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The Premiership's Champions Cup annus horribilis - why?
By Alex Shaw
The ink was barely dry on the quarter-final match-ups of the Champions Cup this past weekend before the public dissection of the Premiership’s annus horribilis in the competition began.
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With Saracens the sole team from England making it out of the pool phase, it is the first time since the 2011/12 season that the Premiership has not had multiple representatives in the knockout rounds of the top tier European tournament.
Predictably, the threat of relegation has been floated as one reason for the Premiership clubs’ struggles and that has thrown petrol on the already blazing fire of potentially ring-fencing the competition.
There is merit to that idea, especially with an enlarged, two-conference format, also including Bristol and Yorkshire Carnegie, but the idea that it will bring about improved fortunes in European competition is a stretch.
Let’s be honest, no English side went into the Champions Cup this season fearing relegation. There were no conscious thoughts in the opening two rounds from Premiership directors of rugby of resting players in Europe so that they were better prepared for the Premiership.
In the Challenge Cup? Sure.
In the Champions Cup? No chance.
Admittedly, as the tournament progressed, Northampton Saints found themselves in an alarming position in the Premiership and, perhaps, thoughts of a relegation battle entered their mind over the last two rounds of European rugby, but the reality is they were eliminated from the competition before that, in the third round, when they lost at home to the Ospreys, on the back of a thumping at home to Saracens and a loss away at Clermont.
Credit should actually be given to Saints for rousing themselves in round five of the competition and beating Clermont at Franklin’s Gardens, but regardless, they are the only side who can use the spectre of relegation as any kind of mitigating factor this season.
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Harlequins and Leicester Tigers both currently sit 22 points above bottom-placed side London Irish in the Premiership table, whilst Saracens, Exeter Chiefs, Wasps and Bath are all in the top five and competing for playoff spots come the conclusion of the regular season.
The scrapping of relegation is not going to change the approaches of teams battling it out in the top half of the table. They are still going to pick strong teams in the Premiership, with the intent of making it into the playoffs with as favourable seeding as possible.
Scrapping relegation is a solution if you believe the developmental nature of the Challenge Cup – I don’t – is a problem.
To be honest, even that isn’t a primary motivation behind scrapping relegation.
The desire for improved financial security of the established Premiership clubs is the driving force.
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So, if the threat of relegation didn’t bring about this near no show for the English sides in the knockout rounds, what did?
The playing time of England internationals, following a British and Irish Lions year where the invitational side leant heavily on them, has also been mooted, with terms like burnout and flogged being bandied about.
There’s no doubt that the likes of Mako Vunipola, Dan Cole, Maro Itoje, Courtney Lawes, Owen Farrell, Jonathan Joseph and Anthony Watson have all played a lot of rugby over the last 18 months, but if you look individually at their performances in the Champions Cup, have they underperformed?
Maybe Itoje has been a little quieter for Saracens in their matches than he was in last season’s competition, something which could be attributed to an early season injury, but both Vunipola and Farrell have been consistently high class. Cole and Lawes have stood up strongly in teams that have been outclassed this season and both Joseph and Watson enjoyed good campaigns with Bath.
They have played too many games and the management of their workloads, which had looked to be improving in recent seasons under the new club-country agreement, has certainly taken a backward step in a Lions year, but again, that has not looked to be a significant factor in the Premiership sides’ European shortcomings. The key players stood up throughout the pool stage.
Farrell certainly hasn’t been flagging from a year of non-stop rugby
Rugby fans. We’re a reactionary bunch, you know.
Back in the 2015/16 season, five English clubs made it to the quarter-finals. They were joined by three French clubs. There was no Guinness PRO12 representation.
It was, apparently, the beginning of the end for the Celtic sides in Europe.
Fast-forward two seasons and there are three, now PRO14, Celtic sides in the knockouts, with Leinster in tremendous form and arguably favourites for the trophy and both Munster and Scarlets have winnable, home quarter-finals.
Things change quickly in rugby.
