European Champions Cup offers a chance for teams to overturn poor form

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/16/breakdown-european-champions-cup-rugby-union

Version 0 of 1.

The new European union tournament – the Champions Cup – starts on Friday night at the Twickenham Stoop, a mere punt away from where fraught and often frantic negotiations took place, more over the telephone than face-to-face, to help the passing of a competition run by governing bodies into one in which the participating clubs wielded power.

On the surface, little appears to have changed. There are four fewer teams taking part, giving the Challenge Cup a Six Nations feel at long last, and of the 20 forming the five groups, nine are former winners. Three of those, Leicester, Ulster and Toulon, are in the same pool.

The loss of some of the weaker teams, such as Zebre (although they look stronger than Treviso this season), Edinburgh, Cardiff Blues and Connacht (although the loss of a team that won at Toulouse last season may not seem to be enhancing the Champions Cup) could in theory take most of the groups into the final round of matches with first place still to be claimed.

The method of seeding teams for the World Cup is contentious, based on world ranking standings three years before the start of the event, but even a close season makes a difference. The opening match is between Harlequins and Castres and if the home side has had a mixed start to the campaign, victories followed by defeats in their six Premiership matches so far, Castres, last season’s beaten finalists in the Top 14 when they were defending their title, have been largely awful.

It is not just that they have won only three of their nine league matches and lie in the bottom three, above the relegation zone by a point, but their away record is dreadful: a 59-7 defeat at Bordeaux-Bègles last weekend followed a 41-16 reverse at newly promoted La Rochelle, a 43-10 thumping at Montpellier and a 35-6 loss at fellow strugglers Toulouse. They are conceding nearly 30 points a game on average and only La Rochelle have a worse average in the Top 14.

Saracens, last season’s beaten finalists, welcome Clermont Auvergne on Saturday, the team they laid waste to in the semi-final at Twickenham in April. Clermont head the Top 14, but they have been beaten at home by Montpellier and conceded 51 points at third-placed Bordeaux, who if they decide to fight on two fronts should make an impact in the Challenge Cup as they are in a pool with Edinburgh, London Welsh and Lyon.

Saracens announced on Wednesday that Clermont – who were entitled to 20% of the tickets in the 10,000 capacity Allianz Stadium – had only sold 33 and said the French club would exceed that number in their official entourage. “The lack of response is surprising,” was the view on the home club’s website. Not quite a brave new dawn.

Toulon will be content with the old dawn having won the last two Heineken Cups. Jonny Wilkinson may have retired, but with Leigh Halfpenny returning from injury last weekend, they are not demonstrably weaker, although they missed his goal-kicking in the surprising home defeat to Stade Français. That they have spent the week mulling over whether to allow Steffon Armitage, the current European player of the year, to return to England and make himself available to play for England in the World Cup, says everything about their strength in depth. And they aim to sign the New Zealand captain Richie McCaw after next year’s World Cup.

Who will stop Toulon? They have lost two matches in the last two European Cups, at Montpellier when they had already qualified for the knockout stage in 2013, and at the Arms Park against Cardiff Blues last season when they seemed as stunned as the crowd when a team that had been overwhelmed at Exeter the previous week took them on.

Toulon start with the Scarlets on Sunday in the Mediterranean. The Welsh region’s injury list grew this week with the scrum-half Gareth Davies ruled out for the rest of the year by a shoulder injury and they have made a mediocre start to the season: two home victories against teams at the bottom of the table and a draw with Ulster outweighed by defeats on the road to Leinster and Munster and a disappointing draw in Edinburgh.

The overdue agreement with the Welsh Rugby Union came too late for the Welsh regions to strengthen their squads this season, but Ospreys are the only team with a 100% record in the three leagues that supply the European Cup teams. They start with a team they have already beaten handsomely this season, Treviso, but then comes a trip to Northampton. What has told against Welsh and Scottish sides in Europe in recent seasons is a lack of strength in depth and that remains for the Scarlets and Ospreys.

Northampton should expect to top their pool. Although they start in Paris against Racing Métro, who have won their four home matches this season, the French club lost to Harlequins and the Scarlets in front of their own supporters last season and they have yet to make the knockout stage, winning seven out of 24 group games.

The Irish teams, not atypically, have made a slowish start to the Pro 12, although Ulster have improved after losing to Zebre and Munster won in Leinster, while Glasgow’s impressive start to the season ended last weekend in Belfast.

Glasgow are in what is arguably the most intriguing group with Bath, Toulouse, whose victory over Toulon on Sunday took them to eighth in the Top 14 one week after they had been in danger of dropping to the bottom, and Montpellier, fourth in the Top 14 and beaten league semi-finalists last season.

Form changes not just from season to season but during one: Leicester were not called a crisis club after the second round of the Premiership having won at Exeter. And now?

• This is an extract taken from the Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly rugby union email. To subscribe, click here