A week is a long time in European Cup rugby

ON RUGBY:Achieving back-to-back victories over the same opposition has always been hard, writes GERRY THORNLEY

THE DANGER of scaling dizzying heights one week is that it can make it so much more difficult to back it up the following week, particularly against the same opponents.

Sometimes, though, it doesn’t even have to be against vengeful opposition, who can afford to swing from the hip a week later. Michael Cheika made a salient point when he reminded us, and more pertinently his players, immediately after Saturday’s impressive win away to the Scarlets that the last time they played anything as well, beating Munster 30-0 at the RDS on the first weekend in October, they lost to London Irish at the same venue the next week.

There have been countless recent examples which can serve as a warning to Leinster. Last season’s highs, in terms of performances and results, were probably the 41-11 win at home to Wasps and the 25-6 semi-final victory over Munster. While they backed up the latter by putting seven tries on the Scarlets at home in the Magners League, a week after the former they lost 15-12 away to Glasgow.

Indeed, it is a source of a little angst to Cheika that on the 13 occasions Leinster have played on successive weekends in the Heineken Cup, only three times have they completed two wins: against Glasgow and Bath in rounds five and six in his first season, 2005-06; against Agen in rounds three and four the following season, and against Edinburgh and Wasps in the opening two rounds last season.

All in all, history suggests that the odds on another Irish four-timer next weekend are decidedly slim. Achieving back-to-back victories over the same opposition has always been hard. Aside from the difficulty in winning the away leg at the best of times, the losing sides invariably come into the return leg more motivated and keen for revenge, and wiser as to their conquerors’ strengths.

The format of six pools of four teams featuring these back-to-back matches in rounds three and four has been in operation for 10 seasons. Thus, if one excludes the Italian sides (and even Treviso three times avoided back-to-back defeats), there have been 10 examples per season, or 90 in total. In exactly half of those, 45 of the 90 occasions, a team has failed to complete a double over the same opponents on successive weekends.

When the winning team has been at home in round three, and thus has to back up their win away the next, the percentage drops even further. In the last three seasons, again excluding the Italian sides, of the 15 occasions when a team travelled for a back-to-back win, only four times did they achieve the feat.

Alas, a tad ominously for Munster, not only do Perpignan have a generally imperious home record (27 of 29 matches in the Heineken Cup, including the last 16 in a row), no one epitomises this vengeful mood on their turf than the French in the Catalonian citadel of the Stade Aime Giral. On six occasions they have been away in round three, and every time they lost. But on the ensuing six weekends they gained revenge every time, overturning losses by deficits of 13, one, eight, 12 and 11 points to win the return matches by eight, 13, four, 27, 17 and 11 points.

Last season was a prime example: Perpignan lost 38-27 to Leicester, and a week later beat them 27-16.

No one will be more mindful of the potential swing in fortunes than those Ulster players who were involved in the 33-0 victory over Leicester on that famous Sunday in December 2003, whereupon they were beaten by 49-7 in Welford Road.

The difference this time, of course, is that Stade Francais have sacrificed home advantage to some degree by moving next Saturday’s match to Brussels. If the daring way Ian Humphreys, especially, delivered on Brian McLaughlin’s demand to be fearless and instigated counter-attacks from inside his 22 for Ulster’s long-range tries can be repeated, then anything is possible. Even Stade, trailing by 23-6, threw caution to the wind in countering from deep for their only try.

Again, and with other examples such as the 70-point feast delivered by Clermont and Leicester, there is reward to be had for eschewing kick-pong and daring to counter. Toulouse, with their galaxy of game-breakers, could do worse than watch the video of Ulster’s performance.

Nonetheless, one ventures that Stade will not produce such a “distracted” and fitful performance in their home leg.

In contrast, though, Munster suffered whenever they ran from deep or countered, and were better served by going to the air against Perpignan. The latter have never rolled over for Munster anywhere, and the Scarlets were more like Leinster Lite, so we cannot compare those two Irish performances on a truly like-for-like basis.

Even so, the difference afforded the Leinster backline in terms of running onto go-forward ball by Kevin McLaughlin, Seán O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip and Cian Healy was striking by comparison to Munster, for whom only David Wallace, and to some degree Paul O’Connell, are doing the same. As did Tomás O’Leary and Denis Hurley two seasons ago, these home-grown products have also infused Leinster with fresh enthusiasm as well.

Munster also appear still to be nursing collective mental and physical hangovers from last season’s seminal semi-final defeat and the Lions tour. It’s not for a lack of effort or enthusiasm that they cannot relocate their best form. In classical Munster mode, they’ve obviously a “try harder” philosophy. Lifeimi Mafi typifies this in his heroic but often fruitless charges into midfield traffic.

An early try next Sunday would do wonders for their confidence. And if they want to look for examples in other teams they need go no further than Ireland or Leinster (think where they were 12 months ago) – or Kerry.

And if they need to look even closer to home, they only have to behold Ronan O’Gara’s performance last Friday. Having lost his Irish number 10 jersey (temporarily or not) for the first time in six years, and with his place-kicking ratio at 42 per cent, typical of the man’s mental strength he delivered once again in spades. His team-mates can take inspiration from him.

PS: Hats off to the Irish Clubs (under-18) squad for their 21-18 win over the Irish Schools in Ashbourne on Sunday. That has to be a good indication of the broadening player base in Irish rugby.