There are those who have come to relish January, a time of abstemiousness and self-betterment that serves as a necessary reset from that which has come before. There is little reason, of course, to postpone any attempt to improve oneself beyond an arbitrary date, but a fresh page of the calendar can serve as necessary impetus nonetheless.
There will be plenty of figures in the club game hoping to condemn the missteps of 2025 to the past. As the Investec Champions Cup returns, both the Prem and the United Rugby Championship (URC) have reached the halfway mark of their campaigns, with the strata in each beginning to separate. The first week of 2026 has seen both Gloucester and Harlequins release somewhat ambiguous statements nonetheless underlining a need for improvements amid lost seasons – for the pair, and others, the fresh purpose that a new year and new competition can bring may therefore be welcome.
Indeed, much the same could be said of the tournament in which they will play over the next two weekends. A new year has not brought any imminent fresh solutions to the myriad problems that afflict the Champions Cup – virtually all stakeholders agree that a revamp is required but finding a structure to suit every party is, it would seem, impossible. Many would favour moving the entirety of the continental competition into a single block which could occur after the conclusion of domestic seasons, which would feed neatly into the Club World Cup when it begins in 2028 – but convincing France’s Top 14 to move from a relatively buoyant model may prove an insurmountable barrier.
The detractors and dissenters to what the Champions Cup has become are many, but this feels a weekend that could provide necessary tonic. The labyrinthine format and qualification permutations are starting to straighten themselves out and, at least on paper, round three offers a heavy dollop of intrigue and an array of ties to whet the appetite even of the abstinent resolutionists.
Northampton’s trip to Bordeaux and Leinster’s meeting with La Rochelle reunites the combatants of the 2025 and 2023 finals respectively, with Henry Pollock and Ronan O’Gara ready to receive the rancour. Saracens vs Toulouse and Toulon against Munster are fixtures laden with the pedigree of the ruling classes. Throw in an unbeaten Stormers side taking on a Harlequins team for which this competition now has nearly full focus and you have the makings of a vintage European weekend – if this round falls flat then perhaps the Champions Cup really is in need of abandonment.
“We're obviously buzzing to get going,” Northampton’s Tommy Freeman said this week. "It's a place Saints haven't been to since 1997, it will be a big home crowd, 34,000 and they will get whooping, hollering and booing so we'll definitely step into the challenge.
"It will be a completely new experience and this is why we do it. It's the top of the top going against top players and you want to test yourself at that level." The Pollock factor will give the game extra edge after his clashes with the Bordelais at the full-time whistle in Cardiff in May, and the mocking images of the victorious players that followed.
Northampton’s route to last year’s final is one that has been looked to by other clubs around the Prem as they plot their route through Europe this season. Unable to stretch their budgets to meet that of the French heavyweights, or replicate what Leinster do well, there is a growing thought that English clubs need to box clever if they are to still be swinging when the final bell sounds. With their domestic title defence never really getting going last year, Saints’ ability to pivot their priorities and have a real tilt proved that it can be done – if those circumstances, and Northampton’s squad, seem exceptional, it has instilled belief elsewhere.
“I think the Northampton one is really close to us, actually,” Jason Gilmore, senior coach at Harlequins, said this week as his side pick up the pieces of a Prem campaign in tatters. “How they play and the style of squad they have is something we are aspiring to be. Obviously, they weren’t travelling that well in the Prem, but they grabbed that European campaign by the scruff of the neck and did really well to make it through to the final. I think there is that blueprint there for us – but it’s going to take a lot of work.”
It is, amid a schedule that promises much, a shame that there is not greater jeopardy on each game, however important securing home advantage through to the semi-finals may be – imagine, for example, if Saracens and Toulouse was something resembling winner-takes-all after narrow defeats in Durban and Glasgow last time out. The stakes are not quite that stark but a tangled Pool 1 could yet be knotty for either if they are beaten again. It is the sort of scenario which this competition needs to provide more in the future if it is to be made great again – and a glorious weekend could yet be the start of a year that provides much-needed hope for the future.
