BERNARD JACKMAN: Early grip vital for Red machine in Michelin country

Munster are a team who have often faced — and overcome — huge hurdles in the Heineken Cup. Tomorrow, in the south of France, they face another of those seemingly impossible challenges.

Association Sportive Montferrandaise Clermont Auvergne — or ASM as they are more commonly called — now have one of the most famous names in French rugby. The city of Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne region was famous for being home of Michelin. Now the rugby club takes that mantle.

The Michelin family and corporation have close links with the club and financed the construction of their stadium and some of the star-studded squad.

Clermont is a real rugby town, with the team the focal point of the city. They sell out their 18,000 capacity stadium nearly every match and while Michelin drove the club historically, they now attract the cream of the local businesses as sources of income to create a €25.5m budget this season, officially the second highest in France behind Toulouse’s €32m.

Last week they broke Toulouse’s unbeaten home record of 58 matches at Stade Paris in the Top 14.

But while they are successful, they also carry the tag of choking on the big day. Many of their fans believed there is a curse on the club given how many finals they’ve lost.

In the French Championship, they had been runners-up on 10 occasions between 1936 and 2009, before finally lifting the trophy in 2010, with Joe Schmidt as assistant coach.

In Europe, Clermont have challenged in the latter stages regularly but have yet to make a final. Having finally won the Brennus in 2010 they have made it clear they coveted a European title and were desperately unlucky to lose to Leinster in the semi-final last year when Wesley Fofana dropped the ball over the line in the final minutes.

In France, just because a club have a huge budget or star players doesn’t guarantee success or consistency, Stade Paris and Bayonne being prime examples of that.

So what’s most impressive about ASM is their professionalism.

They prepare like English teams, put huge emphasis on recruiting good athletes and make sure their strength and conditioning programme is world class. They reward players who look after their bodies and buy into the club’s vision. They utilise the expertise of the management team at the Michelin Corporation and are definitely the most organised and strategically advance club in France at board level.

From speaking to Nathan Hines the players take ownership of the team’s preparations with head coach Vern Cotter, a very shrewd man manager, organising the bigger picture.

Having advanced from a tricky group and deposing Leinster they were incredibly impressive in the quarter-final, beating Montpellier at home. Since then, Cotter has rotated his squad, using 40 players in the last five weeks ensuring, going into tomorrow’s match, they are top of the Top 14 table with a starting team looking relatively fresh.

They play with pace, power and deception and were the top metre makers in the Heineken Cup group stages this season, racking up an average of 546m per game and 3,274m with ball in hand.

In that quarter-final, five different backs scored tries and when you see the form Fofana is in you have to wonder is there a more dangerous centre in world rugby right now. He has scored 10 tries in 15 games in the Top 14 this season and five in six Heineken Cup matches. Including his tries for France that’s 18 in 29 matches this season.

They like to get the ball to the wings as often as possible and with two Fijians like Sitiveni Sivivatu and Napolioni Nalaga it’s a good strategy. Those two have chipped in with 21 tries between them this season and ASM have now set up a small academy in Fiji to scout for the best young talent. The aim is to bring them over and make them French qualified in three years’ time.

No team is perfect though. While their scrum is rock solid the lineout can vary and the Munster pack did a very good job defensively against Harlequins in London.

Can Munster win? On form no, but this is cup rugby and Munster only need to be better for 80 minutes tomorrow. If you target ASM at the breakdown, make it a mess and push Welsh referee Nigel Owens’ patience to the absolute limit they will take the game to them.

It’s a double-edged sword, though. By putting good numbers into defensive rucks Munster will be short defenders out wide and the wingers will have to make smart decisions about whether to close the line or use the touchline and concede ground.

For all Clermont’s brilliance they have only one trophy to show for their efforts in recent years and potentially there is a doubt in their minds about their ability to seal the deal.

If Munster win they will need to start well and build a score. If Clermont get up a head of steam I don’t think I have seen a team in Europe this season that can live with them.