Second time will be harder for Saracens
Hectic schedule stacks the odds against champions retaining their European crown, writes Steve James
London buses and all that. We waited nine long years for an English winner to follow Wasps in Europe in 2007, so will another arrive immediately this season?
Well, the champions Saracens are already the bookmakers’ favourites to do just that, but I do worry a little about them. Yes, I think they will retain their Aviva Premiership title, even if Wasps, whom they play today, will challenge them hard. But double champions again, with so many England internationals in their side, and with the lure of a British and Irish Lions tour at the end of the season?
It is going to be tough, and how tough was revealed by the rumpus about the intensity and timing of England training. Their director of rugby, Mark McCall, was right to speak out.
But it is not just the training. The four autumn Tests will take their toll, naturally, but who on earth thought it was sensible to play a round of the European Champions Cup the week after? When England’s players return to European action on Dec 9, 10 and 11, they will have spent five weeks in camp, playing four Tests after flying to Portugal for some warm-weather training on Oct 30.
It will hurt Saracens most. Mako Vunipola, George Kruis, Maro Itoje, Billy Vunipola, Owen Farrell and maybe even Jamie George could all be starting for England against Australia on Dec 3. They will probably be able to scramble together one decent training session with their club before facing Sale the following Saturday.
What a shambles. The Australia match falls outside World Rugby’s designated autumn window but, like the training last week, it is part of the agreement between the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby.
It is one more horrible example of the problems surrounding rugby’s calendar: there are too many vested interests with no one prepared to budge an inch.
“It is our champion club going into a big game with potentially tired bodies,” says European Professional Club Rugby chairman Simon Halliday. “It is not ideal. It has to change. It is not a specific problem for Europe, it is a problem for everyone. We need to make the three groupings – international rugby, domestic rugby and European rugby – fit sensibly without making a mockery of the player-welfare issue. The reason this is happening is that not enough of these same people who make these decisions are around the same table. We are only paying lip service.”
In any restructuring Halliday would like to see a block of four European pool matches, but for now there are three blocks of two, and at least this year there is a three-week gap between the quarter-finals and semifinals rather than two. “Having longer blocks works for us as long as proper space is made for the semi-finals in the calendar,” he says. “Last season we took a lot of criticism over the semifinals but it was imposed on us because of the World Cup.”
Last season’s semi-finals were poorly attended, with just 16,820 at Reading’s Madejski Stadium for Saracens against Wasps and 22,148 at Nottingham’s City Ground for Leicester versus Racing 92. The aggregate was the lowest since 2000/01. Maybe the latter stages missed the travelling Irish hordes. Last season for the first time there was no representative from the Guinness Pro12 or its previous equivalents, in the knockout stages.
It is a worry. Money is clearly talking, and the French and English clubs have more of it than the rest. This new competition, now in its third season, was supposed to redress the balance in terms of arduousness of qualification, but it looks as if it has tilted too far towards an Anglo/French affair (only Leinster made the knockout stages in 2014/15).
Leinster and Ulster could make the knockout stages but you would expect the winner to come from Saracens, Wasps, Clermont Auvergne, Toulon and Racing 92, with Montpellier and Castres the dark horses.
At least Wasps have an easier pool, indeed the easiest, with Connacht, Toulouse and Zebre instead of Toulon, Leinster and Bath.
“If anything it puts more pressure on us,” says director of rugby Dai Young. “I don’t think anyone tipped us to win a game last season, so we probably over-exceeded everybody’s expectations. But if we are to develop as a team this is the type of pressure we have got to feel comfortable with.”
The final is at Murrayfield on May 13 but it all begins with Glasgow (whom we should not rule out either) against Leicester on Friday and then the titanic clash the following day when Saracens visit Toulon’s Stade Felix Mayol, where Toulon have never lost in Europe. Those two have won the past four titles between them. It says it all about this competition’s ferocity.