Mike Ford tells Leinster not to lose hope of qualifying

Dai Young was adamant after Wasps’ win in Dublin that Leinster weren’t done in Pool Five of the European Champions Cup.

His Bath counterpart Mike Ford said as much on Saturday evening after his side had condemned the Irish province to a second defeat in two games.

Ford’s words sounded less plausible given the double dose of pain. Yet the former Ireland defence coach was not simply dishing out empty soundbites as Bath qualified for the quarter-finals last year despite losing their opening fixtures to Glasgow and Toulouse.

“We lost our first two games, we only had a point and topped the group,” he pointed out. “The way we handled it, we didn’t even think about qualifying and we went to Montpellier (and won).

“That was the next game and all of a sudden we were back in the frame.”

Easier said than done, of course and a Toulon side chasing a fourth successive European Cup is a sight more challenging than Montpellier, even if Isaac Boss was making similar soundings ahead of yesterday’s meeting of Toulon and Wasps.

“Definitely,” said the veteran scrum-half: “Toulon haven’t played anybody yet and it is a strong pool. We’ve got to win all the rest of our matches to put ourselves in that position. We might need a bit of luck, but we’ve got to be positive. We’ve got to put ourselves in the position, that we’re that second team. We’ll worry about that in two weeks, that’s the nature of the beast. Ulster are smarting from their game as well (against Saracens) so we have a big game (at the RDS) on Friday night.”

The fight may go on, but there was an unmistakable sense of an era ending at The Rec on Saturday and there was a sense of symmetry in the fact that the 19-16 scoreline was identical to that which saw Leinster claim their first Heineken Cup at Leicester’s expense in 2009. Ulster’s comprehensive loss at home to Saracens on Friday evening was just as concerning and, in its own way, emblematic of the reduced punch which the provinces now carry in Europe.

Boss, naturally, doesn’t agree with that viewpoint. “Not at all. Everyone is quick to jump on the bandwagon, whether it is doom of gloom or the positive thing, but that is the way it goes. It is those small margins. There is a lot to play for. There is a long way to go yet, another few months, so we’ll see what happens.”