European Rugby Champions Cup: six talking points
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Version 0 of 1. 1) Bath’s midfield trio on song to alert Lancaster Bath’s players will reflect on their stunning four-try victory at the Stade Ernest-Wallon with massive satisfaction. England supporters, for their part, will look at the midfield chemistry between George Ford, Kyle Eastmond and Jonathan Joseph and ponder again why the national team have not yet opted to field the dazzling trio en bloc. Test and club rugby are different environments but Joseph, in particular, is playing the rugby of his life. Stuart Lancaster now has to decide whether to plump for the more solid virtues of Brad Barritt and Luther Burrell against Wales in the opening game of the Six Nations, with every indication Barritt’s defensive prowess will count in his favour. And what price will Eastmond and Joseph miss out on the 2015 World Cup squad while another Bath centre, a certain Sam Burgess, makes the cut? If that happens it will tell us everything about English rugby’s modern mindset. Robert Kitson • Match report: Toulouse 18-35 Bath 2) Money talks, so Munster will probably walk Munster will not qualify from Pool 1 in the Champions’ Cup. Above them sit Clermont – part of France’s elite with funds and player salaries that make the eyes of the rest of Europe water – and Saracens, leading the campaign to do away with the salary cap in England. To vie for honours in domestic and cross-border competitions you need a vast squad of seriously good talent. Munster have Thomond Park, still a home to match the best rugby fortresses of France, but they cannot afford a squad that can win the Guinness Pro12 and the Champions Cup. Perhaps it is simply their turn to watch others – Leinster – lead the Irish charge, but the gap between the haves of France and the have-nots of the Celtic fringe seems more stark than ever. For the first time since the early days of the professional age, Munster were brushed aside in Europe. Not so long ago, the clubs of England and France were cursing Ireland’s rugby dominance in Europe. How clinically the wheel has been turned the way of the financially dominant. Eddie Butler • Vunipola ‘a force of nature’ in European Champions Cup• Match report: Saracens 33-10 Munster • Saracens’ protective patches are a game-changer not a gimmick• Alphonsi ends glittering career in style as Saracens seal title 3) Simpson teaches England rival Care a lesson at No9 Just what should be England’s back row in Cardiff? Last week the headlines were calling for Nick Easter; this week they’re calling for Billy Vunipola and James Haskell. Next week? If Harlequins should be criticised for failing to make more on the scoreboard of their dominance – and they should – it is their backs, and the half-backs in particular, who must take to the stand. On another day (the Saturday before, for example) Easter and Chris Robshaw would have been lauded again for their performances here. But they met their nemesis in Haskell, who made 25 tackles, and the rest of a furiously hard-working Wasps defence. Meanwhile, at half-back, Danny Care was shown up by Joe Simpson. Care has always played on the edge. When it works it is highly effective, intoxicating even. But sometimes he is the one intoxicated, and with intoxication comes the odd fall off that edge. He’s had a few this season. Simpson is another Wasp who must be playing himself into contention with England. The standard of England’s No9s might not be quite as high as that of the back-row forwards, but the competition is becoming as fierce. Michael Aylwin • Match report: Harlequins 3-23 Wasps 4) France should recreate Clermont’s half back partnership Clermont Auvergne may not look like obvious winners in the winner-takes-all final pool game versus Saracens – they took 74 minutes to get over the Sale line on Saturday night – but it’s hard to see why Philippe Saint-André, once of Sale but now bossing France, doesn’t select the Clermont half-back partnership of Morgan Parra and Camille Lopez. While Lopez seems certain to start against Scotland, Parra hasn’t made the Six Nations squad of 31, Saint-André going with yet another South African option. Mike Averis • Match report: Sale 13-22 Clermont Auvergne• Hines urges Cipriani to stay at Sale for his England future 5) Wood splinters Ospreys with ubiquitous performance After England lost to South Africa in November, the public inquest tried to answer a commonly asked question: what does Tom Wood do? He was regarde Wasd as the invisible man among the England forwards, someone who scattered defenders as he carried the ball or made eye-catching big hits and he was duly left out of the next game against Samoa. Stuart Lancaster has long held Wood in the highest regard: but for injury, the back-rower may have been England’s captain instead of Chris Robshaw and he was linked with the position as recently as 16 months ago. Wood was a central figure in Northampton’s victory at Ospreys that put them in course not just for a place in the quarter-finals but a home draw. He charged down Rhys Webb’s clearance which led to Calum Clark’s opening try of the game and from the start he haunted Ospreys in the tackle area, making it difficult for the home side to generate the quick ball they coveted. Wood played at No8 the last time England were in Cardiff and he regularly wears No7 for Northampton, but he was on the blind-side on Sunday, his best position, out of plain sight, but far from invisible. Paul Rees • Match report: Ospreys 9-20 Northampton 6) Glasgow on the front foot as they head to Bath Glasgow go to The Rec next Sunday looking to do the double over Bath and qualify for a quarter-final in Europe’s senior competition for the first time. However Jake White’s Montpellier, a team with nothing to lose, did not lay down, leading at half-time before DTH van der Merwe, Glasgow’s Canadian wing, in for the injured Sean Lamont, completed a 68-minute hat-trick. The down side for Glasgow is they could be without their captain, Josh Strauss, who ended the game on a stretcher. Mike Averis • Match report: Glasgow 21-10 Montpellier |