Bath are England’s best bet to avoid a Euro whitewash...
IT IS eight long, barren years since an English club claimed the top prize in European rugby and the bookmakers aren’t convinced the grim cycle can be broken this year.
When Wasps claimed the Heineken Cup in 2007 with victory over Leicester, it seemed unthinkable that the Premiership would not produce another continental champion for so long. Yet since then Irish teams have seized four titles — Leinster claiming a hattrick — and French teams three, accurately reflecting the balance of power in the European game.
This season is not seen as any real exception, despite the presence of four English sides in the last eight of the new Champions Cup. There is a consensus among the bookies that holders Toulon are destined to finish on top of the pile for the third successive year, with Clermont their primary challengers followed by Racing and Leinster. The Aviva Premiership quartet are all away from home this weekend and are all firm underdogs.
In World Cup year it would provide a clear boost to national morale if one of their elite clubs could shatter the status quo by lifting the trophy on May 2 but there are significant reasons why an English triumph shouldn’t happen.
The first comes down to money. Northampton, Saracens, Bath and Wasps are well-funded, with strong squads, but their resources are modest compared to French powerhouses Toulon, Clermont and Racing, who have budgets three or four times the size of their Premiership opponents.
Across the Channel, squads are awash with Test-class players from around the world, even on the bench. Meanwhile, Leinster have superb recent European pedigree and benefit from the Irish system which sees top players rested from league duties in order to peak on these major occasions. Bath will find themselves in hostile territory at the Aviva Stadium, but they went to Toulouse in January and scorched the earth to win 35-18.
If their pack can go toe- to- toe with the hosts, the likes of Jonathan Joseph are capable of wreaking havoc. Make no mistake, Mike Ford’s team are capable of winning in Dublin.
Also on Saturday, Northampton face an arduous task in trying to storm the Stade Marcel Michelin fortress where Clermont are on a 22-match unbeaten run in Europe. The Saints are the only English team to win an away quarter-final against French opposition — beating Biarritz 7-6 in 2007. English sides have lost the eight other quarter-finals they have played across the Channel.
The current Premiership champions were losing Heineken Cup finalists in 2011. To reach that stage again would require a monumental result this weekend, but Clermont are far from infallible, as Saracens proved, thrashing them 46-6 in last season’s epic semi-final. The London club lost to Toulon in the final, but they have been the standardbearers for English rugby in the last two seasons and will believe they can go to Paris and beat Racing, who can be wildly inconsistent.
Wasps captain James Haskell (left) provides a link back to the club’s distant 2007 success, but Dai Young’s men will be confronting a multi-national force in Toulon that would beat most Test teams. If they were to stun the holders, it would go down as one of the greatest shocks in European competition.
There is a fair chance that one English team can progress, with Bath and Saracens the more likely candidates. If two were to make it, that would provide a colossal and timely boost to national morale.