Heineken Cup - General Discussion Thread

irishbucsfan · 13-12-2011 9:06pm

In fairness iroced is right. Montpellier were and Biarritz are having absolutely pathetic domestic seasons... they're hardly underperforming because they don't care enough, they're underperforming because they're not good enough.

I think the only team who are genuinely underperforming are Castres, they could be doing far better, but they are doing so well in the Top 14 that they may not have the squad to be able to concentrate on the H Cup.

totallegend · 13-12-2011 10:40pm

iroced wrote: »

I don't know who this Thornley is but I'd seriously question his understanding of professional sport after reading that.

In ALL professional sports, the main factor to get a win is the ability to play with and under pressure. It doesn't matter how good you are in the first place, if you can't deal with the pressure you'll never achieve anything. And the best way to improve your ability to deal with it is experience.

If you look at the top sides. Surprise surprise. They are playing this competition almost every year. Toulouse, Munster, Leinster, Leicester etc...

So.

Montpellier. 1st time ever in the H Cup. What is he expecting? The team we sent in Glasgow is a team that has to be rotated after 3 games in 1 week in the TOP 14 (thank you FFR) and a succession of injuries due to this hectic week.

Castres. 2nd participation in a row. They are learning. And they are in a very tough group.

Racing Metro. Same than Castres (but for the tough group). They still need to find a good balance in their team. Their defeat in Edinburgh clearly shows their lack of experience. Any team used to this competition would have closed the game and impeed the Scots crazy finale.

Biarritz. They are having an awful season. They could actually be relegated if they continue like that which would be a massive massive blow. So H Cup is probably not theur primary concern. But they can still qualify.

In Gerry Thornley's defence, I only said that he mentioned it in his column, the opinions that you're so critical of are my own...

Of course I know that for most French teams the Top 14 takes precedence, and I'm amazed at the amount of people who felt the need to point it out to me when it's exactly the point I was making. All I was saying is that it's a shame that it has to be like this and that the current crop of Heineken Cup contenders are a poor lot, even by French standards.

You could argue that the English teams are in a similar position, that staying up in the Premiership is far more important, yet they do not field weakened teams in the HC. Bath are third from bottom, let's see what sort of side they send to Dublin at the weekend.

Racing Metro are a good case; they are in by far the weakest pool this year, possibly the weakest pool in a number of years, yet they are zero from three, conceding a hatful of tries, two of those losses coming at home. It devalues the tournament massively.

Castres are by no means 'learning', they have been consistent competitors in the HC, they are not novices at this, they just don't give a f**k.

iroced · 13-12-2011 11:38pm

totallegend wrote: »

In Gerry Thornley's defence, I only said that he mentioned it in his column, the opinions that you're so critical of are my own...

Of course I know that for most French teams the Top 14 takes precedence, and I'm amazed at the amount of people who felt the need to point it out to me when it's exactly the point I was making. All I was saying is that it's a shame that it has to be like this and that the current crop of Heineken Cup contenders are a poor lot, even by French standards.

You could argue that the English teams are in a similar position, that staying up in the Premiership is far more important, yet they do not field weakened teams in the HC. Bath are third from bottom, let's see what sort of side they send to Dublin at the weekend.

Racing Metro are a good case; they are in by far the weakest pool this year, possibly the weakest pool in a number of years, yet they are zero from three, conceding a hatful of tries, two of those losses coming at home. It devalues the tournament massively.

Castres are by no means 'learning', they have been consistent competitors in the HC, they are not novices at this, they just don't give a f**k.

Well. My original point is not saying that the French teams are prioritising TOP 14 over H Cup (even if it is sometimes the case). I'm saying that in the example you showed there are 3 inexperienced French teams and one which is surprisingly having the hardest time in their recent history for years. Hence the performances in Europe. I don't buy the lack of interest point. Of course it's important to compete well in TOP 14 to achieve some consistency and qualify every year for this competition but only Montpellier & Biarritz were struggling when H Cup started.

Racing Metro are only in their 3rd season in the TOP 14. They may have a "huge" squad with good players, it doesn't make a team. The best comparison I can think of is Man City in football. They didn't pass the group stage despite their quality team. Europe is a step forward, a different level. It takes time to get the necessary experience as I said in my previous post. I agree with you though that their 2 home defeats are looking pretty bad. But to comeback to the experience factor, for example, London Irish were in the 1/4f a couple of years ago if memory serves me right.

