Provinces must beware the ides of January
Irish clubs may be on a high just now but they should guard against repeating previous mistakes
IRISH rugby would be crowing with delight if the Champions Cup quarter final draw was confirmed now. After four rounds, three provinces would be progressing for the first time since 2014. There’s still a long way to go, though, with two rounds of pool matches still to play. Anything can happen, as Leinster can attest after a season-defining quirk in January of last year.
It was former coach Matt Williams who used pin a five-letter acronym (DNFUJ – Do Not F*** Up January) on their training ground walls at Old Belvedere. It was a blunt, if salient, message.
The noises coming from the dressing room following their round six draw at Castres 12 months ago conveyed delight at securing a home quarter-final. The reality, though, was that the failure to pull off an unlikely win at Stade Pierre-Antoine saw them drop from first to fourth in the rankings for the knockout stages.
It cost them a semi-final date in Dublin and they paid a heavy price with elimination in front of a hostile Clermont crowd in Lyon. There must be no repeat.
A win over Glasgow next Sunday will qualify them for the knockout stages with a game to spare but they must go to France once more in round six to see where exactly they finish up in the last-eight rankings.
That will be no easy task. Not only have they twice previously failed to win at Montpellier, their record in France since they were last crowned champions six years ago is just two wins and a draw from nine visits, their last victory coming in October 2014.
There is hope that their increasingly impressive squad has learned from last season’s hiccup and will see this term’s pool schedule through without suffering a similar slip in their efforts to reach the May decider in Bilbao.
Leaving aside the semi-final permutations, where a top-two seeding is all important in securing home advantage for that stage of the tournament (unless a rare away quarterfinal winner upsets the draw format), recent history is positive.
It tells us that all three Irish provinces are at least well-placed to make the quarter-finals in the fourth season of the Champions Cup’s fivepool system, where three best runners-up progress along with the quintet of group winners.
With Leinster and Munster both unbeaten and leading their respective pools with 18 and 15 points, and Ulster in second spot in their group on 13 points, all three have laid solid foundations to keep Irish rugby on a pedestal.
The key has been beating up Premiership rivals. The provinces’ record against the French isn’t shabby, two wins and a draw in four match-ups, but it is the winning of all seven Anglo-Irish fixtures that exemplifies the across-the-board improvement.
The provinces collectively managed just one win (Leinster’s dead rubber against Bath) in eight games against English opposition in 2015/16, when no Irish side reached the knockout stages for the first time since 1998.
Now, though, the Irish are very much back in the ascendency and on track to cash in. Leinster are the standard-bearers. Their squad depth is second to none among the provinces and their back-to-back victories last month over Premiership champions Exeter was a far worthier achievement than Munster’s double against a transitioning Leicester or Ulster’s shrugging aside of an average Harlequins twice in the space of five days.
The English malaise extends elsewhere, too. Defending champions Saracens will be eliminated if they flunk a t Ospreys in six days’ time, a development that would blow the trophy race wide open. It’s something the Irish need not get side-tracked by as they have enough of their own business to take care of. It kicks off with a bang with Ulster hosting La Rochelle in Belfast next Saturday before concluding across the water in Coventry the following weekend. Wasps beating the French in round four was a bad result for the northerners in their quest for European progress for the first time since 2014. It means the showdown with La Rochelle in Belfast could be the making or breaking of the Les Kiss era at the Kingspan. It’s effectively a cup final for the Australian, who took over the reins in November 2015, and the same can be said for South African Johann van Graan even though he is just seven weeks into his job at Munster. The problem for Van Graan is that he will be judged in the short-term against the one-season achievements of predecessor Rassie Erasmus and with Munster having gone to Paris and beaten Racing 12 months ago, the same outcome is expected on their return to the French capital.
A losing bonus point wouldn’t be a complete disaster, as they would feel they can still seal the pool at home to Castres the following Sunday. However, they would prefer to avoid defeat and come through a winter European campaign unbeaten for the first time since 2012.
You must go back seven more years for the last time Leinster emerged undefeated from a pool campaign.
Leo Cullen was part of that 2005 team under Declan Kidney, and results against Glasgow and Montpellier would be a ringing endorsement of the strides the province is now making under their former captain following his chastening baptism in charge two years ago.
Five tries and six pool points was their lot in six outings back then, their last-place group finish a world away from the lofty ambitions they now possess. They should be grand as long as they remember Williams’ old mantra.
Leinster, Munster and Ulster have put themselves on a pedestal