Sport Celtic calamity or is it just a
FOR the first time in 22 years and just the second time ever, there will be no teams from the Celtic community in the semi-finals of either European cup competition.
That’s the end result of a disastrous quarter-final weekend for the Guinness PRO14 contingent.
All five of them went down to defeat – Welsh duo Dragons and Scarlets, plus Edinburgh, in the Challenge Cup and Irish pair Ulster and the previously undefeated Leinster in the Heineken Champions Cup.
It means the semi-finals in both tournaments will be monopolised by English and French clubs this coming weekend.
So what are we to read into this?
Some have already cited it as evidence of the weakness of the Guinness PRO14 compared to Europe’s two other professional leagues.
Yet others counter that by pointing to the three previous seasons where the PRO14 had two, three and two sides in the Champions Cup semi-finals respectively.
The reality is we need to be careful of making sweeping judgements on either count.
The success in previous years was used to argue against those who talked down the PRO14 in comparison to the English Premiership.
Look what happens when teams from the two leagues meet in Europe, people would say, so much for the Premiership being a stronger competition.
But the issue there was confusing the leagues and the teams who play in them.
The truth is we very rarely see European-strength sides in the PRO14, which is one of its main drawbacks.
Either way, the league’s defenders don’t have knock-out successes to turn to just now.
By the same token, it would probably be wrong to view the weekend’s results as a seismic shift in the balance of European power, given this is not a normal season.
It’s a more nuanced debate with a lot of factors to take into consideration.
So let’s have a look at them.
MATCH FITNESS
THIS is the factor that has been cited most commonly in explaining the whitewash suffered by the PRO14 teams.
The argument was they just didn’t have enough recent game-time under their belts compared to their opponents.
That’s certainly a valid point when it comes to the two Welsh sides, with the Dragons and Scarlets having not played a game for three weeks and having had just two fixtures prior to lockdown.
Compare that with the Men of Gwent’s opponents, Bristol, who have played seven league games in the past five weeks, with the English clubs having generally been far more battlehardened.
With hindsight, there might have been an argument for the two Welsh sides playing against each other in a warm-up match to get back up to speed and test out combinations.
But the game-time factor doesn’t really stack up right across the board.
Ulster had played four inter-provincial PRO14 matches going into Europe, including a play-off semifinal and final.
In contrast, Toulouse have had just two TOP 14 league fixtures following a six-month break from rugby.
And yet it was the French team who came out resounding victors in the Champions Cup quarterfinal clash, winning 36-9. So match fitness isn’t necessarily the smoking gun.
As for the Scarlets and Toulon, they had both played two league matches and that parity was reflected in the closest-run quarterfinal of the weekend, with the west Wales region giving a very decent account of themselves, particularly up front.
BUDGETS
ONE comment I saw on social media, explaining the weekend’s results, went along the lines of there’s no money in the PRO14.
Well, that simply isn’t true across the board.
Admittedly, there were some financial mismatches.
Toulouse’s star-studded line-up, featuring the likes of Cheslin Kolbe, Jerome Kaino, Rory Arnold and Charlie Faumuina, plus a