European contenders will go into battle cold
The end-of-season Top 14 run-in is looking increasingly complicated, after four matches were called off this weekend because of Covid – including two games involving three European semi-finalists.
In total, eight games out of the last 14 over the past two weekends need rescheduling before the final round of the regular season on the weekend of June 5.
Two sides – Bordeaux and Montpellier – head into next week’s European semis with no game time under their belts since the quarterfinals. Another, La Rochelle, were ‘gifted’ a week off ahead of Leinster’s Champions Cup visit next weekend.
Bordeaux have scarcely been able to train recently. Their Top 14 match last weekend was called off, and players isolated after cases among front rowers involved in the Champions Cup quarter-final win over Racing 92 were discovered.
Some small group training has taken place – but their first group session since Matthieu Jalibert kicked them into the last four in Europe for the first time was scheduled for Friday.
Even if they can make next weekend’s semi-final trip to Toulouse, they will have had scant training time. Under Champions Cup rules a team will forfeit a game if they return one or more positive results from testing three days prior to kickoff.
Montpellier are, in one key sense, better off ahead of their Challenge Cup semi. They have reported zero cases which means, at least, have been able to train collectively – but they, too, have not played since the quarter-finals.
The missed weekend for Bordeaux means they drop to sixth after Lyon beat 14-man Clermont 41-30 – thanks to a late try from Josua Tuisova. Clermont had given as good as they got after Judicial Cancoriet
was sent off shortly before half-time, when the score was 17-7 in favour of Lyon. The lead changed three times in the closing 20 minutes, again putting the lie to the claim that red cards ruin matches.
Stade Francais, in their first outing in 28 days, later did 11thplaced Montpellier and 12th-placed Bayonne a huge favour, and kept their hopes of making the play-offs alive, with a 46-32 win over 13thplaced Pau at Stade Jean Bouin – who denied them a bonus point with an after-the-hooter try.
Stade are now just four points and three places behind sixth-placed Bordeaux, who have a game in hand.
A Pau win was always unlikely a week before new head coach Sebastien Piqueronies arrived, but would have moved them out of the relegation play-off spot and level on points with Montpellier.
The only side with European interest to escape unscathed so far have been Toulouse. They were able to rest their internationals for the loss at Castres last weekend – a result that left head coach Ugo Mola quietly delighted as his side for the future gave as good as they got against their near fullstrength opponents.
This week, they returned to Ernest Wallon for the first time in a month, for a top-of-the-table clash against third-placed Racing 92. Gael Fickou was on the bench for the visitors in the final surviving match of the weekend following his lateseason switch from Stade Francais.
Some good may come for La Rochelle out of this missed weekend. New Zealand half-back duo Tawera Kerr-Barlow and Ihaia West could be fit to face Leinster in next weekend’s Champions Cup semifinal, the club’s outgoing director of rugby Jono Gibbes hinted.
Gibbes this week said he was ‘optimistic’ West will be back in action after he had picked up a shoulder injury scoring a first-half try in last weekend’s Top 14 win over Lyon.
The sight of West – another leaving the Atlantic coast club at the end of the season, with Lyon and Montpellier among his reported suitors – sitting out the second half was a parpare ticular concern for La Rochelle, who already had Jules Plisson in the infirmary with a thigh injury and little else in the way of regular cover at fly-half.
But he “is progressing”, Gibbes said this week. “It’s reassuring. I’m not 100 per cent sure he will be available, but he’s getting better every day. We will take our time – but we are optimistic (he will be fit).”
Kerr-Barlow, too, looks set to be available, after suffering a neck injury during the second half of the same match. “He’s doing well,” Gibbes said. “He plays like a fourth back row – and he took a knock.”
The rest allows for crucial additional rehab work to get West back – there had been reports that Gibbes and O’Gara were considering sending out a patched-up, strapped-up Plisson against the European might of Leinster. Like Montpellier and Bordeaux, however, it also leaves them without crucial match time.
Beyond European concerns, Covid is making the end-of-season run-in difficult for a number of clubs. Brive are working a staggered return to training for those players who isolated last week and who have returned negative tests as they pretwo-point for the rearranged game against Clermont on May 1. Assuming that game goes ahead, it will be their first since March 27. For a side trying to escape the pull of the relegation play-off zone, it’s hardly ideal.
It’s a similar situation, too, for 12th-placed Bayonne. Their match against Castres was called off, after a number of cases were reported in the ranks of the 2018 champions.
For Toulon, the situation is no better. After forfeiting their Champions Cup quarter-final because of a Covid case, they have since seen further positive tests, prompting the postponement of their matches against Montpellier and Agen.
League officials have already moved to provisionally reschedule some postponed matches – and are making the most of the European weekend. Bayonne-Castres will take place on Thursday, April 29; ToulonAgen and Clermont-Brive are set to go ahead on Saturday, May 1; and Brive-La Rochelle, Agen-Bordeaux and Montpellier-Toulon on May 11.
But space still has to be found for Bordeaux-Montpellier and Stade Francais v Racing 92. More games may need rescheduling in the weeks ahead and time is fast running out.
“Bordeaux and Montpellier head into semi-finals with no game time since the quarters”