And then there was one. English club rugby’s sole survivors in Europe are Northampton, who have a winnable home Champions Cup quarter-final against Castres this Saturday, but otherwise the flag of St George hangs limply at half‑mast. To suggest the Premiership’s contenders had an underwhelming weekend is like saying global share prices have taken a slight dip.
If you’re squeamish, look away now. Between them Saracens, Harlequins, Leicester and Sale conceded 215 points in their last-16 ties. While Sarries and Sale had their first-half moments in Toulon and Toulouse respectively, would you care to guess the aggregate second-half score over those four defeats? The uncomfortable answer was, ahem, 144-21.
In the knockout stages of Europe, for better or worse, the scoreboard rarely lies. Yes, it can be mightily tough to win on the road – which further elevates Munster’s one-point win in La Rochelle – but the widening gap between the Premiership’s aspirations and the actualité was starkly reflected in Leinster’s 62-0 thumping of Harlequins in Dublin.
How did Munster stun O’Gara’s La Rochelle?
For those desperately in search of fig leaves none of South Africa’s leading sides – albeit for slightly different reasons – have progressed, either. Nor were any of the English quartet expected to advance. Saracens, who ended up losing 72-42 in Toulon, rested their senior internationals while Leicester were also short of some key men in Glasgow. The Sharks arguably confounded many expectations by leading Toulouse 15-10 at half-time, only to be buried beneath a heap of second-half rouge-et-noir points.
But the blunt truth is that even the pre-game parachutist left dangling from the stadium roof in Toulouse had a marginally more elegant landing than some of the Premiership’s finest. Whatever people say about the more free-wheeling, attractive nature of the English league this season, it has yet to translate into tangible Champions Cup results.
The key word in that sentence, of course, is “yet”. Saracens’ director of rugby, Mark McCall, is among those who sense better days just over the horizon as and when the latest wave of emerging English talent gains a bit more experience. “English rugby has got piles of young players coming through who need to be given opportunities and time,” McCall insisted. “Investing in youth and everybody being patient, rather than just grabbing players from overseas, is ultimately what is going to make the difference.”
How long, exactly, will that process take? Toulouse, Bordeaux and Toulon do not obviously look like teams in decline. Leinster may have lost the past three finals but, as they underlined against Quins, they still have enviable depth. The only English side who could currently claim the same is Bath, who bowed out in the Champions Cup pool stage and are now to be found in the secondary Challenge Cup.
And talking to people with extensive knowledge of both the French and English landscapes there are many who envisage the Premiership’s lean spell – the last English winners of the Champions Cup were Exeter in 2020 – lasting a while longer. According to Simon Gillham, the Englishman who became the first non‑French president of a Top 14 side, at Brive, and now chairs the new Tier 2 board in England, the French challenge is destined to intensify in the next few years.
Aside from the momentum and deep pockets of the leading French clubs – “Winning brings winning and money brings money” – Gillham reckons the sheer size of their supporter base will help to drive further success at, among others, Toulouse and Bordeaux. “Lyon will probably go that way, too,” he says. “Great infrastructure and they’re becoming a rugby city. I think it’s all quite sustainable at the moment. There’s a real buzz which is being helped by the national team. And Antoine Dupont winning a gold medal at the Olympics also put rugby on the map.”
In the past such things have been cyclical. Gillham rightly recalls the period, not so long ago, when prominent French players such as Sébastien Chabal and Philippe Saint-André saw the Premiership as a vehicle for career advancement. As the recent Six Nations showed, English international rugby is also perking up. It should be reflected, theoretically, in improved fortunes for their club sides.
But as at Test level the potential within French rugby is increasingly daunting. Money alone does not win rugby matches but it does buy you extra horsepower. And it is that power, regardless of how much pace and skill might be lurking behind the scrum, that is blowing English sides away. They can maybe match Toulouse and Bordeaux for 40 minutes but beyond that it starts to go poire-shaped.
Remember the pool stage when Toulouse stuck 80 points on Leicester and 64 on Exeter, who also shipped 69 points at home against Bordeaux? Or Leinster’s 47-21 win against Bath, who sit atop the Premiership table by 10 points? Only a very creative chancellor of the exchequer could put a positive gloss on those kind of numbers.
So after the vertiginous weekend crash, what next? In the short term, perhaps Northampton will buck the market and make the last four. The Saints gave it a good semi-final rattle in Dublin last season and can at least dream of upsetting RG Snyman, Jordie Barrett et al. Longer term, though, reeling in the French and the Irish will require serious commitment, whip-smart coaching and deeper squads. Particularly if, as seems a decent bet, the stock of clubs in France and Ireland keeps rising. — Guardian
