Gerry Thornley On Rugby: It's true the flaws in the Leinster pack and in the Munster backs have been exposed in the run-in to the pool stages of the Heineken European Cup. It's true too they've drawn shortish straws in the quarter-finals. But then a sharp dose of reality might be no bad thing.
After the performance of the Leinster pack, and especially their lineout and scrum in Bath last Saturday week (with three of the Irish tight five) and in Cork on New Year's Day, as well as some of the Irish frontliners involved with Munster over the past two weekends, one imagines Eddie O'Sullivan is less sure of his starting Six Nations line-up than he had been. He'll be relieved Ireland begin with Italy and Scotland, albeit away from home and six days apart.
Against that, remembering the hangover which the Leinster players took into last year's Six Nations' opener in Paris after their exit in the European Cup pool stages, it's undoubtedly a good thing both have qualified this time around.
It's worth reflecting on how the provinces have fared again this season (including Connacht reaching a second successive Challenge Cup semi-final, although next Saturday's Celtic League game at home to Cardiff may ultimately prove as viable a route into next season's European Cup), and the context in which we view them. Unbeaten at home, the three cup entrants have, collectively, emerged with the best national winning ratio of 77.7 per cent. The French are next on 60 per cent (rising to 72.4 when taking Bourgoin out of the equation), the English clubs on 56.75 per cent (excluding the Wasps-Leicester head-to-heads), the Welsh (37.5), the Italians (25) and the Scots (8.3).
It's true Leinster, Munster and Ulster are effectively guaranteed entry into the cup each season, whereas the French and English clubs qualify via more competitive leagues with a far more demanding threshold. Even the Welsh, Scots and Italians aren't ring-fenced in the same extent, and the IRFU's policy toward the Celtic League in this regard is highly questionable.
Nevertheless, now we come to the flip side of that argument, for in the modern game of rugby there is still no perfect system, nor, most probably, there never will be. And the Irish provinces, especially Leinster and Munster, exist to serve Team Ireland to a far greater extent than their fellow quarter-finalists.
There is an ERC dividend for each of the quarter-finals (which on a good year might be about €200,000-250,000) and again if they progress further. This is fed back to the six competition partners, i.e. the Six Nations. The difference is the dividend is passed on to the English and French clubs, but because the Irish players are centrally contracted, the IRFU retain their bonus.
Munster and Leinster will effectively backbone Ireland's Six Nations campaign, and save for having some of their frontliners back for a Celtic League game the weekend after next, they won't see their Test players again until the week before the quarter-finals. The drain and disruption on the six other quarter-finalists will be far less.
They exist far more as self-serving entities. In contrast to the controlling, hand-to-mouth existence of the IRFU and the provinces, the leading French and English clubs enjoy more autonomy, generate more outside funding, in many cases are backed by wealthy benefactors or outside sponsorship, and have far fewer restrictions on importing non-national players.
Take Toulouse, a big-city club with major sponsors queuing up to support the club, who have extended their Stade Ernest Wallon to a capacity of 19,506 with new corporate boxes, have built state-of-the-art training facilities, and improved their squad strength. This, the players were informed, was largely achieved on the back of their last two home quarter-finals - i.e., if you want to keep drinking from the well, make sure Toulouse get another home quarter-final with bonus point wins in your last two games. As a financial windfall, there is no more lucrative fixture than a home quarter-final.
Unlike the semi-finals and final, all the gate receipts are kept by the competing clubs, divided 50-50 after costs. As an incentive, the ERC have made the split 65-35 if the home team switches to a larger venue. Hence, Munster (who have missed out on an extra 20,000 fans at every Euro home match for years due to the non-development of Thomond Park) decided to move a home quarter-final to Lansdowne Road.
It's a shame they didn't get one. Even ignoring the commercial and ancillary potential of a 48,000 capacity at home, the difference between a 65 per cent split of the takings at Lansdowne Road and a 50 per cent return from a 10,000 take in the Parc des Sports Aguilera would be in the region of €500,000-600,000 (although this would be reduced if Biarritz give Munster a 35 per cent share of a bigger take at Real Sociedad's Estadio Anoeta, Bordeaux or Toulouse). Still, it makes Munster's inability to garner a bonus point in the last two weeks somewhat costly.
But were the Munster players aware of this?
Meantime, Toulouse obtained their two bonus point wins and will move their quarter-final to the 38,000 capacity soccer stadium and benefit from the revenue. It was instructive to look at the Toulouse and Munster benches this week. Whereas Toulouse have even greater strength in depth, it's clear Alan Gaffney still doesn't have impact replacements. A source tells me Munster, with some private backers, looked into acquiring Geordan Murphy last summer, but came nowhere near matching his package at Leicester.
For all the talk of budget caps in England, the Tigers also move in different circles. When we're comparing the big players in the last eight with Munster and Leinster, in many, many ways we are simply not comparing like with like.