Is there really more at play here, this season, than the Premiership clubs simply being beaten by savvier and, on the day, better opponents?
Just one team in the quarter-finals is of course a poor return for the Premiership but look closer at the fortunes of each of the seven entrants this season and the picture is far less gloomy.
Saracens are in the quarter-finals despite enduring a run of bad form that was the worst the club had seen for over a decade. That is pretty remarkable, and they now, to the annoyance of Leinster, look to be finding their groove once more.
As for Wasps, Bath and Exeter, they were all in with a shout of qualifying in the final round of pool games.
Exeter lost their double-header with Leinster – hardly damning given the form of the Dubliners – which put them in a hole, but their destiny was still in their own hands going into the final match of their pool with Glasgow. They were comfortably outplayed by a Stuart Hogg-inspired Warriors side.
Fair enough. Glasgow have been doing that – even without Hogg – to sides in the PRO14 all season.
Bath had a good run and can feel unlucky. They did the double over Benneton, beat Scarlets away from home and saw off Toulon in Bath. Aside from their home fixture with the Scarlets, they played well in their five remaining pool games and though they will rue not getting a try bonus point at home to Benneton and narrowly losing at the Stade Mayol, two factors which, had they been reversed, would not only have seen Bath qualify, but also qualify with a home quarter-final.
It’s a game of inches and Bath fell just short, but they can certainly be proud of their efforts.
Wasps had a similar campaign to Bath, really. When Bath lost at home to Scarlets in round five, Wasps fell short at the Stoop against Harlequins, a game which everyone had Wasps slated to win and go forth from as a strong candidate to fill one of the eight knockout berths.
With Quins missing plenty of first team players in that fixture through a mix of injury, suspension or rotation, it’s a game you would have backed Wasps to win eight or nine times out of 10.
Admittedly, Quins, Leicester and Northampton had European seasons to forget, but Wasps, Bath and Exeter were all there, right on the cusp of qualification.
The bounce of Anthony Belleau’s grubber at the Mayol against Bath or Danny Care turning into some sort of Aaron Smith-TJ Perenara hybrid for 80 minutes in January. These were the microscopic – relative to an entire six-game pool stage – differences which cost them qualification.
And little errors.
Whether they were tactically outthought, lost focus for brief periods or approached games in the wrong way, it all combined to be enough to see them just miss out on the quarter-finals.
From Bath and Exeter trying to overpower and outmuscle Scarlets and Leinster respectively, to Wasps going through the motions against Quins, these are all things which can be tweaked and rectified. They are not systemic issues relating to the Premiership, it’s structure or perceived benefits the Celtic nations may have from central contracting.
There is no reason why those three sides can’t be in the quarter-finals at this stage of next season.
Quins, too, will be a stronger outfit next season as they evolve
See. React. Blame.
It’s a horrible yearly cycle that follows the conclusion of the pool stage, but thankfully one which will not be going on at those clubs, or any of the other sides that failed to qualify for the knockout rounds this year.
Those directors of rugby and coaches will be looking at ways they can ensure this doesn’t happen next season, rather than coming up with excuses.
Is our recruitment balance, between improving the first XV and bolstering squad depth, right?
Tactically, how could we have been better prepared for our opponents?
How can we make our players more adaptable to the differing interpretations of the laws that we will see from cross-competition referees?
If our players were flagging, which Premiership games can we target for them to be rested in and hand our academy players valuable playing time?
Or, should we allow our players a longer offseason than the five-week mandatory period written into their contracts?
There is no reason why the Premiership clubs can’t come back from this season with renewed vigour in Europe in 2018/19. After all, that’s exactly what the PRO14 sides did after their very own annus horribilis during the 2015/16 season.
Just please, stop the excuses, apportioning of blame and agenda-driving.
After all, pool stage exits, relegations and disappointing seasons, all they are are opportunities to re-evaluate and then rebuild something more impressive than what came before.
Take this as the opportunity it is.
