday’s tie against Leinster in Dublin, thereby running the risk of making the fixture even more of a mismatch than of late. That really will take some doing considering they have shipped 16 tries and 110 points on their last two visits.
In front of more than 40,000 at the Aviva Stadium this time last year, Northampton lost 21-50, an improvement on their appearance in front of just under 40,000 at the same venue three seasons earlier when Leinster reached 60.
Chris Boyd, the Saints’ head coach, could be forgiven for thinking that his novices could hardly do much worse than the first team. The New Zealander’s pragmatic attitude towards lunchtime at the RDS follows the dismal home failure against Bordeaux, his club’s 12th straight defeat.
"I think you have to win three games out of four to hope to go through," he says.
Losing teams giving up Europe’s blue riband club tournament as a bad job is nothing new but after one match? While Northampton will cite Premiership survival as their priority, others may wonder how a club finishing eighth and losing virtually two-thirds of their matches get into the ‘Champions’ Cup in the first place.
The Saints marching out of Europe will sorely try the patience of the organisers.
Long weeks of almost relentless boredom on the international stage having provoked serious questions on rugby’s right to be part of the entertainment industry, Europe’s clubs provided the perfect antidote.
Just about anywhere and everywhere across the first round of 16 matches, save for the opening one at Northampton, they restored faith in the old game as a running spectacle. The veritable treasure trove of tries included one from a novice wing, Donovan Taofifenua. French, of course, who dared to take pyrotechnics to new heights and succeeded quite brilliantly.
By trusting their instincts and renouncing the no-risk culture, almost every one of the 24-strong cast broke free from the dull-as-ditchwater safety-first approach which put the Nations’ Cup into a strait-jacket.
Ulster-Toulouse defied vile conditions in Belfast on Friday night to stage a match far more thrilling than any during the Nations’ Cup. Bath-Scarlets on Saturday afternoon generated a passion and edge-of-the-seat drama conspicuously absent from last month’s turgid Wales-England non-event at Llanelli.
Connacht’s heroics in taking Racing the distance and leaving them on the ropes of their indoor citadel stirred the soul unlike the national team’s defeats in Paris or London.
On the eve of the draw for the World Cup the French picked out of Irish pockets, the weekend raised a collective question: do Europe’s top clubs play better rugby than their respective international teams? The most recent evidence points to a resounding answer in the affirmative.
No club has ever supplied more than half the quarter-finalists in any season since the inception of European competition a quarter of a century ago. Nobody would bet against France being the first, en masse.
At close of business last night, there were swarming all over the upper reaches of the tournament’s new-fangled pool competition as modified in response to the rampaging pandemic.
Five of their eight clubs occupied places reserved for the knock-out stage: Toulon and La Rochelle in Pool A; Lyon, Clermont and Toulouse in Pool B. Two other winning French contenders, Bordeaux and Racing, are denied a similar ranking on points-difference.
Only three non-French teams claimed maximum points: Leinster at Montpellier, Wasps at Newport and champions Exeter in outclassing Glasgow.
Only the perennial PRO14 champions could open a European campaign by omitting virtually an entire team of internationals from their starting XV and still win by a distance. Given the ruthless nature of their landslide win in Montpellier, nobody ought to be surprised if they end the tournament a little further south on the Riviera next May.
Leinster will be acutely aware of the big beasts ganging up across the Channel.
They don’t come any bigger than the contenders from the Atlantic coast, La Rochelle as run by Ronan O’Gara in tandem with ex-Leinster forwards coach Jonno Gibbes.
There are powerful teams and then there’s La Rochelle. They have five tight forwards whose combined weight amounts to some tonnage: Uini Atonio (24 stone), Rob Skelton (22 stone), Vincent Pelo, Ramiro Herra (both 20 stone) and Arthur Joly (19 stone).
And to think Alex Sanderson, Saracens’ decorated forwards’ coach, said on BT Sport: ‘’Rugby’s a game for all shapes and sizes.’’ It used to be. Not any more.
After days of harrowing tales from former Test players stricken by brain damage, the game will have been grateful for the small mercy of a weekend without any further alarms over traumatic injury.
There were the inevitable cases of players failing the HIA (Head Injuury Assessment), most notably Welsh team-mates Taulupe Faletau and Jake Ball after a clash of heads in the early stages of the Bath-Scarlets thriller, followed by Mike Brown of Harlequins last night.
Legal proceedings on behalf of 11 ex-England and Wales internationals suffering from dementia are due to start today against World Rugby, the RFU and WRU. The action comes with an outspoken campaigner on the dangers of concussion warning of ‘hundreds of cases across the globe – that’s certain.’ ‘
"This is a real crisis for the sport,’" Dr Barry O’Driscoll, whose brothers Frank and John and nephew Brian all played for Ireland, told ’’This is a real crisis for the sport. As the governing body, World Rugby ought to be very worried. The game will survive but the sheer number of those suffering from brain damage will force it into significant, long-term change.
‘’I am delighted this action is being taken because it puts the players first. Sadly it may be too late to help some but at least from now on the players will know all the facts.’’
