How is the new format going to play out?
- Murray Kinsella
After three seasons of the deeply unpopular format of having two huge pools, there’s a new look for this campaign. Now, it’s four pools of six teams but with only four pool games each, your team still doesn’t get to play everyone else in their pool. And while we’re back to smaller pools, it doesn’t mean the return of the old home-and-away clashes with the other clubs in your pool.
There’s also the fact that four teams go through from each pool of six because there’s still a round of 16 to follow. So the jury is well and truly out on whether this new pool format will be all that compelling. Teams who haven’t strung together good results can still edge through into the knock-out stages. It still feels like there are too many clubs in the competition at 24.
This is the Champions Cup and the reality is that most of the teams involved haven’t been in contention to be champions in their own league competitions. But here’s hoping the pool stages deliver far more than what has been the case in the last three years.
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Can Premiership sides challenge the big guns?
- Ciarán Kennedy
It’s safe to say the English Premiership is not the competition it once was. Financial issues have plagued the league in recent seasons and the quality of rugby on offer has noticeably dipped as the Top 14 and URC have thrived.
This season, it will once again be France and Ireland who supply the early favorites as a new Champions Cup campaign kicks off. The double-winning Exeter side of 2019/20 remain the last English team to reach the Champions Cup final, with France and Ireland providing the finalists across each of the last three seasons.
Last year Premiership sides struggled in the knockouts; Exeter shipping 47 points to La Rochelle in their semi-final while Saracens and Leicester both lost by double-figures in the quarters. The season before, no English side made the semi-finals after Leicester and Sale were both dismissed in the last eight.
Nobody benefits from having such one-sided contests when the stakes are supposed to be high. A stronger showing from the English clubs this season would be a good thing for all involved.
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Will one of the ‘other’ French clubs give it a proper crack?
- Gavan Casey
With its football club having found itself in financial ruin and now languishing near the bottom of Ligue 2, Bordeaux is a city ripe for a full rugby takeover.
That Yannick Bru’s Bordeaux Bègles — currently seventh in the Top 14, but only six points off first — have arrived in Galway fully loaded should be taken as an indication of their intentions towards Europe this season.
Bru is a breakdown specialist and while his pack might be a couple of years — or a couple of marquee signings — short of matching the likes of a La Rochelle or Leinster, Bordeaux’s international-stacked backline is the most exciting in the competition on paper.
The reality of the competition format is such that should they beat Connacht in Galway tonight, Bordeaux will enter the conversation as being dark horses for a first Champions Cup success.
Racing, meanwhile, have traditionally viewed Europe as being of almost equal importance to their national championship. That sentiment will have been only underlined by Stuart Lancaster upon his arrival.
With fixtures at home to ‘Quins, away to Ulster and Bath, and at home to Cardiff, Lancaster will fancy his side’s chances of sealing crucial home advantage for the bones of the knockouts.
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Are the South Africans going to have a big say?
- Murray Kinsella
The South African clubs’ first experience of the Champions Cup last season wasn’t the happiest, with the Sharks and Stormers reaching the quarter-finals only to be well beaten by Toulouse and Exeter, respectively. Fans of the URC know how much quality the South African clubs can deliver, with the Stormers winning that competition at the first time of asking and then reaching the final again last season.
But adding in the additional workload of the Champions Cup has been challenging, particularly in light of all the travel demanded of them. Again this season, if a South African side earns a ‘home’ semi-final in the Champions Cup, they will have to host it in Europe.
They can bring round of 16 and quarter-final ties to South Africa, but that semi-final hurdle will be very tough to clear if they have to give up their home advantage. It’s worth pointing out here that only the Stormers and Bulls are in the Champions Cup this season, with the Sharks, Lions, and Cheetahs down in the Challenge Cup.
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Will Ulster take the scenic route through the pool stage?
- Gavan Casey
Ever since the EPCR began to make a total hames of the competition format, the consensus has justifiably been that if a team can win their home games, they’ll safely book a passage through to the knockouts.
But what if the reverse is true of Ulster this season? Dan McFarland’s side will, of course, fancy their chances of beating both Racing and Toulouse in their middle two home fixtures. But given they open away to Bath and finish away to ‘Quins, Ulster’s most convenient route into the last 16 is to really nail their away games against their more eminently beatable, English hosts.
In fairness, Johann van Graan’s Bath are joint top of the Premiership and will be licking their lips at the prospect of welcoming a struggling Ulster outfit to The Rec… But for the reasons that Ciarán outlined above, does being joint top of the weakest major league in Europe really count for much in the grander scheme of things at the moment?
We’ll find that much out on Saturday.
