THE OPENING WEEKEND of the Champions Cup saw a spread of weakened teams fielded as clubs juggled their resources across domestic and European campaigns, a development which was a surprise to no-one, but still represents a disappointing look for the competition.
Harlequins were one of the teams in that category, and their head coach Jason Gilmore admitted to feeling mixed emotions on taking that approach, outlining it was almost ‘a forced situation’ given the need to rest his international players at certain periods.
A rotated Quins side still managed to put it up to Leinster for an hour at Aviva Stadium, before their challenge eventually faded.
They’ll bring some of those missing internationals back for their meeting with Bayonne this week, but others will be rested after featuring against Leinster. Leicester Tigers, who host Leinster tomorrow, and Clermont Auvergne were among the other clubs who had key men missing across the opening weekend.
It’s a frustrating situation for fans, and Leinster back row Jack Conan admits it’s also not ideal from a players’ perspective.
“Look, if I was paying a lot of money to go see my team away or something like that it would be frustrating,” Conan says.
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Conan claims a lineout against Harlequins. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“But I think a lot of it’s taken out of clubs hands now, isn’t it? When you see the mandates from the RFU, generally saying lads can only play a certain amount of games, you kind of have to put all your eggs in one basket to some regard. It depends where you’re going in the Premiership and things like that. So it’s understandable.
“Obviously, we’re very fortunate here that we have such depth throughout the squad, so it’s one of those things. It’s not ideal for fans, but sometimes it has to happen, doesn’t it? Now with the new layout of the tournament as well, you can probably lose a game or two and still squeak through.
“It’s probably different than what it used to be, especially when it was the bigger, groups, pool groups, you know.
So a little bit frustrated. Yeah, definitely, if I was a fan, I wouldn’t be too happy.”
As the tournament reaches the knockouts it tends to heat up. Of the 24 teams that enter the pool stages, 16 advance to the knockouts. Still, not every side goes ‘all out’ when it gets to the knockouts, but Conan doesn’t feel the current format has devalued the Champions Cup.
“No, I think it’s still the tournament that everyone wants to win. I just think it can be a bit frustrating because you want the best players playing the whole time, especially if you’re a fan.
“Even for us, we want to be playing against the best. We want to test ourselves but, saying that, other lads get opportunities to play. Harlequins, for a team that rested a few of their bigger players, were pretty good at the weekend, definitely caused us a lot of problems.”
Those problems included the concession of four tries across a game where Leinster’s defence was cracked too often, and their attack had mixed moments despite eventually notching up seven tries.
It was a game which left the group feeling ‘flat’, in the words of assistant coach Robin McBryde, but Conan is confident Leinster can build some rhythm as the start putting back-to-back games together following their fragmented start to the season.
The Quins game was Conan’s first Leinster game of the season, while the same applied to Joe McCarthy and captain Caelan Doris.
Their round two game tomorrow should provide a sterner test, as Leinster head to face a Leicester Tigers team [KO 8pm] who rested a number of players for their opening round loss at La Rochelle.
“We know we’re going over there to a tough place to win. We know the level of physicality that we’ll have to bring to it in both sides of ball, and then the ruck needs to be a lot higher, probably than it was on the weekend.
“So that’s the first thing you think of when you’re away to Leicester. We know what that’s going to be like for the majority lads, they’ve gone over there and played over there. So that’s feeding in your mind the whole time.
“You know that physically you need to be on it. Now, obviously that was a goal last week as well, to be like that, but we weren’t. So we know. Now you’re kicking yourself a little bit, thinking, ‘Right, that wasn’t good enough last week’.
“We pitch up at the same level of intent, physicality and directness that we did on Saturday, you know that the outcome is not going to be the same. So that’s one of the areas where there’s huge growth in the squad to get better, especially on our side the ball.
“How many times did we kick the ball out, or have little knock-ons at the base of a ruck and things like that? Simple things that are not our standard at all, that that was really disappointing. So that’s an area we need to master better.”
