Leinster rout can devalue Euro Cup
Iknow there’s a pandemic and that the world is currently a very different place to the one we’ve been used to, but last weekend’s Champions Cup match between Leinster and Montpellier ought to be setting alarm bells ringing in the headquarters of European rugby.
Everyone knows Leinster have a crazily high playing budget, the exact size of which is shrouded in secrecy, but Montpellier are owned by Mohed Altrad whose net worth is estimated at almost €4b, and the salary cap in the Top 14 is €11.3m which is hardly miserly, so the French side ought to have put up some sort of a fight. However, capitulation just about sums up their sorry performance.
There is, of course, plenty of history of French sides not putting it all in away from home, but unless you were the most fanatical Leinster fan, this was an utterly dismal game of rugby. It was so tedious that I started channel hopping, popping back every so often to see the scale of the annihilation. Any more mismatches like this one and the competition will be devalued.
Leinster are a fantastic side, as they should be given their budget – as an example, how many teams can boast four international hookers in their squad – but it takes two to tango, and rugby that isn’t competitive is nothing.
We’re guessing at the size of Leinster’s playing budget, but it contains no fewer than 32 internationals with almost 850 caps between them, plus a sizeable Academy, so it has to be huge.
There was a comment made during the match, when Johnny Sexton came on, that summed things up perfectly. Brian O’Driscoll said: “He’s timed it immaculately, back [from injury] in time for European rugby and the Six Nations”! I wonder what the URC organisers made of that?
There can never be a truly level playing field in the Champions Cup as different leagues will set their own salary caps in line with what they believe is affordable, and there are vastly differing environments in each of them. However, if the competition is to retain its place as the principal ‘club’ competition in Europe, something needs to change.
Last week I referred to the comment by the Dragons chairman, David Buttress, that the URC needs a salary cap, and his target was very much aimed at the Dublinbased ‘galacticos’ which he says have a playing budget at least twice the size of his region.
What the URC and the European competitions need is a levelling up in playing budgets, so that the Welsh, Scottish and Irish ‘clubs’ are broadly similar in terms of what they can spend on players. If the Celtic nations were able to compete with each other on something approaching equal terms every week, or at the very least in an environment that had some rules rather than being a free-for-all, then the league would become more competitive, and that means much more interesting.
The nuclear option would be for the EPCR to set some qualifying rules that were applied before a club (or province, or region, or whatever) was allowed to play in the Champions Cup – if the URC and IRFU won’t act, maybe others should. Since the French cap is higher than the English one, maybe that could be the one that was chosen. The English clubs, the Welsh and Scottish regions, and one or two Irish provinces, would still be disadvantaged, but it would be a start.
For the French and the English, their leagues are really important, and when Europe comes around it’s a different challenge but an important one. If the European Cups are to retain their place then we can’t have a Celtic league where sometimes a second XV can be fielded with impunity, with the stars held back for Europe.
Anyone who tells you that life is fair is lying, but in sport there has to be an element of fairness if it is to retain the competitiveness that makes it compelling. For the good of European rugby, the URC desperately needs to introduce a salary cap.
“The URC desperately needs to introduce a salary cap”