Then I don't agree with you about Castres. During the first part of the 00ies, they qualified regularly from the last or second last qualifying spot in the TOP 14. Then they had a couple of bad seasons, one of which almost saw them being relegated. They changed their team and came back stronger. Now they are contenders for the TOP 14 semi-final for 3 years. It's their 3rd (not 2nd as I said) participation in a row in H Cup with that team. So, yes they are still learning, especially in a group with regulars like Munster, Llanelli and last year finalist Northampton.

totallegend · 14-12-2011 8:39am

iroced wrote: »

Well. My original point is not saying that the French teams are prioritising TOP 14 over H Cup (even if it is sometimes the case). I'm saying that in the example you showed there are 3 inexperienced French teams and one which is surprisingly having the hardest time in their recent history for years. Hence the performances in Europe. I don't buy the lack of interest point. Of course it's important to compete well in TOP 14 to achieve some consistency and qualify every year for this competition but only Montpellier & Biarritz were struggling when H Cup started.

Racing Metro are only in their 3rd season in the TOP 14. They may have a "huge" squad with good players, it doesn't make a team. The best comparison I can think of is Man City in football. They didn't pass the group stage despite their quality team. Europe is a step forward, a different level. It takes time to get the necessary experience as I said in my previous post. I agree with you though that their 2 home defeats are looking pretty bad. But to comeback to the experience factor, for example, London Irish were in the 1/4f a couple of years ago if memory serves me right.

Then I don't agree with you about Castres. During the first part of the 00ies, they qualified regularly from the last or second last qualifying spot in the TOP 14. Then they had a couple of bad seasons, one of which almost saw them being relegated. They changed their team and came back stronger. Now they are contenders for the TOP 14 semi-final for 3 years. It's their 3rd (not 2nd as I said) participation in a row in H Cup with that team. So, yes they are still learning, especially in a group with regulars like Munster, Llanelli and last year finalist Northampton.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Northampton were relegated from the English premiership three or four years ago, they don't let the fear of that happening again prevent them from competing in the HC (and they have a smaller squad than most of the French teams).

Castres showed by moving their game against Munster to Toulouse that results in the HC are just not important to them. They would have won at Pierre Antoine, instead they threw away that advantage.

Racing Metro have a squad that is easily big enough to compete in both Top 14 and HC. I don't accept that a team that can finish second in the top 14 table in 2011 needs to learn or develop enough to be able to beat Cardiff and London Irish at home a few months later.

It's not going to happen, but I would just like to see all the French teams take the HC a bit more seriously.

bamboozle · 14-12-2011 9:44am

As we all would probably agree, the big issue for the other French HC participants (ie apart from Toulouse, Clermont & Biarritz) is that they need to focus on the Top 14, i reckon for these teams to have any interest in competiting in the HC they need to get off to a good start and be in with a chance of quarter finals, if you look back to the first weekend of HC action this season only Toulouse won, the other teams lost.

In the second weekend Castres lost to Munster, Montpellier lost to Bath and Racing Metro capitulated against Edinburgh - at that point those 3 teams needed to adjust focus solely on the Top 14, Biarritz, Clermont & Toulouse will be focused on quarter finals, Biarritz's poor form this season (coninciding with injury to Yachvilli) has meant they're just not playing as well as they should be, but away defeat to Treviso for second season running was shocking.

In saying all that Montpellier have 2 more home games and i'd expect them to be fully focused on winning both.

iroced · 14-12-2011 9:57am

totallegend wrote: »

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Northampton were relegated from the English premiership three or four years ago, they don't let the fear of that happening again prevent them from competing in the HC (and they have a smaller squad than most of the French teams).

Castres showed by moving their game against Munster to Toulouse that results in the HC are just not important to them. They would have won at Pierre Antoine, instead they threw away that advantage.

Racing Metro have a squad that is easily big enough to compete in both Top 14 and HC. I don't accept that a team that can finish second in the top 14 table in 2011 needs to learn or develop enough to be able to beat Cardiff and London Irish at home a few months later.

It's not going to happen, but I would just like to see all the French teams take the HC a bit more seriously.

I understand your points. And in fairness it does happen that French teams prioritise TOP 14 (best example is Clermont last year sending a B team in Racing and being closely beaten which cost them the top spot of the group). My reaction was only focused on the statements from Thornley that I found and still find harsh and overall inaccurate.

