RUGBY/European Cup: Gerry Thornley on how the world's premier club tournament is serving up some tasty ties as its 11th season kicks off this weekend
What a niche it's carved. Damn it, even it's timing is good. Any later, and it would have been tardy. Any earlier, and it would have been too soon. The Heineken European Cup is back, and with quite a splash.
All across the Euro rugby map the 11th European Cup kicks off with some mouth-watering ties; three of the pick involving Irish sides.
Nothing stirs Irish rugby souls quite like Anglo-Irish head-to-heads. They are rarely dull and both tomorrow's Leinster-Gloucester tie at Lansdowne Road and the Leicester-Munster rendezvous on Sunday should be typically, massively full-on affairs, as Clive Woodward was wont to put it, of the type that makes this the premier club competition in Europe. Or should we, by now, simply delete the word "club"? Similarly, the visit of perhaps the most illustrious club name on the planet, and the tournament's only three-time winners, Stade Toulouse, will stir the blood in Ravenhill tomorrow. It evokes memories of the two home wins over Toulouse which were the springboard to Ulster's 1999 triumph, not to mention the four home wins over Stade Français and one over Biarritz since then.
Even in its repetitiveness, the cup has a certain freshness. That Munster start off in England rekindles dark days on this weekend in Sale last year and Gloucester four years ago, albeit of course, with memories of the stirring victories at Thomond Park in the reverse fixtures in round six.
Similarly too, the visit of Gloucester ought to remind Leinster of the pitfalls of losing their opening game at home (as happened against Bath) last season. With so little margin for error, it's worth restating at the outset that in the event of sides finishing level on points their ranking will be decided by their head-to-head records, starting off with match points, then tries scored and finally, points aggregate in the two matches.
There are valid reasons why English clubs might have an edge over Irish opposition in the initial October jousts. First and foremost, English sides have been up and running since the start of the season, with comparatively few pre-season or early season demands placed on them by England's international needs.
It's easily forgotten, but the Irish system - and the 10-week pre-season must surely be envied by frontline players across the European Test spectrum - is geared primarily with Team Ireland in mind, not the provinces. With six or seven games under their belts, the Irish frontliners ought to be much better match primed than they are now come the autumn series.
Nor, on balance, did any of the Irish sides receive particularly favourable draws. Given there were three Italian sides in the draw for the first time, the odds were considerable on all three Irish sides avoiding them.
Yet, alas, that's what happened. Admittedly, this lament is not entirely based on purely rugby matters. Pizza in Parma, after all, is something the Six Nations can't provide. But it is also true to say that in each of the previous seven campaigns under the current format, one of the two best runners-up have had an Italian side in their group.
Unlike Ulster, Leinster and Munster could, admittedly, have done a lot worse in a French context than Agen and Bourgoin. But if London Irish have lost the thrilling end-of-season rhythm which might have sent shivers down Ulster's spine, Gloucester and particularly Leicester will test Leinster and Munster to the limit. Ulster and Leinster have also drawn the strongest of the Welsh and Scottish crops in a rejuvenated Llanelli and ever-improving Edinburgh. They both lurk as away day treks designed to potentially derail Ulster and Leinster.
Leinster's slightly headless, under-motivated effort away to the Borders, when set against their win over Munster, again suggests they are more likely to raise and maintain their intensity for the bigger games. That said, there remains the nagging memory of three defeats in eight European Cup ties last season.
The flip side of meeting English sides on uneven circumstances this weekend is that, hopefully, the Irish sides should be in more durable nick come the third weekend of January. The final round of pool matches, will once again probably contain more convoluted drama than any other weekend this season, and the best eight sides probably won't reach the quarter-finals again this season. But this is all part of the cup's allure.
Nor should we ever forget this tournament's capacity for surprise. That said, most of the usual suspects usually progress to the last eight and the semi-finals, which ought to come from the French big three of Biarritz, Stade Français and Toulouse, along with Sale and perhaps Leicester, and possibly Leinster or Munster. But the near certainty of having to play a "home" quarter-final in England or Wales further militates against another vintage Irish year in the cup, while the feel-good factor prompted by hosting the World Cup points to a French success.
Biarritz, robbed in 10 minutes of injury-time in the semi-finals two seasons ago, could only have been halted by Munster and the Red Army in last year's final. They have the motivation, the power game, the big bruising defence, to batter most into submission, and Dimitri Yachvili to pull the strings, but they'll need to break free of their very patterned, self-imposed restrictions.
Only the brave and the brilliant win this competition.
