RUGBY:IT HAD to happen. There was no doubt. As sure as the world spins, Leinster were going to be drawn in the same pool as Clermont, Leinster coach Joe Schmidt's club of last season.
If there is anyone who knows what makes Clermont tick it is Schmidt. If anyone knows the players, the ground, the characters of the team, their attitude, their weaknesses and their strengths, it’s Schmidt. He knows the names of the player’s wives, the girlfriends, the chairman and the groundsman in Stade Marcel Michelin, the family that owns the local supermarket.
Schmidt, most importantly, knows the culture that brought the French champions to their first Championnat in 99 years, when they beat Perpignan 19-6 in last year’s Stade de France final. First the venerable Bouclier de Brennus trophy, next the glitzy Heineken Cup.
“Unequivocally so. Unfortunately,” said Schmidt with a grin, offering a glimpse of what is to come. Clermont and their €13 million budget. That can wait. It’s all pool talk today and Schmidt knows his French rugby. He and Clermont greet each other in December’s third round. This week Racing Metro, Sebastien Chabal, Juan Martin Hernandez, captain Lionel Nallet and the Springbok kicker Francois Steyn occupy the Kiwi’s attention.
Racing’s back catalogue in European competition is limited to last year’s first album in the Challenge Cup. Just three numbers. Played six, won three, lost three. Not much to go on in the Heineken Cup but enough for the Leinster coach.
“Yeah, Racing will just bully you and they’ve got the sort of clientele that are very effective at bullying. Nallet, Chabal are the household names. But they’ve also got some very – how you term “cute players” in Ireland. Johnny Leo’o is a very good player and a really pivotal guy to organise them defensively and slow ball down. He’s a very effective player.
“They also then can switch and play with a fair bit of quality in their counterattack – I think they’ve shown that with Steyn and Benjamin Fall, Sireli Bobo. They have some real quality in their back three.
“And their kicking game is very, very strong with Steyn from the back and then (Jonathan) Wizniewski, who has a long-kicking and a very accurate kicking game. His drop goals, I think he led the league last year in drop goals, and it would be great to rule them out. Then you’d only have to replace them with Hernandez, who is probably as good a player as you can get.
“It doesn’t matter who they bring. I have a feeling they rested players against Toulouse last weekend and they brought a few of them on towards the end and almost swung it back, and they got a bonus point. Going to Toulouse and swinging a game around to almost get up and win it, those players fresh and rested will really be, as I said, formidable.”
Schmidt has a knowledgeable respect for French rugby and he meets Racing with his attitude fixed on what Brian O’Driscoll said after beating Munster which was believe all the good stuff and all the bad stuff that is said, or believe none of it. O’Driscoll and Schmidt will take from the Munster win but remain warily calculating in the face of the big budget French clubs. Last season Leinster beat Brive and Clermont before being toppled by Toulouse in the semi-final. The year before, they won and lost to Castres on the way to winning the trophy. Being vigilant and watchful doesn’t mean being intimidated.
“A number of people have said to me Racing haven’t played Heineken Cup,” said Schmidt. “A lot of their players have played a lot of Heineken Cup and they won’t be under any illusions about what it takes to be competitive. I don’t want to say there has been a swing (towards French clubs) because if there is a swing, it’s not good for us. So we’ll hold onto our bat and try to swing that as best we can.”
Arrogance-free, Schmidt is a pragmatist and understands the margins. Leinster have shown a flash of their capabilities. Why it didn’t kick in earlier remains a mystery of sport. Perhaps that’s where the circumspection comes from, knowing a performance is in the team but not entirely understanding how to get it out on demand.
“The bigger the challenge, particularly to some of our bigger players, the bigger the game the better they perform,” he says. “I’m just hoping that this really big game gets a really big performance out of a number of them. I don’t think we can afford to have one or two guys off the 100 per cent mark. It is going to have to be the best collective effort we have put together for some time.”
Until Saracens arrive. And that other French team too.