OK for Northampton. They'll be an exception to the rule then.

About Castres. They made a mistake. They were convinced they were going to fill Ernest Wallon and make some profit out of this game. They failed. I don't think it shows that they didn't care. They played a good game and were only beaten by Munster exceptional finish.

As for Racing, as much as I understand your opinion I don't agree. I'd take another time the example of Man City. Even Chelsea at the beginning of Abrahmovich era. European level is a step forward than domestic one. Probably the pressure around the event. I don't know. But since the start of the professional era, very few teams manage to succeed quickly at european level. If you look at the H Cup winners, it's always the same teams (5 different ones in the last 10 years).

iroced · 14-12-2011 10:30am

bamboozle wrote: »

if you look back to the first weekend of HC action this season only Toulouse won, the other teams lost.

Montpellier drew

.

--

And actually that game at home to the defending champion clearly showed that we did care, even though we were in a dreadful position in TOP 14 at that time. A win or a good game is always good for the confidence. And in the example of Montpellier our performances in H Cup helped us a lot for the TOP 14. The game against Leinster was one of the best I'd ever seen from my team. The confidence we gained from it resulted in 3 victories in a row (2 away) in the TOP 14.

In the end, I think that Toulouse (and maybe Clermont and Biarritz — not this year though —) aside, the TOP 14 is overrated from all the money power it has. I'd really compare it to the Premier League. If you look at the last 10 years winners of HC or CL you only see Toulouse and Man U (I know Liverpool's there too, Perpignan would be their "perfect" equivalent for my example had they won it back in 2003). The dominant "countries" are, respectively, Ireland and Spain. It is actually interesting to note that both come from a very heterogeneous domestic league where those 2 teams share the titles (with Ospreys being a better equivalent to Valencia FC).

Seen from France anyway, beating an English team is always tough. Munster & Leinster are like Real Madrid & Barça. So, unless you're Toulouse and to a certain degree Clermont (and Biarritz in the past years), you know you're going to struggle. I am actually honestly surprised by how high French teams are rated in here, especially considering "you" have 2 of the best european teams ever.

profitius · 14-12-2011 12:48pm

There is a difference between the English and French teams alright. The HEC might be seen as far bigger to win than the Aviva premiership compares to the HEC and Top14.

I think Toulouse are a team that prefers to win the HEC though. As in soccer, the prestige of winning the HEC is g treat for any teams profile. Even Northampton getting to the final last season has raised the profile of that club and makes it more attractive for sponsors and potential new players. I think I read before that Toulouse recognise this and thats why they always try to win the HEC and why they are seen around Europe as Frances no 1 club even if they were not Top 14 champions.

CatFromHue · 16-12-2011 5:20pm

Clermont have made a few changes for their trip to Leicester. Regan King in for Rougerie who is sick, Skrela for Brock James, the second row is now Jason White and Cudmore, and they changed the hooker too.

ASM Clermont Auvergne: 15 Lee Byrne, 14 Sitiveni Sivivatu, 13 Regan King, 12 Wesley Fofana, 11 Julien Malzieu, David Skrela, 9 Morgan Parra, 8 Julien Bonnaire (c), 7 Alexandre Lapandry, 6 Gerhard Vosloo, 5 Jason White, 4 Jamie Cudmore, 3 Clément Ric, 2 Ti'i Paulo, 1 Lionel Faure.
Replacements:16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Vincent Debaty, 18 Daniel Kotze, 19 Nathan Hines, 20 Elvis Vermeulen, 21 Kevin Senio, 22 Brock James, 23 Gavin Williams.

Leicester have brought in Waldrom and Stankovich.

Leicester Tigers: 15 Geordan Murphy, 14 Horacio Agulla, 13 Matt Smith, 12 Manu Tuilagi, 11 Alesana Tuilagi, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Thomas Waldrom, 7 Jules Salvi, 6 Tom Croft, 5 George Skivington, 4 Louis Deacon, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 George Chuter, 1 Boris Stankovich
Replacements: 16 Rob Hawkins, 17 Julian White, 18 Dan Cole, 19 Steve Mafi, 20 Ben Woods, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 Billy Twelvetrees, 23 Scott Hamilton.