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Conan: Weakened selections in Champions Cup frustrating for fans and players
THE OPENING WEEKEND of the Champions Cup saw a spread of weakened teams fielded as clubs juggled their resources across domestic and European campaigns, a development which was a surprise to no-one, but still represents a disappointing look for the competition.
Harlequins were one of the teams in that category, and their head coach Jason Gilmore admitted to feeling mixed emotions on taking that approach, outlining it was almost ‘a forced situation’ given the need to rest his international players at certain periods.
A rotated Quins side still managed to put it up to Leinster for an hour at Aviva Stadium, before their challenge eventually faded.
They’ll bring some of those missing internationals back for their meeting with Bayonne this week, but others will be rested after featuring against Leinster. Leicester Tigers, who host Leinster tomorrow, and Clermont Auvergne were among the other clubs who had key men missing across the opening weekend.
It’s a frustrating situation for fans, and Leinster back row Jack Conan admits it’s also not ideal from a players’ perspective.
“Look, if I was paying a lot of money to go see my team away or something like that it would be frustrating,” Conan says.
“But I think a lot of it’s taken out of clubs hands now, isn’t it? When you see the mandates from the RFU, generally saying lads can only play a certain amount of games, you kind of have to put all your eggs in one basket to some regard. It depends where you’re going in the Premiership and things like that. So it’s understandable.
“Obviously, we’re very fortunate here that we have such depth throughout the squad, so it’s one of those things. It’s not ideal for fans, but sometimes it has to happen, doesn’t it? Now with the new layout of the tournament as well, you can probably lose a game or two and still squeak through.
“It’s probably different than what it used to be, especially when it was the bigger, groups, pool groups, you know.
As the tournament reaches the knockouts it tends to heat up. Of the 24 teams that enter the pool stages, 16 advance to the knockouts. Still, not every side goes ‘all out’ when it gets to the knockouts, but Conan doesn’t feel the current format has devalued the Champions Cup.
“No, I think it’s still the tournament that everyone wants to win. I just think it can be a bit frustrating because you want the best players playing the whole time, especially if you’re a fan.
“Even for us, we want to be playing against the best. We want to test ourselves but, saying that, other lads get opportunities to play. Harlequins, for a team that rested a few of their bigger players, were pretty good at the weekend, definitely caused us a lot of problems.”
Those problems included the concession of four tries across a game where Leinster’s defence was cracked too often, and their attack had mixed moments despite eventually notching up seven tries.
It was a game which left the group feeling ‘flat’, in the words of assistant coach Robin McBryde, but Conan is confident Leinster can build some rhythm as the start putting back-to-back games together following their fragmented start to the season.
The Quins game was Conan’s first Leinster game of the season, while the same applied to Joe McCarthy and captain Caelan Doris.
Their round two game tomorrow should provide a sterner test, as Leinster head to face a Leicester Tigers team [KO 8pm] who rested a number of players for their opening round loss at La Rochelle.
“We know we’re going over there to a tough place to win. We know the level of physicality that we’ll have to bring to it in both sides of ball, and then the ruck needs to be a lot higher, probably than it was on the weekend.
“So that’s the first thing you think of when you’re away to Leicester. We know what that’s going to be like for the majority lads, they’ve gone over there and played over there. So that’s feeding in your mind the whole time.
“You know that physically you need to be on it. Now, obviously that was a goal last week as well, to be like that, but we weren’t. So we know. Now you’re kicking yourself a little bit, thinking, ‘Right, that wasn’t good enough last week’.
“We pitch up at the same level of intent, physicality and directness that we did on Saturday, you know that the outcome is not going to be the same. So that’s one of the areas where there’s huge growth in the squad to get better, especially on our side the ball.
“How many times did we kick the ball out, or have little knock-ons at the base of a ruck and things like that? Simple things that are not our standard at all, that that was really disappointing. So that’s an area we need to master better.”
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Champions Cup Jack Conan Leinster rotation Rugby