On Rugby: Come the New Year and Irish eyes will be focused on England. Munster v Gloucester, Leinster v Sale and Ulster v Leicester represent an intriguing trio of pivotal Anglo-Irish confrontations in the third and fourth series of the Heineken European Cup. Back-to-back and, to a large degree, make-or-break, writes Gerry Thornley
As things stand the Irish provinces couldn't have started a whole lot better. Of course, nobody qualifies for the knockout stages before Christmas, though you can get virtually knocked out. No team has ever reached the knockout stages after losing their opening two games, so Bourgoin can probably join the Italians, the Borders, Cardiff and the Ospreys in focusing on domestic issues.
Five wins out of six gives the Irish the highest winning ratio of any nationality in the teething stages of this season's competition. The English clubs are next, with eight wins from 12, or 66 per cent, then the Scots (two from four, or 50 per cent), the French (five from 12, or 41 per cent), the Welsh (four from 10, or 40 per cent) and the Italians (none from four).
The one Irish blemish so far was still gnawing away at Ulster captain Andy Ward an hour after Friday night's Herculean win over the Parisian Globetrotters of Stade Francais. With each team having had one home win, Pool A looks wide open, but that defeat to the Gwent Dragons in their most winnable-looking away fixture on the opening weekend still looks costly for Ulster.
Granted the Dragons haven't lost at Rodney Parade this season, but it will be a surprise if Leicester and/or Stade Francais don't beat them there. The make-up of this pool suggests only the winners will go through to the last eight but then again, you never know.
Leicester probably feel they're best placed in this pool, and were obviously pleased Stade slipped up in Ravenhill, but they'll only remain in the driving seat if they win in Ravenhill themselves on Sunday, January 11th. Ulster may well have to play better again that afternoon (the 1.0 p.m. kick-off is less likely to reproduce the white-hot Friday night atmosphere) for as Stade coach Nick Mallett observed afterwards "Leicester have got a far bigger, stronger pack than ours."
The ratio of home wins is even higher than normal, running at 75 per cent all told and 80 per cent excluding games involving the Italians. Ulster's deserved win over Stade in Ravenhill was a classic case in point. Aside from home support lifting sides by 10-15 per cent, Mallett argued that in any competition in the world home sides invariably get more of the penalties.
"I thought we were very heavily penalised," ventured Mallett. "I think the penalty count was something like 12-5, and seven-one in the first half. A number of 50-50 decisions went against us, but that's not unusual in front of a passionate home crowd. I'll give you one simple example. We were penalised for holding on the ground when one of your guys went in to take the ball, and in exactly the same situation we were penalised for handling in the ruck. And there was absolutely no difference in the two situations."
Mallett, who stressed he didn't want to question the worth of Ulster's win, also had a case when bemoaning the referee's failure to award his side a penalty after a lineout drive was brought down at a time when they were leading 17-12 in the second half. But the shoe has been on the other foot, as Ulster can readily testify from their trip to Biarritz last season (ditto Leinster two seasons before).
In half a dozen away games so far, French sides have lost the lot, either scarcely turning up (Toulouse in Edinburgh, Biarritz in Lansdowne Road and Bourgoin in Gloucester), or imploding to some degree (Stade themselves, or most blatantly, an ill-disciplined Agen in Northampton). By contrast, they've played with customary fire and gusto at home, where the only blemish has been Bourgoin's one-point defeat to Munster.
The English clubs are six from six at home. Gloucester, for example, have never lost a tie at Kingsholm. Officially, the line is no Irish side has lost a "home" tie since Ulster's 21-13 defeat at Ravenhill in their final pool game three seasons ago. This, of course, conveniently overlooks Leinster's semi-final defeat at Lansdowne Road last season to Perpignan so, frankly, this column isn't buying that one.
However, it is valid to say that - more than anywhere else - Irish grounds have become impregnable fortresses in the group phase. Between the three of them, Munster, Leinster and Ulster have put together 21 consecutive home wins in the pool stages.
The crystal ball already has visions of a Munster-Wasps final. But there's a long way to go, with many more home wins to come, dodgy decisions, lucky breaks - not least in the draw at the knockout stages. And one mustn't forget the example of Gloucester last season. How often did we read and hear of the carnage they were about to wreak on the rest of Europe?
But, save for the Celtic Cup, they don't tend to give out trophies before the turn of the year. It may be a winter game, but the filthy conditions seen all over the place last weekend will eventually give way to spring.
Indeed, it's possibly more than a coincidence that in the six seasons under the existing format of six pool games, no team has actually gone through the competition unbeaten. Furthermore, the likes of Leicester and Gloucester will improve as the season progresses. And the French sides had only played four championship matches before the European Cup and the heavyweight quartet of Toulouse, Stade Francais, Perpignan and Biarritz will surely improve from their slightly desultory starts. They're too good not to.
gthornley@irish-times.ie
