RUGBY:SO THE Heineken Cup moves on and next weekend should stir the soul. Leinster and Munster began the competition with relatively low-key if contrasting wins but now get some of the spotlight in round two with a couple of potentially epic Anglo-Irish collisions.
Leinster's bonus-point win in Edinburgh puts them atop Pool Two after Wasps beat Castres 25-11 but without a bonus point.
They host Wasps at the RDS next Saturday, while a day later the champions, Munster, are in Manchester to play the early Pool One pacesetters, Sale, who scored a stunning bonus-point win in Clermont Auvergne.
To set the tone of what should be a memorable weekend, Connacht host another Premiership side, London Irish (78-6 winners over Rovigo), at the Sportsground on Friday in the Challenge Cup.
Also in Anglo-Irish mode, and bearing in mind no side has survived the pool stages after losing its first two matches, Ulster face a point of no return in their Heineken Cup campaign on Saturday away to Harlequins, 29-22 comeback winners over the Scarlets in Saturday's farewell to Stradey Park.
Leinster caught Edinburgh at a good point in the campaign but will be aware that Wasps' sluggish start to the Premiership will count for little when they confront the two-time European champions.
"Next week is another cup final and that's our total focus now, nothing else," said Leinster coach Michael Cheika after Saturday's 27-16 win in Murrayfield. "This game is finished, right now. We now have a cup final to focus towards, because it's going to be a massive challenge.
"I know they (Wasps) are not having a great run now but they're a quality team, full of quality players. They've got an aggressive defence. They'd like to think they're going to come and bully us, I'd say, and we've got to be ready for that challenge, and some."
While all around them there were the usual doubts and even panic about Leinster's season running aground by October, staying calm after hiccups against Munster and Connacht was critical.
"We had a plan as to how we wanted to approach the season so far and I tell the players to have a lot of self-belief so there's no point in me not believing in our own plans," said Cheika.
Of huge relief to Leinster will be rediscovering their cutting edge, especially the sight of Brian O'Driscoll executing a couple of trademark line breaks to create one try and nearly another, not to mention dotting down for Leinster for the first time since scoring a hat-trick at Lansdowne Road against Agen in January 2006.
"It was nice to get my hands on the ball a bit and play a bit more," admitted O'Driscoll. "I don't play rugby to defend - I want to attack with the ball - so it was nice to get more touches. It had been a while since I've had that many. And I don't remember the last time I ran 60 metres on a rugby pitch."
O'Driscoll's performance was a timely nudge for Declan Kidney vis-à-vis the Ireland coach's imminent selection of the national squad, specifically the captaincy.
O'Driscoll confirmed it's something he would still love to do.
English clubs, who came into the Heineken Cup without great expectations, even from their own press, did well on the opening weekend. Leicester beat the Ospreys 12-6 yesterday. Bath were denied a famous win in Toulouse only by a last-kick-of-the-game penalty by David Skrela.
But the performance of the weekend was undoubtedly Sale's four-tries-to-nil, 32-15 win away against Clermont Auvergne.
The Munster brains trust will not only seek significant improvements from their madcap, last-ditch win to 30-point underdogs Montauban on Friday, but also pore over the video of the Sharks' dissection of Clermont.
Building on a superb defence that has kept opponents tryless in five of their six games this season, Sale turned the screw with Dwayne Peel's sniping at the base and Luke McAllister's running game and huge boot. Their coach, Kingsley Jones, could scarcely conceal his delight: "It's a great win and one we didn't expect. We've made a big statement but we must continue to work hard in our next match against Munster."
Munster lost 27-13 at Edgeley Park in October 2006, after which they embarked on an eight-match winning run to lift the trophy.
The events of the weekend will have left them underdogs next Sunday. Familiar terrain.
