Back-to-back defeats for Leicester and Saracens on Sunday completed another disappointing weekend for the English clubs in Europe with the Premiership sides now staring down the barrel of their worst continental campaign in six seasons.
Leicester are all but out of the Champions Cup after a 25-16 home defeat by Munster and while Saracens were much improved in their 24-21 loss against Clermont they are facing an uphill battle to reach the quarter‑finals, having won the past two editions of the competition.
Wasps reignited hopes of advancing with a 21-3 win against La Rochelle but as things stand only Bath would reach the last eight, after their win against Toulon on Saturday, and even they will be struggling if they fail to beat the Scarlets next month.
In 2011-12 Saracens were the only English team to reach the quarter-finals but since then the Premiership has always had multiple teams in the knockout stages. On two occasions, there have been no Premiership representatives in the last eight – in the very first tournament in 1995-96 and in 1998-99 – but both times the English clubs did not enter.
Indeed, with five of the seven English clubs losing this weekend, after each of them endured defeat in the previous round, it raises serious questions about why the Premiership sides are in such a slump in Europe, hot on the heels of England’s autumn campaign. Eddie Jones was determined to focus on fitness in training throughout November and a number of his players have gone straight back into club action and looked off the pace.
The brightest note of the weekend, however, was the return of Manu Tuilagi in Leicester’s defeat. The 26-year-old centre completed 80 minutes on his first appearance since the opening day of the season after knee surgery, and made two late breaks despite his obvious ring rust.
Tuilagi was fortunate to avoid any sanction from the referee, Mathieu Raynal, following a no-arms shoulder charge on Chris Cloete but the Leicester head coach, Matt O’Connor, was quick to praise his performance. Leicester next face Saracens on Christmas Eve and while O’Connor conceded that Tuilagi’s workload will have to be managed, he expects the centre to make rapid improvements with more game time.
“There are no issues with his quality, we just have to keep him on the field,” said O’Connor. “He’s a guy who works incredibly hard off the field to get himself right. He was blowing quite hard but he’s a fantastic pro, all about the team and he’ll get better and better every time he plays.
“Everybody has got to be managed, that’s the reality of the modern game. We’ll be very diligent about what we have to do but the growth that he’ll get out of that mentally and physically will be enormous for us.”
It comes as a boost to Jones, who will hold an England training camp in Brighton on 2 January. The England head coach will face a nervous wait to learn the extent of Elliot Daly’s ankle injury, however, after he hobbled off against La Rochelle, having scored two tries.
“Elliot has an ankle injury and he doesn’t come off for anything insignificant but he’s walking about and hopefully it won’t be too bad – but the next 48 hours will tell us more,” said the Wasps director of rugby, Dai Young.
