The 2016-17 European rugby campaign is upon us. Good luck to all competing clubs and, in particular, travelling fans from the UK as they prepare to exchange their weakened sterling for euros. Half a week’s wages for a round of gaseous French lager? Had the referendum literature mentioned the possibility of teetotal rugby weekends there might have been a different outcome.
It is just another reason why the tournament organisers are praying more than ever for a gripping start to their competitions this weekend. Last season, with the World Cup squeezing the fixture list, no Irish teams in the last eight for the first time since 1997-98 and the semi-finals attracting a combined attendance of only 38,968 spectators, a gripping sense of theatre was not always discernible. European club rugby knows it cannot afford its supposed flagship event to be anything less than vibrant.
Small wonder, therefore, that Simon Halliday, the chairman of European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR), has been visiting the Irish and Italian contingent, among others, to offer support. He found the Irish provinces in quietly determined mood, keen to use last year’s underachievement as a motivational springboard.
“They have a clear view of where they want to go,” said Halliday. “Yes they can see strength in the English and French club games but money does not buy you everything. Bath wouldn’t be in the Challenge Cup otherwise. You’ve got to be really careful about saying the monied clubs are the ones that always win.”
He also argues the calibre of the clubs in the Challenge Cup – Bath, Stade Français, Harlequins, Ospreys, Cardiff – is proof the more meritocratic qualifying process for the Champions Cup is driving up standards generally. Maybe, but the presence of just one Welsh team in the premier tournament for the first time is unsettling, particularly given Italy are still guaranteed an entrant. Zebre remain rooted to the foot of the Pro12 table and, for all the collective desire to see Italian rugby thrive, it remains a weakness that two sides will almost inevitably emerge from Pool 2.
Halliday stresses it would require unanimous board agreement to make any “serious structural changes” to the current tournament agreement, which still has another six seasons to run. This effectively means Italian representation is safe unless their teams were to become dangerously weak. “If there were reasons to change anything it would start to become obvious and self-fulfilling,” said Halliday. “As I said in my best Italian: ‘We want you to be strong, we’ll do anything to help you.’ There are rumblings of a better situation developing there.”
What might change, though not this season, is a return to automatic Champions Cup qualification for the Challenge Cup champions. Montpellier benefited from that route last season because the World Cup rendered end-of-season play-offs impractical and this season’s shootout between the seventh-placed sides in the Premiership and Top 14 and the eighth and ninth-placed sides in the Pro12 may be the last amid continuing discussions about the shape of the global fixture calendar.
There is also a continuing desire for the Champions Cup winners and their Super Rugby counterparts to face each other – previous efforts have not been endorsed by EPCR – and to take the final to new locations, with Italy and Spain both candidates. This season’s finale, though, will be on familiar turf, with Murrayfield due to host for the third time. Toulouse and Leinster triumphed on the previous two occasions but this year’s pretenders will first have to escape the recent stranglehold of Saracens and Toulon.
With the two heavyweights meeting in the opening round of pool games on Saturday, the pressure on the defending champions Saracens is immediate on a ground where Toulon have never lost in this competition. “What happened last year doesn’t come into it,” said Mark McCall, Sarries’ director of rugby. “But we have a group who love these occasions and it brings the best out of them. They won’t be intimidated by it, they will thrive on it.”
McCall, even so, thinks it may be tougher for the English clubs than last season when five Premiership sides made the quarter-finals. “Last year was different because of the World Cup … this time it might not be like that.” He is not wrong, with Leicester braced for an instant test of character in Glasgow on Friday. Saracens and Wasps could be the only Premiership sides to make the last eight, alongside four French sides – Racing 92, Toulon, Montpellier, Clermont – and, possibly, two Irish provinces in Leinster and Connacht. “If you talk to [the owner] Jacky Lorenzetti he’s got a view about where Racing are going and it’s not sideways or down,” said Halliday.
Saracens remain my tip to retain the trophy but the high road to Scotland will require careful navigation.