Clermont have seemingly lost 8 of their last 10 away games in the HEC. Hopefully they don't even get a bonus point tomorrow and Ulster pick up all 5.
That would make the table look like:

Ulster 14pts
Leicester 12pts
Clermont 10pts
Aironi 0pts

with Ulster having games against Leicester at home and Clermont away.

Sport101 · 16-12-2011 5:46pm

I can't see Ulster getting any points from the away fixture to Clermont, while Clemont could pick up to 5 pointers from their last two fixtures (including the Ulster game), even if they pick up nothing tomorrow, to leave them on 20, interesting group.

padraig.od · 16-12-2011 6:14pm

CatFromHue wrote: »

Clermont have made a few changes for their trip to Leicester. Regan King in for Rougerie who is sick, Skrela for Brock James, the second row is now Jason White and Cudmore, and they changed the hooker too.

ASM Clermont Auvergne: 15 Lee Byrne, 14 Sitiveni Sivivatu, 13 Regan King, 12 Wesley Fofana, 11 Julien Malzieu, David Skrela, 9 Morgan Parra, 8 Julien Bonnaire (c), 7 Alexandre Lapandry, 6 Gerhard Vosloo, 5 Jason White, 4 Jamie Cudmore, 3 Clément Ric, 2 Ti'i Paulo, 1 Lionel Faure.
Replacements:16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Vincent Debaty, 18 Daniel Kotze, 19 Nathan Hines, 20 Elvis Vermeulen, 21 Kevin Senio, 22 Brock James, 23 Gavin Williams.

Leicester have brought in Waldrom and Stankovich.

Leicester Tigers: 15 Geordan Murphy, 14 Horacio Agulla, 13 Matt Smith, 12 Manu Tuilagi, 11 Alesana Tuilagi, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Thomas Waldrom, 7 Jules Salvi, 6 Tom Croft, 5 George Skivington, 4 Louis Deacon, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 George Chuter, 1 Boris Stankovich
Replacements: 16 Rob Hawkins, 17 Julian White, 18 Dan Cole, 19 Steve Mafi, 20 Ben Woods, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 Billy Twelvetrees, 23 Scott Hamilton.

Clermont have seemingly lost 8 of their last 10 away games in the HEC. Hopefully they don't even get a bonus point tomorrow and Ulster pick up all 5.
That would make the table look like:

Ulster 14pts
Leicester 12pts
Clermont 10pts
Aironi 0pts

with Ulster having games against Leicester at home and Clermont away.

Have Cudmore and Hines played together in the HC yet? I can feel the niggle from here!

matthew8 · 16-12-2011 8:08pm

On the french teams: It's fair to say that Castres are trying harder than they were 3 years ago in Leinster's pool, and to put up a score like that on Nortampton when they were out of it already shows that they still care, and they would have 9 points in the group if they had just held the Munster game in Castres, who knows after what they did to Northampton, they could've had 10. Montpellier took it seriously in the first 2 games, and just sent a poor team to Glasgow, and to be honest I could imagine an English side doing that too. Biarritz take it seriously, but their problem is they're not very good. As for Racing, they're a disgrace.

Also, could anyone find me odds on Nortampton scoring between 21 and 23 points? In their last 7 HC games they've scored 23, 23, 23, 22, 21, 23 and 22 points.

iroced · 16-12-2011 9:12pm

matthew8 wrote: »

Montpellier took it seriously in the first 2 games, and just sent a poor team to Glasgow

No. Added to the list of injuries we HAD to rest a couple of players (Trinh-Duc for example) because we had played 3 games the previous week, which cost us 3 serious injuries (including key players Thomas & Ouedraogo).

wixfjord · 16-12-2011 9:23pm

Edinburgh 13-0 up!

Sarries looking good in Swansea.

totallegend · 16-12-2011 9:26pm

wixfjord wrote: »

Edinburgh 13-0 up!

Sarries looking good in Swansea.

And treviso carrying on where they left off..

wixfjord · 16-12-2011 9:28pm

Could be in for a real cracker in Wales. Very tight but both teams can play some lovely rugby.
Sarries are a team to watch for me.

thomond2006 · 16-12-2011 9:34pm

Treviso winning at home, fair enough. But Treviso winning in Biarritz would be taking the piss!

