RUGBY:IRISH RUGBY generally and tournament organisers alike will have heaved a collective sigh of relief as the Heineken Cup quarter-final pairings panned out over a slightly anti-climactic and saturated day of pool matches. Not alone have both Munster and Leinster sustained interested in Europe into the second weekend in April, and ditto Connacht in the Challenge Cup, but Toulouse managed to maintain French interest in the competition along with a couple of Welsh sides and three from England.
Munster, the holders, were reinstated as 15 to 8 favourites to retain the trophy after their rearranged and impressively clinical 39-13 win in Montauban yesterday ensured a home quarter-final against the Ospreys.
Leinster made heavy weather of beating Edinburgh 12-3, but coupled with Wasps’ defeat in Castres, it sent them through to an away quarter-final and first Heineken Cup meeting with Harlequins – all in all, not the worst of outcomes.
A win without a bonus point would have sufficed to earn an advantageous and lucrative home quarter-final for Munster – as events transpired it would have been against Leinster – but a brace of tries apiece by Lifeimi Mafi and Barry Murphy augmented a first-half effort by Tomás O’Leary to earn a bonus point.
They have played the Welsh region twice before, beating them 20-18 away and 20-10 at home in the pool stages four years ago. With the ties to be played on Easter weekend, April 10th-12th, the hope must be that the ERC and Sky do not put that tie on Good Friday. Much will depend on events in between and specifically the ravages of the Six Nations over the next two months, for both are bulk suppliers to their respective national teams.
“I think we’re just happy to be there. We didn’t like not being there last year,” admitted Leinster coach Michael Cheika. “We’re under no delusions we had a great game. We definitely dominated, defended well, had all the ball; just couldn’t deliver the knock-out blow.
“We’ve been misfiring but playing pretty tough. But we’ve got to second place in the league and the last eight in Europe. I’d have taken that last August. Now we can reset and bring a few new things to the party once we know our opponents.”
Cheika is probably right when observing that “no team is really pulling up stumps”, although Munster and Cardiff might argue otherwise. Only a bonus-point win for Wasps would have denied Leinster, although that said Doug Waldouck did push the Londoners 15-14 in front with their second try in the 67th minute. Two more tries for the Londoners would have put them through at Leinster’s expense, but Wasps also butchered a couple more try-scoring opportunities.
When word came through of Waldouck’s try Cheika admitted: “The heart rate went up a little bit. (But) I just knew that down there from experience, it’s not easy. We had people telling us stuff, we had an idea. When Castres got in front early, it was a good sign for us. They had their tails up.”
At the full-time whistle, Leinster were consigned to an away quarter-final, but depending on the outcome of the subsequent Bath-Toulouse game at the Rec Cheika’s team were heading to Harlequins, Bath, Toulouse or Munster.
Admittedly, only a bonus-point win for Bath would have meant another mother of all Irish derbies, and given the mudbath which they and Toulouse were obliged to play on, that quickly ceased to be an option. In the event, the three-all draw (during which, bizarrely, none of the players were made aware of the permutations) consigned both to away quarter-finals, and, privately, of the four, Leinster would probably have chosen Harlequins.
It also seems likely that Leinster will be given the chance to surpass the 10,000 which attended the pool game against Wasps in Twickenham a fortnight ago on the premise that Harlequins also choose the RFU headquarters as the venue for the quarter-final.
Cardiff are also set to move their quarter-final to the Millennium Stadium although their reward for a top-ranked quarter-final seeding is to play Toulouse. Interestingly, no team with six wins from six in the pool stages has ever gone on to win the cup.
Leicester may be less inclined to move their quarter-final against Bath from Welford Road to the Walkers’ Stadium, given they did so three seasons ago and lost to Bath by 15-12. The semi-final draw will be made in Edinburgh tomorrow.
Edinburgh coach Andy Robinson observed of Leinster: “They’ve got some quality players. They’ve certainly got the big-match players there to step up the game. You want to see them playing in April, when the ground is firmer, and they can play with the same ambition they did in the early rounds against us and Wasps.”
Roll on April.
