The world is currently awash with uncertainty but not, sadly, in the case of rugby’s Champions Cup. This season’s winners will be either Toulouse or Bordeaux-Bègles. Such is the French stranglehold on the tournament – six consecutive years and counting – that it grows ever harder, given the existing structure and regulations, to see anyone upsetting the increasingly lopsided odds.
Bookmakers are quoting the Top 14 powerhouses at 13-5 each for the title, with Leinster, Bath, Northampton and Montpellier just about visible in the distance behind them. There might be an argument for adding the Stormers and Glasgow to the chasing peloton but that’s about it. A 24-team competition reduced to a handful of serious contenders before a ball is kicked?
It is not the greatest of portents. There are even whispers out of Gloucester suggesting a rotated Cherry and White team will be sent out against the two-time defending champions, Bordeaux, on the opening night. Which really would tip a large bucket of cold water over an already lukewarm format.
When you remember that Gloucester famously won 26-17 in Bordeaux less than four years ago, a low-key first Friday night at Kingsholm would be properly anti-climactic. The organisers will be desperately hoping otherwise. Apart from anything else they have deliberately shifted the opening weekend forward to October, chasing better weather and greater visibility than in the post-international December gloom.
The snag is that a single round generates little momentum, particularly when wedged between busy domestic league weekends. Let’s try to locate some positives. Who would not want to watch Toulouse, Bordeaux or Northampton fizzing the ball around at the moment, regardless of their opponents?
Those complaining about a surfeit of tries in the Prem and using the dismissive term “basketball” are not factoring in the skill levels required to tie defences in weekly knots. Time was when a single offload from a tight forward prompted talk of expulsion from the “front row union”. Now virtually everybody on the field can give and take a killer pass flat to the advantage line.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