Benny Cake · 16-12-2011 9:35pm

Some major confusion at scrum time in the Saracens game, given the way the ref is carrying on I'm not surprised.. Forgive me for showing my inner nerd but I took the liberty of timing the "Crouch-Touch-Pause- Engage" call of the ref. It's taking him 9 seconds to get from crouch to engage, no wonder there have been a number of early engagements!!

Podge_irl · 16-12-2011 9:35pm

thomond2006 wrote: »

Treviso winning at home, fair enough. But Treviso winning in Biarritz would be taking the piss!

Treviso winning while down to 14 men.

Ospreys just give away a pathetically soft try with a charge-down from the kick off clearance.

matthew8 · 16-12-2011 9:43pm

iroced wrote: »

No. Added to the list of injuries we HAD to rest a couple of players (Trinh-Duc for example) because we had played 3 games the previous week, which cost us 3 serious injuries (including key players Thomas & Ouedraogo).

I'm not doubting the reason, I'm just stating that you sent a poor team.

totallegend · 16-12-2011 9:44pm

Treviso winning and Edinburgh racing away. My accumulator is in tatters.

Podge_irl · 16-12-2011 9:45pm

Since going down a man almost 20 minutes ago, Treviso have gone from 0-6 up to 3-12 up.

Biarritz really are terrible.

Podge_irl · 16-12-2011 9:46pm

totallegend wrote: »

Treviso winning and Edinburgh racing away. My accumulator is in tatters.

I have Edin and Trev +14 in mine, so I'm happy. Worried that being down a man will come back to kill Trev in the second half though.

errlloyd · 16-12-2011 9:48pm

Was it a red card?

Podge_irl · 16-12-2011 9:49pm

errlloyd wrote: »

Was it a red card?

Yup. No idea what for, only following it on the ERC Live tracker. Lock was sent off in about the 24th minute.

totallegend · 16-12-2011 9:49pm

Hard to see a way back for Ospreys, Saracens defence is very impressive.

thomond2006 · 16-12-2011 9:50pm

The Treviso guy was sent off for headbutting the Biarritz number 9 apparently.

errlloyd · 16-12-2011 9:52pm

Zidane style. Class. Although not too great for the Italians. Even still, there is a nice chance Biaritz will capitulate.

iroced · 16-12-2011 9:54pm

matthew8 wrote: »

I'm not doubting the reason, I'm just stating that you sent a poor team.

Ah well, we sent what we had

.

iroced · 16-12-2011 10:14pm

Half way to the bonus for Biarritz !

shuffol · 16-12-2011 10:24pm

Just looking through the groups and so far the runners up spots dont look like they'll end up having big points tallies, I'd give Ulster a pretty decent chance of getting through as a best runner up if they can finish ahead of Leicester. 5 points tomorrow would leave them in a nice position. Leicester failing to get a bonus point away to Aironi could be telling. Long way to go but It'd be a great achievment to have 3 Irish sides in the quarters.

durkadurka · 16-12-2011 10:26pm

Have we ever had three in the quarters?

wixfjord · 16-12-2011 10:33pm

Biggar actually said there that he wasn't tripped, and Garces still sent him off.
Unreal ref.

thomond2006 · 16-12-2011 10:39pm

Biarritz try: 22-12.

wixfjord · 16-12-2011 10:42pm

Biggar made some sack of that quick ball.

totallegend · 16-12-2011 10:43pm

Mark Robson. How did he ever get this gig?

greendom · 16-12-2011 10:44pm

If Ospreys can scrape a win here, it will be a very interesting finale in this group.

greendom · 16-12-2011 10:46pm

BP for Biarittz

iroced · 16-12-2011 10:49pm

Jayssuss !!! That was dodgy from Biarritz ! Very dodgy. But they got the WBP in the end. Don't know if they will be able to get some confidence from that scrappy playing but a 5 points victory is a good way to start tryimg to get it back.

totallegend · 16-12-2011 10:56pm

Ospreys out.

A bit simplistic maybe but Biggar missed two gettable kicks, could have made the difference.

thomond2006 · 16-12-2011 10:58pm

I was hoping Ospreys would win, would keep the pool competitive.

thomond2006 · 16-12-2011 10:59pm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/16171354.stm

Edinburgh 19-12 Cardiff, LBP could prove crucial for Cardiff.

ambid · 16-12-2011 11:01pm

totallegend wrote: »

Ospreys out.

A bit simplistic maybe but Biggar missed two gettable kicks, could have made the difference.

