Remembering what rugby is supposed to be about
Standing in the dugout before Racing’s Top 14 game in Oyonnax was a throwback to why rugby can still make the bristles on your neck stand up. A small town, fiercely proud of their team, created a special atmosphere for the visiting multi-millionaires from Paris.
There were at least three John Hayes’ in the Oyonnax line-up — and two of them in the centre! This was a world away from the moneyed wrangling over the future of rugby in Europe, but it’s one of the delicious idiosyncrasies of the Top 14. So many average teams that rise to the occasion at home, yet have little chance away. Oyonnax play for their people in a way Munster do. Notwithstanding the 6-0 result in their favour, it was a gratifying spectacle.
From the purity of that to the ongoing bickering over the potential restructuring of the Heineken Cup is a leap across the rugby spectrum. When you see suggestions from Wales that some of their top players could be leased to English clubs, it underlines just how blurred the issues have become.
Are we fighting over money or the meritocracy of the European competition? You’d like to think the latter and, in that sense, I appreciate the frustration with the likes of Zebre parachuted every year into the elite phase of the continent’s top club tournament. The smaller entities are entitled to their shot but much like football’s Champions League, there are opportunities in the qualifying rounds before teams make the group stages. That would ensure there are no landslide games that disfigure and distort the Heineken Cup pools.
The Heineken Cup has transformed rugby in Europe, it is greater than the Six Nations in many ways. Just like the FA Cup or the US Open golf, everyone has a shot at the big time, but they have to earn it, surely? Connacht sum up the conundrum: their results in the Rabo do not deserve a place in the Heineken Cup, but then they wouldn’t get to create a bit of history in Toulouse.
The IRB’s Bernard Lapasset once again has sought to minimise the risk of a breakaway group setting up their own Super 10 by reiterating that no such tournament will have its, or the national bodies’, sanction. If that risk subsides, people can focus on the detail and structure of the competition — it does need restructuring and the English and French have legitimate grievances. But what cannot be lost is this brilliant tournament that you do not forsake because some English businessman has a fanciful notion. Or two.
The RFU has held firm thus far. In general terms, the national product in England is better than the club product and I fully expect them to have a seriously competitive team for the World Cup next year. But in Heineken Cup terms, there is a way to go for England. The winner of this year’s tournament will not come from England, I’m pretty sure of that.
Saracens, Leicester and Northampton are extremely competitive, but not to the point they were at back in the day when Leicester were the European bar-setters. Saracens are going well, but they don’t have the X factor when push comes to shove. They play a very pragmatic brand of rugby, based on a Moneyball-type risk assessment and statistical analysis. They kick it accurately, play a pressure game, and rely on a good goal kicker in Owen Farrell. But when it comes to a semi-final, I’d fancy a French or Irish team to beat them.
Leicester have more tradition and success, but the Toby Flood situation is a destabilising complication. How much the coach’s thinking is influenced by whether he is moving to France next season, and how quickly do you hand over the reins to someone else, is a moot point. England appear to have made up their minds already to move on without Flood, but that’s not so easy in the club game.
What Racing Metro found playing Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins in the back-to-back pool games was the difference in the pace of the English game. Top 14 is snail’s pace. Slow, grinding combat. There were seven Top 14 games last weekend, and they produced seven tries. The elegance and elan of Blanco, Lagisquet et al is a distant memory now. Back then it was ‘jouet, jouet’, and there was little defensive structure in France to stop them.
Nowadays, there is plenty of structure but the French are, ironically, the least structured in terms of detail. Does that make sense?
Both Munster and Leinster face big ties this weekend. The smoke signals from Munster seem to be that Rob Penney is determined to stick by Ian Keatley for the trip to Kingsholm tomorrow. Simon Zebo is available but it would be a huge gamble to start him and expect him to find his groove immediately.
I will be interested to see what Munster do with Ivan Dineen though, if James Downey is carrying an injury. In a hotel bedroom in mighty Oyonnax, I watched on my laptop as Dineen showed at Ravenhill the ball-carrying and abrasive defending skills that he undoubtedly has. Injuries have plagued him thus far, but with a good pre-season and a run of opportunities, he gives Penney an option.
One thing I could not figure was how referee Alain Rolland did not go to the TMO on that driving maul over the Ulster line that would have given Munster an unlikely draw. Technology doesn’t lie or make human errors. Why not go there for 20 seconds to be sure? It was a crucial score and players lose faith in the system if that persists.
Anyway, the events of last Saturday at Kingsholm will make Munster’s job all the more awkward tomorrow. Gloucester got pushed around their own backyard by Saracens and they will be damn sure it won’t happen two weeks in a row.
If Leinster get decent weather on Sunday in Castres, they’ll do a number on the Top 14 side because, as alluded to above, the home side won’t be able to play at the speed Leinster can. When they’re properly tuned in for a game, Leinster are as good as anything in Europe and better than almost anyone.
That’s where Ulster are aspiring, but they’re not there yet. For a team that was completely dominant on their own patch against Munster, they almost coughed up a draw against a team that did not play anywhere near its best. You can look at that glass through either end. Ulster were at home, 20 points up, and they needed a late penalty to send Munster home without anything.
Their mettle won’t get tested tonight at home to Montpellier — that gut-check comes next weekend at Welford Road. Now that’s a Heineken Cup occasion.
