Red Dragon now a green-eyed monster
In a way it is the best of times and the worst of times. Last November the top three sides in the game, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, all came to Cardiff less than a year out from the World Cup.
England, who have finally begun to show signs of a revival under Martin Johnson, arrive in the capital city for the opening game of the Six Nations on a Friday night.
To cap all of that the Heineken Cup final is set for the Millennium Stadium on May 21, with the Amlin Challenge decider the night before in the city’s other spanking new arena, Cardiff City Stadium.
With the national side proving well off the mark against the big boys from the Southern Hemisphere in the autumn, the last straw came when Wales just about scrambled a draw at the death against Fiji.
So the focus turned to the regional sides. Surely, with the incentive of a home final in both European competitions, one of the regions would make a decider and offer a pre-World Cup boost.
In the wake of the weeping and gnashing of teeth with Munster’s failure to make the Heineken Cup quarter-finals this season, it is worth taking stock and recognising just how much Irish rugby punches above its weight in European competition. What the Welsh would give for just a fraction of the success Irish rugby has enjoyed in the Heineken Cup alone over the course of the last 12 years.
If Munster were the standard bearers and a shining example to all clubs on and off the field across Europe — remember it is less than two years since Ian McGeechan built his Lions squad around the qualities that the Munster players brought to the table — then there is no doubt that Leinster have now taken the baton.
Irish rugby is set to reap the benefit of their advances and be sure Munster have no intention of languishing in the background for too long either.
Ulster too have been inspired and pressed into action due in no small way to the achievements of their southern brethren and their presence in this year’s quarter-finals offers not only another huge boost for the game on this island but maintains a remarkable consistency in European competition.
The much vaunted Aviva Premiership in England contributed six participants to this season’s Heineken Cup yet produced only two quarter-finalists, a return of 33%. Two of their teams, Saracens and London Irish, finished bottom of their respective pools while Bath only fared marginally better in third place, primarily due to the presence of Aironi in Pool 4. Ireland, with three teams and two quarter-finalists, posted a 66% success ratio and even at that Munster only lost out by a single point and qualify for the Amlin.
The French have had a massive change of attitude to European competition and are now the dominant force with four teams bidding for Heineken Cup glory and a remarkable five in the knockout stages of the Amlin.
Wales, Scotland and Italy have no side in either competition.
Therefore it is about time we started to appreciate the consistent level of success that our provinces have delivered in Europe and recognise the massive effort that goes into maintaining that level of consistency.
With the boost of an attractive draw, Leinster have now been installed as favourites for the Heineken Cup. If they can negotiate the demands of their tricky quarter-final against Leicester Tigers, I believe, they will repeat their success of 2009. I am more concerned about the threat the Tigers bring to Dublin than I would be if Toulouse were travelling at the moment. The holders were poor against Wasps on Sunday, even before Florien Fritz was sent off, and were even worse the previous week when they only accounted for the Dragons at home by 17-3.
JOE SCHMIDT has impressed me this season but he faces more uncharted territory in preparing a side for a Heineken Cup quarter-final with only one collective game together due to the demands of the national squad for the Six Nations. That one game incidentally should prove a useful warm up and will certainly be competitive given that it is against Munster in Thomond Park.
Leinster have always been the sleeping giant of Irish rugby. I can remember travelling to watch them in the early days of the Heineken Cup when the Leinster branch would be patting themselves on the back after selling out Donnybrook on a Friday night. The capacity at the time was 7,000 and I felt even back then that they should be pushing for a target audience in excess of 20,000.
That target has now been realised with the impressive phased development of the RDS, while the completion of the new Aviva Stadium offers them the resource and capacity to expand their business model even further.
That is why there was no surprise when they announced on Monday that they would be shifting their quarter-final from the RDS to the more lucrative surrounds of Lansdowne Road.
The only consideration to take, other than financial, was the views of the team and management and if they were comfortable in making the switch given that it would facilitate the presence of upwards of 12,500 raucous Leicester Tigers fans. After their positive experience in the Aviva against Munster and Clermont Auvergne earlier in the season there was no real surprise when the players and management backed the move.
The advent of the Aviva Stadium offers Leinster an outstanding opportunity to expand their fan base and with a clever and well thought out ticketing strategy, generate substantial reserves of cash.
Like it or not money is a necessary evil in professional sport and as we have seen in soccer those with it tend to do a lot better than those without it. How bad if Leinster manage to hold on to one of their own home grown talents in Jonny Sexton or Jamie Heaslip on the back of the additional finance generated by moving a handful of games to rugby headquarters every year? Irish rugby will also benefit by keeping the star players at home.