Probably a bad thing for the Pro 12. A successful run in the Heineken might have generated interest in Wales. Attendance looked poor tonight and Pro 12 attendance figures for all Welsh teams has declined this year again.

CatFromHue · 17-12-2011 12:10am

ambid wrote: »

Probably a bad thing for the Pro 12. A successful run in the Heineken might have generated interest in Wales. Attendance looked poor tonight and Pro 12 attendance figures for all Welsh teams has declined this year again.

My Sky sound was working all wrong tonight. I could hear the announcer in the stadium perfectly but the sky commentators were a back ground mumble. The stadium announcer said the crowd was over 7,000.

Sport101 · 17-12-2011 12:21am

Why are attendances so low in a county who promotes rugby as their first sport? At this rate the Italian attendances will be higher than the Welsh clubs in a few years.

CatFromHue · 17-12-2011 12:34am

Sport101 wrote: »

Why are attendances so low in a county who promotes rugby as their first sport? At this rate the Italian attendances will be higher than the Welsh clubs in a few years.

According to Wikipedia Aironi had 8000 for the home game against Leicester.

The Ospreys had 69% possession and 73% territory according to ESPN. Saracens defense has very good but the Ospreys just tried the same thing over and over. 118 tackles compared to 34.

profitius · 17-12-2011 1:32am

CatFromHue wrote: »

According to Wikipedia Aironi had 8000 for the home game against Leicester.

The Ospreys had 69% possession and 73% territory according to ESPN. Saracens defense has very good but the Ospreys just tried the same thing over and over. 118 tackles compared to 34.

The Ospreys blow it again and this time they can't blame the big name players. The Welsh teams had a good start to the HEC but its turning into a bit of a disaster in the last few weeks.

As for attendances, it'll take a while for fans to feel its their team which is understandable.

GerM · 17-12-2011 12:36pm

Sport101 wrote: »

Why are attendances so low in a county who promotes rugby as their first sport? At this rate the Italian attendances will be higher than the Welsh clubs in a few years.

Fabricated teams. At least in Ireland, there is history attached to the provinces that could be tapped into instantly at the introduction of the professional game. The interprovincial title had been contested for years. In Wales, they fabricated teams to make them competitive. In the early Celtic League and HEC, Wales were represented by their clubs. Pontypridd, Bridgend, Caerphilly etc. Then teams were fabricated to take the best players from all these sides to form the regions. Sides such as Swansea and Neath were shoved together. It's hard for a side to be created and the public just to buy into it. The likes of Swansea, Cardiff and Pontypridd were bringing in crowds of up to 7k back in the 90s when there were 1-2k showing up for some Leinster and Munster games. Unfortunately they couldn't compete with the English and French sides and were getting blown away so, if they wanted to remain competitive, needed to address the issue and combining the sides was the result.

The Celtic Warriors are a good example. As Bridgend and Pontypridd they were too weak to compete at European level. They combined and were, for their one season, arguably the best Welsh region, but they were torn apart from politics. They had one or two decent crowds but behind the scenes they were politically and financially a mess and they were wound up.

errlloyd · 17-12-2011 12:57pm

GerM wrote: »

Fabricated teams. At least in Ireland, there is history attached to the provinces that could be tapped into instantly at the introduction of the professional game. The interprovincial title had been contested for years.

A moreso than that. Remember that time Connacht tried to steal Ulster's bull and got torn to pieces by a young lad right of Leinster Academy.

The provincial system works perfectly in Ireland it must be said, I absolutely love it. I think the clubs as branches also works pretty well.

I love the way our players are loyal to their provinces, as long as there is a chance of a Leinster man making a career at Leinster he'll stay. I love the way we have fierce rivalries, but even if Munster put Leinster out in the Semi's or the Quarters, I'll still be wearing red and singing the fields of Athenry in the finals. Its just class.

Sport101 · 17-12-2011 1:09pm

Cheers Ger, good post, had forgotten about the Celtic Warriors. These teams are nearly 10 years old though and should be getting better support, do you think there's an element of deliberate boycotting by the hardcore rugby fans, which will take a generation to pass? Do they really hate the idea of a joined team that much? I mean Neath and Swansea aren't miles from each other. They have no problem packing the Millennium for a pointless game against the Australians. It sometimes seems that Welsh Rugby can be very insular and self destructive at times.

Heineken Cup - General Discussion Thread

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