Maybe it will prove a one-off. Perhaps it’s just a snapshot in history. For Ireland to be restricted to just two qualifiers for the Champions Cup and only one team in the knockouts are unwanted firsts but it’s hard not to believe that this is the reality of Irish rugby. This has been coming.
The gap between Leinster and the other three has never been so vast, be it in the supply chain from underage and especially the schools game, socio-economic/budgetary advantages, playing pool depth chart and quality, supply line to Team Ireland and competitiveness.
David Humphreys readily admitted it was the biggest issue in his in-tray after succeeding David Nucifora as the IRFU’s performance director and the past season and a half in the URC and the Champions Cup has crystallised this.
What does Munster’s crushing Champions Cup exit mean for Ireland?
And so it has come to pass. Leinster and some of their fans are a tad disappointed that they’re not flowing like honey and merely achieved a third-ranked seeding.
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Rewind just four seasons ago and all four Irish provinces reached the Champions Cup Round of 16. Maybe that was always going to be difficult to emulate. Even so, the other three have drifted further away from Leinster and Europe’s top table.
Bordeaux Bègles have earned themselves another home route to the final after a barnstorming pool campaign, scoring 27 tries in accumulating 20 points, just one try less than Leinster three seasons ago. They look like they should be favourites, yet Paddy Power make Leinster joint favourites and Ladbrokes even make Leo Cullen’s side clear favourites.
In any event, Leinster are contenders and the others aren’t even in the discussion and, no disrespect to Ulster and Connacht, but given their rich history in the Champions Cup, this feels more damaging and alarming for Munster.
Yet it’s been coming, and lest we forget, even if Munster had beaten Castres in last Saturday’s cracking game – which they could easily have done – the best they could have earned was a fourth Round of 16 away tie in successive campaigns. As it happens, that would have been against Harlequins, which admittedly would have felt a damned sight better for them and their supporters than being rerouted to the Challenge Cup.
Psychologically, for fans and players alike, the remainder of this season is going to be hugely demanding. Bar a deep run into the URC knockout stages and another meeting with Leinster, it’s hard to envisage another 20,000-plus crowd again this season.
Munster haven’t been in a Champions Cup semi-final since 2018-19, which was their third in a row. And the last time Munster earned a home knockout tie in the Champions Cup was in a goal-kicking competition against Toulouse after a 24-all draw at the Aviva Stadium four seasons ago, following a two-legged Round of 16 win over Exeter. Since then, they’ve won six pool games, drawn one and lost nine.
It’s instructive to look at the team which went toe-to-toe with Toulouse and take a note those who are no longer there, namely the retired Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray, Simon Zebo and Stephen Archer, as well as the departed Joey Carbery, Ben Healy, Chris Farrell, Damian de Allende and Jason Jenkins.
Nothing like the same talent has come through the system or been brought in. True, Munster did reinvoke the great days with that win in La Rochelle in last season’s Round of 16 tie, and there was an uncanny symmetry in the two-time champions surprisingly losing 27-17 at home to Harlequins on Sunday and also being rerouted to the Challenge Cup.
“The club and myself lost big tonight, it’s unacceptable,” admitted Ronan O’Gara, a two-time Champions Cup winner as a player with Munster and coach with La Rochelle. “It’s especially unacceptable when you see the number of opportunities we had to stay in the competition. That makes me even more frustrated.”
The same is true of Munster, who played some fine rugby and scored eight tries to seven in two absorbing matches. Think of those refereeing decisions in Toulon, or the missed kicks in both matches, or the game management when 22-17 ahead when running the ball from their own half in the build-up to Tom Farrell’s sinbinning.
But, the way Munster couldn’t see out the first period without conceding again was somehow typical of their season. The bottom line is that they’ve become a little too easy to score against, and as Clayton McMillan has admitted, especially after scoring.
It also has to be said that Castres were unrecognisable from any of the previous incarnations who had lost on all eight previous visits to Munster soil, and had lost 22 consecutive away ties in the Champions Cup before their shock win over Saracens last season.
Reaching the quarter-finals last season evidently gave them a taste for this competition. They were stacked. “Definitely our best game of the season,” declared their ex-All Blacks centre Jack Goodhue, alongside whom they have unearthed a couple of gems in Fijian centre Vuate Karawalevu and Cameroonian winger Christian Ambadiang.
There were also some real glimmers of hope in the performances of Edwin Edogbo especially and Brian Gleeson, and in McMillan they have a straight-talking ex-policeman who likes a challenge and is up for this one. All is not lost.
The Challenge Cup may be mentally challenging all right, but it is still silverware. Leinster proved that on a joyous summery May evening in the RDS when taking Stade Français to the sword by 34-13 to win the Challenge Cup before completing a double by adding the URC in 2013.
Ulster might not admit it publicly, but after conceding 15 tries and over 100 points against Toulouse and Bordeaux Bègles, competing in the Challenge Cup this season has seen them fill their boots at home to the Parisians of Racing 92 and Stade Français.
This has supplemented six wins out of eight in the URC and maintained both the winning habit and the revived feelgood factor around Ulster rugby.
It’s not the end of the world. It just felt like that in Thomond Park around 7.30pm last Saturday night.
