BLUES AND OSPREYS TARGET EURO GLORY
TWO of Wales’ biggest stars last night made clear they believe they can win European silverware this season, as their regions prepare for European quarter-final battle this weekend.
Lions captain-in-waiting Sam Warburton is in the Blues starting line-up to face Gloucester at Kingsholm tonight and fly-half Dan Biggar will spearhead the Ospreys against Stade Francais tomorrow evening, both last-eight ties in the Challenge Cup.
While it’s the second-tier competition behind the Champions Cup, both players underlined their belief that going all the way and winning it is very much on for their respective sides.
Warburton recalled being part of the Blues’ 2010 Challenge Cup triumph which saw them beat starstudded Toulon in Marseilles against all the odds.
He said: “It was an amazing day for the club. If we could win this competition again this season, that would be massive for us.
“I would get a heck of a lot of satisfaction out of that, so it’s a massive target.
“People talk about career targets and one of them is to get some more silverware with the Blues at some point.
“I have signed another three-year contract extension after this season and if I could win something at my home club that would be really rewarding.
“This is obviously a great chance to do that.
“All the hard work has gone in through the autumn and the winter to get through to the quarter-finals and now is the chance that you just have to take.
“I am really ready to go and I love the fact we have something like this to play for.”
Biggar, meanwhile, is part of an Ospreys team that stormed through their pool with an unprecedented maximum haul of 30 points.
The Wales No.10 said: “You don’t want to be watching matches on the television on weekends like this.
“It’s nice to be able to set foot in a quarter-final.
“The second tier isn’t where we want to be, but now we are in the Challenge Cup it’s hugely important we try to win it.
“We were involved in three quarter-finals in my first three years with the Ospreys. Since then, we haven’t been involved in any. “So, I’ve definitely missed them.”
THERE is a memorable tale about an Australian lock who pitched up to play in France in the 1980s and couldn’t believe the one-in, all-in attitude his new teammates displayed on his debut.
The match was at home and a mere shove from an opponent was enough to prompt pretty much every one of the chap’s freshly acquired buddies to pile in.
“How great is this?” he mused to himself after the game, swilling beer and red wine in the clubhouse. “What camaraderie.”
The following week a scuffle broke out on away territory straight from the kick-off. The Aussie duly waded in, only to this time find himself heavily outnumbered. Looking around, dazed and confused after having 27 bells knocked out of him, he saw last week’s comrades in arms slinking away, heads down, not wanting to know.
It turned out to be the Top 14 mentality at the time: win at all costs at home, within the sound of the church bells — ‘l’esprit de clocher’.
On the road? Much shrugging of shoulders, protruding lower lips and raising of open-palmed hands.
Professionalism was supposed to have changed all that. Fired-up and well-paid players were supposed to be determined to win every game.
Except something has gone badly wrong in that respect for Stade Francais this season.
They have played 14 games at home, winning 12, drawing one and losing the other.
On their travels they have lost 12 out of 13 matches, with their only victory coming against the not-very-good Timisoara Saracens. Some might even call the Romanians downright awful.
But the concern for the Ospreys is a sniff of silverware might prompt a side littered with class players to turn up and deliver the kind of performance that saw Toulon dispatched last week and Top 14 leaders La Rochelle beaten earlier in the season.
“We know it’s going to be a real test, totally different from the pool stage,” said fly-half Dan Biggar ahead of the European Challenge Cup tie at the Principality Stadium on Sunday evening.
“We are playing a top-class team here, with top international players.
“But we are all looking forward to it.”
It is the Ospreys’ first European quarter-final since their classic Heineken Cup encounter against Biarritz in San Sebastian in 2010, a match that featured 20 clean breaks, 12 of them coming from the Welsh region, who still ended up on the wrong end of a 29-28 scoreline.
The superstitious among the team’s supporters might just believe that when the players left the away dressing room at Estadio Anoeta, one of them cracked a shaving mirror.
For it has been seven years since they last appeared in a European last-eight encounter. Seven years’ bad luck, maybe? Or just the harsh reality that the rest of the continent have left the Welsh regions behind when it comes to spending power?
Whatever, the Ospreys need to take their chance this time, playing at home in the last eight for the first time in European competition.
“It was a while ago that we were in San Sebastian,” said Biggar, pictured inset. “We were probably the better team on the day.
“Damien Traille scored a hattrick of drop-goals for them, but we played some good rugby and I remember the weather was baking hot.
“Days like that are why you play the game. You don’t want to be watching matches on the telly on weekends like this.
“It’s nice to be able to set foot in a quarter-final. The second tier isn’t where we want to be, but now we are in the Challenge Cup it’s hugely important we try to win it.” Asked had he missed the adrenalin surge that knock-out rugby provides, Biggar replied: “Of course, hugely. “We were involved in three quarter-finals in my first three years here. Since then we haven’t been involved in any. “It’s frustrating and horrible to watch games on telly. I tend not to watch because you feel you are missing out and you feel you should be part of them. “So, I’ve definitely missed them.” If the Ospreys are to prevail they