Donal Lenihan: Champions Cup has serious flaws but semis should deliver fireworks
Leinster slid into the Champions Cup semi-finals with ease but Toulon will ask far tougher questions than Sale. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Hard to believe it’s 20 years since Munster lifted their first Heineken Cup on an emotionally charged day in Cardiff back in 2006.
It feels like yesterday with some iconic moments cemented in the brain. Trevor Halstead’s barnstorming try after 15 minutes that helped calm the nerves after Biarritz went into an early lead. The pictures that flashed up on the stadium screens of a packed O'Connell Street in Limerick where, it appeared, everyone in the city had gathered.
Peter Stringer’s iconic try, converted by Ronan O'Gara, down the blind side off a scrum which left the great Serge Betsen flailing in his wake and propelled Munster into a 17-10 lead heading into the break.
Perhaps the greatest of all was the emotional scenes that followed in the stands and on the pitch when the final whistle blew and when the captain, the late great Anthony Foley, lifted the cup to a deafening roar from the thousands of red clad Munster supporters in the Millennium Stadium. After the multiple disappointments that followed since losing the 2000 final at Twickenham, this was Munster’s greatest moment.
In a tournament that offered so much for so long, things have changed and not for the better. Even Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium is no more with a change in naming rights transforming it into the Principality Stadium. We can live with that.
It’s the alterations of a structural nature that have served to dilute a once great tournament that introduced an ever widening Munster fan base to new frontiers, creating so many cherished moments on those great trips to the French rugby citadels of Perpignan, Toulouse, Clermont, Biarritz and Toulon.
Sadly the revamped Champions Cup has failed to capture the same level of interest and interaction with fans. The increase in the number of teams to 24 coupled with the removal of the home and away games at the pool stage simply hasn’t worked.
While it’s great to have the four South African sides in the URC, I think the Champions Cup would be better served without them, given the additional travel requirements placed on our players. The reintroduction of an exclusive European based competition, a reduction in the number of teams participating from the outset and the elimination of the dreadful Round of 16 would also help.
In its current format, the tournament is already inequitable in that no South African side is afforded a home draw from the semi-final stage onwards even if they emerge as top seeds. Instead they have to nominate a venue somewhere in Europe to stage the penultimate round.
Despite its flaws, once the wheat is separated from the chaff from the quarter final stage onwards, the quality on offer is top drawer. Proof of that was there for all to see when we were treated to three truly magnificent encounters a few weeks ago.
The opening decider between the top two English sides, Bath and Northampton at the Rec, proved an epic right from the outset with the hosts winning an 11-try classic 43-41.
The following day Toulon won 19-22 against an in form Glasgow Warrior side in Scotstoun, sharing seven tries between them. In the final decider on the Sunday afternoon, holders Bordeaux Begles defeated tournament specialists Toulouse for the second season in a row by 30-15 in another captivating clash.
The remaining contest between Leinster and Sale Sharks at the Aviva Stadium proved the only letdown of the round in a contest that, once again, served to highlight the flaws in the current format. Quite how a Sale side that had only won three of their 12 Gallagher Prem games to that point survived to reach the quarter final beggared belief.
Leinster won 43-13 without breaking sweat in a sparsely attended match with little or no atmosphere. If you thought Sale were poor that day, the following weekend they were defeated 19-85 at home by Saracens, conceding 13 tries in the process.
Toulon’s unexpected win over Glasgow gifted Leinster a home semi-final and with three weeks to market the game, I’ve no doubt the atmosphere for this one on Saturday afternoon, with over 35,000 tickets already sold, will be appreciably different.
Prior to last Saturday’s defeat away to Benetton, I suspected Leinster may just have timed their run to the business end of the season perfectly for a game they will be expected to win against an accomplished but inconsistent Toulon outfit. That defeat marks another setback heading into Saturday’s match.
In one of their most complete performances of the season, Munster came within a whisker of defeating Toulon - the only club to win three Heineken/Champions Cups in a row - before succumbing 27-25 at the brilliantly atmospheric Stade Felix Mayol. Not many would have backed Toulon to make the last four after that game.
This Toulon team is nowhere near as competitive as the dominant three in a row side driven by Bakkies Botha up front with Jonny Wilkinson directing operations from No 10 in tandem with Mathieu Bastareaud and Matt Giteau. Currently sitting eighth in the Top 14, they do have the capacity to compete with the best when fully dialled in as I expect they will be in Dublin this weekend.
They still have stellar names. Charles Ollivon, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Baptiste Serin and Garl Drean all featured for France in their recent Six Nations winning campaign. With doubts surrounding the fitness of Andrew Porter and Tadhg Furlong, you can be sure that, with Gros at loosehead and former England and Lions prop Kyle Sinckler at tighthead, they will go after Leinster’s recent vulnerability at the scrum.
Elsewhere scrum half Ben White and midfielder Juan-Ignacio Brex featured for Scotland and Italy in the Six Nations in addition to other quality internationals across the back line in Melvyn Jaminet, Argentinian No 10 Tomas Albornoz and flying Fijian try scoring machine Setariki Tuicuvu likely to start on the wing.
Even without a number of frontliners, Toulon scored eight tries in a 52-26 demolition of Bayonne last Saturday while Leinster warmed up for the semi-final with that 29-26 defeat to Benetton.
Even allowing for the fact they were short some key personnel, Leinster still fielded 12 internationals in their starting team. This type of inconsistency has blighted them all season. They can’t just turn up on Saturday and expect everything to be all right on the night.
Toulon have sufficient firepower to ask serious questions of Leo Cullen’s men if they are as lackadaisical in defence as they were in the Round of 16 against Edinburgh or as vulnerable in the set piece as they have been at various times throughout the season to date. At this stage last season nobody saw them losing at home to Northampton but they were ambushed by a very good Saints side that day. Surely they’ve learned their lesson at this stage.
The second semi-final brings two excellent sides together in what should prove another fraught contest. Bath are the current English champions and keen on keeping it that way. Bordeaux are the Champions Cup holders and finished second to Toulouse in last season’s Top 14 final but harbour serious ambitions to topple Toulouse this season.
Tickets for this semi-final to be hosted at the 42,100-capacity Stade Atlantique in Bordeaux sold out in hours. The atmosphere will be electric leaving Bath with a mammoth task to make the final. Despite all the tournament’s flaws, I’ve no doubt we’ll be treated to two cracking games this weekend.
Right now Bordeaux and Leinster look best equipped to make the final but as Cullen’s men discovered last year, home advantage doesn’t offer any divine right of passage.
