Heineken Cup brewing up nicely for December

ON RUGBY:With things so tight at the top, upcoming back-to-cack rounds could be even more pivotal than ever

NO LESS than the World Cup, you’d feel sorry really for the Pro 12, the Top 14 or the Premiership. For how do you follow that? It’s not fair, really. The Heineken Cup is just too damned good. Supporters especially, and even those directly involved, are just too sated after the last two weekends to cope with more of the same. Back to bread and butter indeed.

As expected, the second weekend of this year’s Cup may not have had quite the drama of the opening salvos, though then again if you were a supporter of Edinburgh – having produced the best comeback in the tournament’s history to leave Racing Metro with the highest losing total (47) in the tournament’s history – or, say, the Scarlets, you might still feel it was every bit as good.

Munster, Leinster and others weren’t feeling too shabby either, and even Toulouse’s ultra-cool and composed trek to the Sportsground (budget-wise, along with Clermont’s 54-3 win over Aironi, it’s the biggest mismatch this tournament can throw up) won’t have spoiled Connacht’s memorable and historic day.

Indeed, of the three “domestic” leagues, the Pro 12 is showing up the best by some distance. Save for Ulster’s defeat at Leicester – all too predictable both in manner and outcome as the Tigers out-muscled Ulster – the only other Pro 12 sides to lose over the first two weekends were the two Italian sides. In total, they have a dozen wins, three draws and five defeats, equating to a win ratio of 70.5 per cent for the Rabo men.

By contrast, with five wins and a defeat from a dozen games against teams from the other leagues, the Premiership has a winning ratio of 42 per cent, while the French (four wins and a draw from 12 games) are at 36 per cent. So let’s hear it again then for the under-appreciated Pro 12.

That said, while there have only been six try-scoring bonus points in the 24 games thus far (two of them came in that freakish Edinburgh-Racing encounter) there has been a higher rate of close calls than ever before, with 13 losing bonus points in one-score games, and two draws.

The net effect has been to make December’s back-to-back rounds potentially even more pivotal than ever. In each of the six pools the top two will be going toe to toe. As things stand, Munster appear to be facing the toughest of them in coming up against the Scarlets, who arguably produced the result of the competition to date in storming Franklin’s Gardens for a bonus-point win.

The Welsh regions are clearly still riding high on the euphoria of Wales’ World Cup showing and, aside from their opportunism against an error-prone Northampton, the most striking feature of their performance was their fitness levels – which appears to be another by-product of the Welsh pre-season work in Poland. Time for a rethink about those ice chambers?

Despite an early Sunday kick-off, Leinster’s first half against Glasgow was their best 40 minutes of the season. The key was the speed of their ruck ball, which was central to all their tries and more often than not only required one or two to clear-out (and it was as likely to be one of the secondrow piano shifters as a piano player).

Eoin Reddan’s footwork and passing were important too, as was the footwork, strength in contact and ball presentation of the carrier. In the latter regard, but also in his clearing out, Jamie Heaslip gave a master class.

Munster won in large part by dint of simply being Munster. It cannot be easy for the likes of Donncha O’Callaghan, Denis Leamy and Tomás O’Leary to settle for a place on the bench, but rather than sulk, their response has been to roll their sleeves up in consecutive weeks and contribute massively to their late winning finishes, as did Will Chambers. This is the mark of a true squad, and how much they all buy into the Munster ethos.

In Peter O’Mahony they have uncovered a real gem, an innate Munster player – strong, aggressive, fit and a good footballer. As his try also reinnforced (he played on the wing for Con in the AIL semi-finals last season), he’s also quick. It looks only a matter of time before he plays for Ireland.

More immediate food for thought for the Irish management was the glut of young centres playing over the weekend, even if the smart money is still on Keith Earls being Ireland’s number 13 come the Six Nations, and his hoped for return in January could be particularly well-timed given the pace of the Scarlets’ pack.

Credit has to go to ERC referees’ chief Donal Courtney for the standard of officiating in the games, and the consistency in decisions. A few “tip tackles” went unpunished but Jerome Garces was absolutely correct in red-carding Steven Shingler, and Christophe Berdos should also be applauded for yellow-carding Harlequins’ Maurie Fa’asavalu after he grabbed Gloucester’s Akapusi Qera around the neck and slammed the Fijian’s head into the ground. Too much of that hard man stuff goes unpunished.

However, what is it about referees’ assistants not assisting their referees by spotting forward passes? It’s bad enough they are so under-employed in enforcing the hindmost foot offside line, which is more the mid-way point of the ruck than the hindmost foot. Check out Marcos Ayerza’s big steal late on for Leicester which effectively killed off Ulster’s chances of extracting a bonus point.

The touchjudges are often in the best position to spot forward passes. There were two missed at the Sportsground on Saturday and both Saracens’ tries in overtime in Biarritz and Montpellier’s try at Bath on Sunday were the product of two try-scoring passes that were clearly two metres forward.

Each earned them a losing bonus point, which in the case of the Biarritz-Saracens match anyway, could yet prove significant. Video technology anyone?

PS: Apologies for failing to notice the clock in the West Stand at Thomond Park underneath the press box (and everyone else in the upper West Stand!). Accepting a technological hitch meant only one could be used, yes there was ONE clock.