Celtic calamity... or just a season that’s out of the ordinary?
FOR the first time in 22 years and just the second time ever, there will be no teams from the Celtic community in the semi-finals of either European cup competition.
That’s the end result of a disastrous quarter-final weekend for the Guinness PRO14 contingent.
All five of them went down to defeat – Welsh duo Dragons and Scarlets, plus Edinburgh, in the Challenge Cup and Irish pair Ulster and the previously undefeated Leinster in the Heineken Champions Cup.
It means the semi-finals in both tournaments will be monopolised by English and French clubs this coming weekend.
So what are we to read into this? Some have already cited it as evidence of the weakness of the Guinness PRO14 compared to Europe’s two other professional leagues.
Yet others counter that by pointing to the three previous seasons where the PRO14 had two, three and two sides in the Champions Cup semifinals respectively.
The reality is we need to be careful of making sweeping judgements on either count.
The success in previous years was used to argue against those who talked down the PRO14 in comparison to the English Premiership.
Look what happens when teams from the two leagues meet in Europe, people would say, so much for the Premiership being a stronger competition.
But the issue there was confusing the leagues and the teams who play in them.
The truth is we very rarely see European-strength sides in the PRO14, which is one of its main drawbacks.
Either way, the league’s defenders don’t have knock-out successes to turn to just now.
By the same token, it would probably be wrong to view the weekend’s results as a seismic shift in the balance of European power, given this is not a normal season.
It’s a more nuanced debate with a lot of factors to take into consideration.
So let’s have a look at them.
Match fitness
THIS is the factor that has been cited most commonly in explaining the whitewash suffered by the PRO14 teams.
The argument was they just didn’t have enough recent game-time under their belts compared to their opponents.
That’s certainly a valid point when it comes to the two Welsh sides, with the Dragons and Scarlets having not played a game for three weeks and having had just two fixtures prior to lockdown.
Compare that with the Men of Gwent’s opponents, Bristol, who have played seven league games in the past five weeks, with the English clubs having generally been far more battlehardened.
With hindsight, there might have been an argument for the two Welsh sides playing against each other in a warm-up match to get back up to speed and test out combinations.
But the game-time factor doesn’t really stack up right across the board.
Ulster had played four inter-provincial PRO14 matches going into Europe, including a play-off semi-final and final.
In contrast, Toulouse have had just two TOP 14 league fixtures following a six-month break from rugby.
And yet it was the French team who came out resounding victors in the Champions Cup quarter-final clash, winning 36-9. So match fitness isn’t necessarily the smoking gun.
As for the Scarlets and Toulon, they had both played two league matches and that parity was reflected in the closest-run quarter-final of the weekend, with the west Wales region giving a very decent account of themselves, particularly up front.
Budgets
ONE comment I saw on social media, explaining the weekend’s results, went along the lines of there’s no money in the PRO14.
Well, that simply isn’t true across the board.
Admittedly, there were some financial mismatches.
Toulouse’s star-studded line-up, featuring the likes of Cheslin Kolbe, Jerome Kaino, Rory Arnold and Charlie Faumuina, plus a host of top French internationals, speaks volumes to the size of their budget.
While Ulster are no paupers, there’s a good few million between the sides.
The same goes for Bristol and the Dragons, with one of the biggestspending English clubs going up against the team with one of the lowest playing budgets in their league, with a not entirely suprising outcome, albeit one exacerbated by some pretty fragile defence.
But it would be wrong to say there is no money in the PRO14.
Leinster’s overall player wage bill is among the highest in Europe, estimated to be somewhere between £8m and £10m.
In contrast, the English wage cap is £6.4m, plus two marquee players, a figure that is about to go down to £5m.
Now people may well snort when the wage cap and Leinster’s vanquishers, Saracens, are mentioned in the same breath.
And, yes, Sarries were guilty of repeatedly breaching the cap and
some have argued they shouldn’t be in Europe, given they qualified with a squad that was breaking the rules.
But they have received their punishment in way of relegation, while they have also had to significantly trim their playing roster to conform to the cap.
So Leinster’s player-spend is clearly the larger of the two at the moment, yet they came second-best.
They aren’t the only PRO14 side with a budget that’s bigger than a number of Premiership teams.
Scarlets and Munster would fall into that category as well, with Edinburgh and Glasgow not far behind. So, as is often the case, finance is a pretty nuanced issue when it comes to rugby.
Preparation
IT’S fair to say this has been a season like no other for rugby.
The Covid-19 pandemic has seen all the conventional norms and longestablished schedules thrown out of the window.
What’s intriguing to consider is the impact that has had on Europe.
Usually, all the teams go into the quarter-finals on the back of pretty much the same build-up.
This time around, there has been no consistency.
In France, they opted to cancel the remainder of the 2019-20 TOP 14 season altogether, while the PRO14 was condensed to just two rounds of derbies and the play-offs.
In contrast, they decided to complete the full Gallagher Premiership programme in England, which has seen a hugely-packed fixture list over the past five weeks.
In recent years, you’ve also seen the Irish provinces peaking for Europe, with everything geared towards getting players in the best possible shape for those games, playing where needed, resting where needed to keep fresh.
The ability to do that, without suffering in terms of league position, has often been cited as a reason why they have performed so well compared to teams from other countries.
This time around, there’s not been the same flow to the schedule, with play-offs to be played, so tried and tested strategies have been thrown out of kilter somewhat.
Perhaps the most significant change of all has been the timing of the European quarter-finals.
Normally teams would go into them off the back of the Six Nations, meaning their top players would be attuned to that level of intensity and physicality.
This time around, we are six months on from the last Six Nations fixtures.
Instead, teams have gone into Europe purely off the back of their domestic leagues.
In theory, Leinster, Ulster and Edinburgh should still have been in decent shape as they all competed in the PRO14 play-offs.
Leinster, in particular, seemed well prepared and well set, having convincingly beaten Ulster in the grand final to complete a remarkable unbeaten league campaign.
And yet, when they came up against
Saracens on Saturday, they found themselves outgunned physically, with the pummeling they took up front in the first half leaving them too much of a mountain to climb.
Conclusion
GIVEN the circumstances have been wholly unique, it would be unwise to make definitive judgements about the respective teams and their leagues based on the weekend’s results.
These things often tend to be cyclical and sometimes sides just have off days.
For whatever reason, Leinster just didn’t show up in the first-half, leaving it too late to demonstrate their undoubted class.
They will be very much in the European mix again next season, while Munster, Ulster, the Scarlets, Edinburgh and Glasgow all have the potential to make their mark.
With a more regular schedule, you would expect PRO14 sides to challenge again. The debate goes on.
Of course, there is one simple solution.
If we were all playing in a British & Irish League, we wouldn’t have to have these discussions.
So, roll on the B&I!