Peter Jackson: Money can’t always buy you success

The more Toulouse have to spend, the more they fail. A club that doesn’t know what it takes to deal with a shortfall, keep falling short, writes Peter Jackson.

According to official figures recently released by the organisers of the French Top 14, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, Toulouse’s budget for last season soared to an all-time high of €35.02m. And where did it get them? Some clubs have the business nous to make a little go a long way. Toulouse, over-exposed to Ulster’s high-octane game on successive weekends, wake up this morning to the grim reality that they have spent a fortune and got nowhere.

While Toulon keep proving that money does buy success on a perennial basis, Toulouse cannot even buy a place in the last eight. Reducing their budget to a mere €32m this season has made not a blind bit of difference. The decline that began some years back has now reduced the old emperors of the European game to another bunch of also-rans — selling-plaiters in a field which for years they graced as thoroughbreds equipped with the cleanest pair of heels.

In dumping them on the seat of their very expensive backsides under leaden skies over the Haute-Garonne yesterday, Ulster applied the coup de grace. They did so with enough style to suggest that the knockout stages will not be an entirely Irish-free zone after all.

Over two decades, only six teams have won what is now known as the Champions Cup more than once. Two, boasting seven winning finals between them, have already gone — Toulouse and Leinster. They have something else in common. Nobody’s afraid of them any more.

A third of the multiple-champion elite is also down and as good as out, Munster.

Who would have imagined a few shorts weeks ago when Ireland pulverised France at the World Cup that their two southern provincial powerhouses would lose seven of their eight matches in Europe?

With Stade Francais next up in Paris in the New Year, it will probably get worse for Munster before it gets better. Nobody could remember last night when they last lost four in a row (Connacht, Dragons, Leicester twice) but as the inevitable inquest rages on, nobody can accuse them of failing on a budget of Toulouse dimension. Toulon are still alive and kicking but, for all the money lavished on them by Mourad ‘Moneybags’ Boudjellal, even they are by no means certain to survive the pool stage. That leaves only two of the elite six on course for the quarter-finals — the Irish-owned Wasps and the English Tigers.

From battle in Brive to professional era

The Welsh used to have a smashing time in France, so much so that on one notorious occasion a few of their players almost ended up in clink. The Battle of Le Bar Toulzac in downtown Brive ensured that Pontypridd’s scrap with the then champions of Europe went on until about midnight.

Maybe the name of the location — Place des Patriotes Martyrs — had something to do with the spilling of probably more bad blood on any Sunday evening in Brive since the Nazis left town in 1944. The flying bottles, chairs, and tables ended with two broken Brive noses and three Pontypridd players arrested.

Not for nothing did Brive’s Test stand-off Christophe Lamaison liken it to a western movie. Fast-forward 18 years to last weekend, to another Welsh team in France. How times change. Within an hour of wringing two points out of Bordeaux, Ospreys’ players were back on the coach for a rapid exit from Stade Chaban- Delmas; nothing to do with any bad blood and everything to do with their jobs as professional athletes.

Taking flight on the wings of the Ospreys from Bordeaux on Saturday night was to see first-hand how attitudes have changed. The players made do with chicken or cheese rolls washed down with water or orange juice from the alcohol-free drinks trolley.

That’s the way they all do it now and properly so, even if it means sacrificing the old school tradition of staying for as long as it took to fraternise with the opposition over endless jugs of beer and carafes of wine.

Sometimes, as any veteran of Le Bar Toulzac will tell you, that turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth. If only Pontypridd had flown straight home instead of going out on the lash.

Biggar left frustrated by TMO nonsense

There are times when the acronym TMO (Television Match Official) sounds as though it ought to stand for something else, like Tedious, Muddling, Officious.

Consider the following scenario from Bordeaux’s tie against Ospreys.

English referee Luke Pearce awards Eli Walker a try that gives the Welsh region the sniff of an improbable come-back. Dan Biggar lines up the conversion, completes his elaborate twitching routine and steps towards the ball.

Pearce blows his whistle. Biggar goes through with his kick, and converts from a difficult angle.

Bemused, he struggles to contain his anger.

Apparently the TMO (Rowan Kitt of England) had put a word in Pearce’s ear suggesting he check Walker’s try for a knock-on. Having given the score without any need for recourse to the TMO, Pearce ought to have stuck by his guns. There was nothing remotely wrong with the try which made it all the harder for Biggar to regain his composure for the re-take.

Not surprisingly, he missed. Imagine the uproar had the Ospreys lost by two points instead of six.

Pau have plenty of senior moments

Do not be surprised should Pau shuffle on to the field for their next Challenge Cup tie behind a fleet of Zimmer frames. In losing at home to the Dragons, the Basque club took experience to hitherto untouched levels of seniority.

For starters, they had the oldest back three in the competition — Damien Traille (36) at full back, Sereli Bobo (40 next month) on one wing, and Mosese Ratuvou (32) on the other. They also had two 35-year-olds, Scottish prop Euan Murray and Irish back row forward James Coughlan as well as a 34-year-old All-Black centre, Conrad Smith.

The 15 contenders

Identifying the last eight of the Champions’ Cup is a tricky business with a few contenders only halfway through the qualifying process but a foggy picture is beginning to emerge so here goes.

Pool winners:

Saracens (P4 , 19 pts), Leicester (P4, 18), Wasps (P4, 14), Racing (P3, 12), Ospreys (P4, 12) or Clermont (P3, 10).

Three best runners-up:

Ulster (P3, 10), Stade Francais (P3, 10), Clermont or Ospreys.

Still in contention:

Northampton (P4, 10), Exeter (P4, 10), Glasgow Warriors (P3, 9), Toulon (P3, 8), Bath (P3, 8), Bordeaux (P3, 6), Munster (P3, 5)

Best of the weekend

Try:

David Strettle for Clermont against Exeter.

Tackle:

Tigers full-back Telusa Veainu on Munster’s Francis Saili.

Wins:

Ulster at Toulouse, Wasps at Bath.

Team:

15 Telusa Veainu (Leicester); 14 Andrew Trimble (Ulster), 13 Elliott Daly (Wasps), 12 Stuart McCloskey (Ulster), 11 Vereniki Goneva (Leicester); 10 Jimmy Gopperth (Wasps), 9 Ruan Pienaar (Ulster); 1 Vincent Debaty (Clermont), 2 Ashley Johnson (Wasps), 3 Wiehahn Herbst (Ulster); 4 Alun-Wyn Jones (Ospreys), 5 Mario Itoje (Saracens); 6 Juan Smith (Toulon), 7 Josh van der Flier (Leinster), 8 Nathan Hughes (Wasps).