It's hard to win over the crowd

European Cup/ The home factor: Gerry Thornleyon how winning teams must conquer the 'home crowd' factor. Munster did it by bringing their fans with them on the road.

Two coaches, one from the Southern Hemisphere, were doing the rounds of Heineken European Cup matches in 2003. At the conclusion of yet another home win, one turned to the other and quipped: "No wonder they're all home wins . . . they're all homers!"

By "they" he was not, of course, referring to The Simpsonsbut rather to the refereeing fraternity. Ever since the competition's inception, home wins have consistently outnumbered away wins by around two to one.

Amid the myriad reasons for this, but one the participants rarely cite, is the the influence crowds subconsciously have on referees.

Referees are, of course, only human and can hardly be blamed if a tightly packed crowd of 10,000 or so baying at them can influence them to make a certain decision.

In the European Cup, the disparity in refereeing standards is greater than in the Six Nations, which are overseen by the world's best referees and where, furthermore, stadia are bigger and crowds less partisan and, arguably, less influential.

In any event, penalty counts invariably favour the home team: witness, for example, the extraordinary 19-6 penalty count in favour of Edinburgh at home to Leinster in the second round of pool games this season when the highly rated Joël Jutge was in charge.

More often than not, the key decisions seem to go the home team's way too, although it has to be said that Jutge sinbinned two London Irish players in the Madejski Stadium last week when Ulster could only reproach themselves for a 17th failure to win away in either England or France.

In that aforementioned 2002-2003 season, the ratio of home wins (71 per cent) to away wins (29 per cent) was significantly more than two to one and had largely continued the trend since the competition started. Indeed, the previous year the ratio was 74 per cent to 26 per cent, but in the last four seasons the ratio of home wins has dipped around the two-to-one mark.

This season it stands at 64 per cent home wins to 36 per cent away wins, while last season the ratio was 68-31, with one per cent drawn. But these figures are inflated when you take the Italians, who haven't won a match in either campaign, out of the equation. Viewed in that light, this season's split is 70-30, and last season home wins amounted to 73 per cent and away wins 27 per cent in matches not involving the Italians.

Of course, the European Cup is by no means unique and there are countless other factors at work. Here, drawing comparisons with other competitions is also instructive. For example, draws are obviously much more commonplace in its footballing counterpart, the Uefa Champions League, where the format is also effectively the same. But taking draws out of the equation, the ratio of home wins is 68 per cent.

In the formative stages of this season's Magners Celtic League, where the presence of "home" touch-judges is the biggest bugbear for players and coaches alike, home wins (33) have outnumbered away wins (11) by precisely three to one. This is an increase on last year, when the ratio was almost exactly two to one, 73 to 36.

By comparison, in this season's English Premiership, the ratio of home wins to away wins (less than two to one) is noticeably lower. It comes as no surprise to learn the percentage of home wins (almost 80 per cent, or four to one) is highest of all in the French Top 14, where, as we've observed here before, a referee would be advised to leave the engine running were the penalty count or a debateable late decision to go against the home team.

The French connection, inspired at home, notoriously bad away from home and with small travelling support, factors into the European Cup as well.

"This is something Mick O'Driscoll has talked about," says Munster captain Anthony Foley in reference to his team-mate, who spent two years at Perpignan. "Sometimes they just travel on the day of games, and spend three or four hours on a coach, or have a full training session the day before. It's as if they've already decided they're not going to win."

The importance of strong away support cannot be overstated, according to Leinster coach Michael Cheika, and he cites the estimated 6,000 or so blue-shirted fans for last season's quarter-final in Toulouse.

"It makes a massive difference. Munster have a good travelling base and have had a few good wins. In Europe, compared to the Magners League, the teams want it more, the crowds are bigger, so the effort is always reflected in the game itself when you play at home."

He also notes that the crowds are far more influential in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere.

"The one thing every Southern Hemisphere player says to me when they come here is how 'into it' the crowds are. It's great and that really makes the home and away different. Winning away from home is not such a big deal in the Southern Hemisphere but over here it's harder."

