Heineken Cup - General Discussion Thread

totallegend wrote: »

Thornley mentioned it in his column today, but the attitude of the French this year is atrocious.

• Castres would be real contenders to win Munster's group if they only bothered their arse to compete.
• Racing Metro are a joke, to lose at home to London Irish (giving them a BP in the process) is inexcusable.
• Montpellier showed in the first game that they are well capable of making an impact, but the team they sent to Glasgow was never going to win.
• Biarritz lost in Italy last year, yet still sent a weakened team to Treviso (who had a win over the Ospreys snatched from their grasp) and paid the price.

Only Clermont and Toulouse are really giving everything to the HC this year, and it's a shame.

I think its because they're being realistic. They know their chances of winning are slim and they don't have a squad of Clermont/Toulouse's size to compete on both fronts.

danthefan wrote: »

Agree with this.

I guess I'm completely on my own here but I think it's absolutely laughable for any Irish rugby fan/journo to have a go at any other team for how they treat a competition considering how we treat the Pro12. Our top players might play 8 or 9 regular games a season out of 22. It gets brushed over though because Leinster and Munster still have the squads to compete.

I dunno, I think it's a little unfair to say that we don't take the Pro12 seriously. We obviously do. But with such a limited player pool the game as a whole has to be managed differently here to how it is in somewhere like France.

Historically a lot of French teams have shown up at home and not really bothered too much away from home in the HEC. They don't feel it is something they should be aiming to win. Yet Leinster and Munster in particular look to win both competitions. As is evidenced by our records in them. We rarely go into any games half assed and not bothered, and we use the Pro12 as a vehicle to improve our squad depth to be more competitive in both competitions. The French teams seem to use their (lack of) squad depth as an excuse not to compete.

What the French teams themselves choose to do and feel is best for them is fine by me either way though. It's bad enough having to face the likes of Clermont and Toulouse anyway!

From RTE.ie

England scrum-half Danny Care will not face any disciplinary action from the Rugby Football Union after being arrested and fined on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly.

The 24-year-old was arrested at 3am on Saturday in Weybridge following his club side Harlequins' 21-10 defeat by Toulouse at the Stoop.

I wonder what Conor O'Shea thinks of this, he doesn't seem the type that would accept this sort of behaviour during match week-ends.

totallegend wrote: »

Thornley mentioned it in his column today, but the attitude of the French this year is atrocious.

• Castres would be real contenders to win Munster's group if they only bothered their arse to compete.
• Racing Metro are a joke, to lose at home to London Irish (giving them a BP in the process) is inexcusable.
• Montpellier showed in the first game that they are well capable of making an impact, but the team they sent to Glasgow was never going to win.
• Biarritz lost in Italy last year, yet still sent a weakened team to Treviso (who had a win over the Ospreys snatched from their grasp) and paid the price.

Only Clermont and Toulouse are really giving everything to the HC this year, and it's a shame.

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 had 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 impeded 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 the last of their concern. But they can still qualify.


Conclusion ?

danthefan wrote: »

As a rule you have to basically ignore anything Thornley says about France. He seems to have some real issue there, no idea why.

:cool:

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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).

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