Champions Cup a qualified success
Both appointments are already six months behind schedule.
Acting chair Paul McNaughton confirmed there has to be unanimous agreement of all parties around the table to the dual appointments. Best of luck with that. While the vast majority of the existing ERC staff have carried the organisation of the new Champions and Challenge Cups so far this season, the Irish-based company will finally be would up this summer.
With the EPCR now set up in Neuchatel, Switzerland, where the cost of housing dwarfs even Dublin prices, it comes as no surprise as many as 11 of the existing 15 ERC staff are set to accept redundancy packages. They can be proud of their achievements over the last decade.
While the off-field wrangling continues, the first pool stage of the Champions Cup has been highly successful in my book, with even more drama and teams remaining in contention to make the knockout phase in round six of action than ever before.
With three second-placed slots on offer from a reduced number of pools, nobody was sure how many points would be required to make the cut as a best-placed runner-up. When Munster rescued that losing bonus point at the death in Clermont, Anthony Foley set an immediate target of 19 points, the lowest to make the cut under the old Heineken Cup format, for Munster’s final two games, yet Saracens made it through as eight seed on just 17 points this time out.
With the obvious exception of Castresn whose miserly one point return from six pool games was abysmal given they contested the French Top 14 final last June, the fight to make the quarter finals offered fascinating contests last weekend.
Pool 4 offered the most drama with Bath, Glasgow, and Toulouse fighting it out to the death. As the shorelines fluctuated throughout the afternoon, all three occupied the qualification slot at one point or another. It was akin to Lanagan’s Ball — one stepped out and one stepped in again. Glasgow were magnificent in defeat against Bath at the Rec while the indifferent season Toulouse are experiencing in the Top 14 finally came back to haunt them against an under-performing Montpellier outfit.
Guy Noves’ men exit this season’s tournament after being in a very strong position with successive wins in their opening four pool games while, for the first time ever, a team that lost their opening two contests advanced to the last eight.
In fact there were two, with Bath incredibly recovering to top their pool and Wasps also sneaking through despite those early setbacks. That level of competitiveness is good for the tournament and teams will now appreciate it is worth hanging in there as the points required to advance has reduced somewhat.
Castres were the exception on that front but gave up the ghost even before the tournament started given their massive problems in the Top 14. Sale didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory in Limerick, either. It was great to see Benetton Treviso battle back to secure a win over the Ospreys last Saturday but the anomaly still exists where a pool with an Italian presence is guaranteed two teams advancing to the knockout phase. In a competition as tight as this new 20-team format, that is unfortunate in the extreme but difficult to avoid it you want to retain a true European feel.
Other than that, the revised competition has worked well. While the gap is widening between the haves and the have nots in financial terms, that had begun to take hold in the old format anyway, with Toulon capturing the last two Heineken Cups on offer.
The increased domestic television deals secured in France and England was already on the cards so their respective budgets were always set to increase. The only way the Irish, Welsh and Scottish clubs can close the gap on that front is to replace the Aviva Premiership and Guinness Pro12 with a British and Irish league. The IRFU need to start pushing that agenda immediately to have any hope of remaining competitive in club Europe.
The area requiring serious adjustment is the Challenge Cup. No automatic slot in the senior tournament for the winner has removed all the incentive and having no French side in the last eight is a serious anomaly and tells its own story. That said, at Connacht’s stage of development, winning the Challenge Cup would offer a massive boost and prove a worthy achievement. While I fully understand Pat Lam’s decision to prioritise a top-six finish in the Guinness Pro12, the benefits to be derived from lifting silverware should not be underestimated.
And so to the Six Nations. The big positive on that front over the weekend was in the respective performances of Keith Earls and Luke Fitzgerald. Those two have been inextricably linked since school days when they played together in the same back line for the first time against England schools at Temple Hill in 2005. Fitzgerald lined out at full back, Earls was in the centre while Cian Healy was Ireland’s loose head prop.
Within four years, Fitzgerald and Earls were on a Lions tour to South Africa and a long tenure on the international scene beckoned. Unfortunately both have been blighted by injury since that tour more than five years ago and slipped down the pecking order.
Earls has never featured for Ireland under Joe Schmidt but the New Zealander is known to be a fan. He must have been delighted therefore with the immediate impact Earls made in his first start of the season against Sale last Sunday.
The Earls try that lit up the opening phase of the second-half offered a timely reminder of how devastating he can be in attack. While his lack of recent game time will mitigate against a speedy return to the Six Nations matchday squad, a role with the Wolfhounds in Cork on Friday night may help to open a door to a place in Schmidt’s World Cup squad. All indications are that Fitzgerald will bypass a potential reunion in Wolfhounds colours as he looks bound for Rome. Either way its great to see both back playing and out of the physio room.
Incredibly Fitzgerald has never played in a World Cup, agonisingly missing out on marginal selection calls in 2007 and 2011. With a positive run of games under his belt in recent months, its finally looks as if the succession of injuries that have stalled his career are behind him.
Since his return he has seized the Leinster jersey vacated by Brian O’Driscoll and has put his hand up for inclusion in Schmidt’s midfield over the coming weeks. It was his defensive attributes against Wasps that will have pleased Schmidt the most as it is well documented that the outside centre channel is the most challenging in terms of making those key defensive reads.
Robbie Henshaw has been outstanding for Connacht but Schmidt may deploy him at inside centre with Jared Payne and Fitzgerald vying for O’Driscoll’s old slot. Gordon D’Arcy hasn’t gone away either, even if he has lost out in selection terms for Leinster’s big games recently.
This time last year we were savouring the last days of an iconic rugby figure. Twelve months on, and I’m sure even O’Driscoll would appreciate that Schmidt has a few more midfield options than he dared imagine only a short time ago.