Taking this point further, it may partially explain why Munster have performed better than most in recent years on the road, given the Red Army are probably the most numerous and vocal away supporters in European rugby, perhaps even world rugby.

Admittedly, the tournament publicists are assuredly taking liberties when crediting the champions with a tournament record of six successive away wins, given they include last May's final, where there has never been an "away" contingent quite like the 60,000-plus in the 74,535 attendance who were cheering on Munster.

Of course, Munster's consistency is primarily built around the most enviable home form in the European Cup, but their away form in latter years is better even than the bald statistics suggest, for it took them four campaigns and nine matches to register their first European Cup win on the road, in Padova.

Improved conditioning, recruitment and professionalism have all been contributing factors, but as their case history demonstrates, it's as much a mental thing as anything. The following season, 1999/2000, Keith Wood came into the fold and astonished team-mates by declaring at an early-season meeting his goal was to win the European Cup.

A seismic 35-34 win away to Saracens was followed by a 31-15 win in Colomiers, where they had lost a bitter quarter-final the season before, and they duly progressed to the final.

"We sat down and wrote up a list of excuses," recalls Foley, "down to the state of the toilets in the French changing-rooms. Anything we could think of. Then we tried to take these out of the way.

"The food abroad wasn't so much of an issue in England and Wales, but in France they don't cook their meats through as much and they've a different take on chicken. So we managed to get ourselves a little chef from Bordeaux; a good man who looked after us well.

"In 99 when we started winning away from home we also had a travelling support for the first time. We had a good crowd in Saracens and in Colomiers. That gave us more encouragement and maybe it also influenced the referees. Normally, the home crowd could have the run of the show, but from then Munster supporters would make themselves heard to a referee as well."

Leinster's treks to France last season underline this too, losing in Bourgoin a week after a 53-7 win, before going to Toulouse in the quarter-finals and dethroning the holders by 41-35.

Hooker Brian Blaney admits that Leinster fed off "the adrenalin when we played Toulouse. Everyone was buzzing. It was such a big day, when you saw the stadium and you saw the support, especially the support from Leinster. It was massive. With regard to Bourgoin, we had just come back off a 50-point win, it was snowing, there was little support, you have to get up for those games.

"We've learnt from that experience. It's a mental challenge."

Just as pertinently, it should also be recalled that Tony Spreadbury was the referee in Bourgoin, as he will be today in Agen.

Leinster shot themselves in the foot that day, by coughing up two needless turnover tries with poor decision-making and execution, but in the endgame the English referee erroneously gave Bourgoin the put-in to a scrum after a stoppage, and when the final, fateful scrum popped up, to Leinster's fury he penalised Blaney. Benjamin Boyet kicked the penalty to make the final score 30-28. To the home side, that is.

Oh dear, this is where we came in. Either way, away teams have to keep their composure, accept that decisions are more likely to go against them, hope they don't decide a game late on, and maintain their discipline.

"The key issue is discipline," says Cheika, which he admits goes hand-in-hand with defence. "You've almost got to shut off the crowd, or turn the crowd around, like we did in Toulouse, by playing a certain way. If you can take the crowd out of the game, you get a lot of pluses."

Leinster's recent Celtic League performance in Ravenhill was another case in point, primarily through keeping the ball in hand and making few mistakes.

"I noticed in that game in Ravenhill every time we even threw the ball behind us the crowd went crazy, because they're looking for anything to get on the back of, and that's great," says Cheika. "And the French crowds are fantastic too, and what you've got to do is give them less and less to cheer about."

It's a formula that receives its acid test when anybody goes to Thomond Park. "It's just upstairs," says Foley. "It's funny, because when you look at it, the pitch is the same, the diameters are the same."

It helps, too, if you keep your defence watertight and then have a goal-kicker, like Ronan O'Gara, who very often lands 100 per cent of his kicks on their hard-earned away wins.

"I was talking to Paulie (O'Connell) about this recently, and he agreed it's great as a captain to know that when you hand the ball to him (O'Gara) and ask him 'can you kick that?' he says, 'yeah'. And he generally does, and that gives a team so much confidence," says Foley.

But the bottom line, as he says in summation, is "you really have to be a good side to win away from home in the European Cup."