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This Week's Biggest Matches on Rugby Pass
By RugbyPass
Three top quality Top 14 matches and two mouth-watering English derbies as the singular Anglo-Welsh Cup returns.
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Anglo-Welsh Cup: Bath v Gloucester (Saturday, January 28, 3.45am HKT)
After a year off so the rugby schedule could accommodate the World Cup, the 45-year-old cross-border Anglo-Welsh Cup is back. The third round of the tournament features a derby double that kicks off with this always mouth-watering fixture. David Humphreys Gloucester head to the Rec riding the wave of a three-match winning run that started with the shellacking of Worcester earlier this month and continued with a European Challenge Cup charge to the quarter finals with wins over Benetton Treviso and Bayonne. They will be looking to continue that run here – but, despite losing their first two games in the competition, Todd Blackadder’s Bath will not want to concede an inch against one of their oldest rivals.
Top 14: Toulon v La Rochelle (Saturday, January 28, 9.45pm HKT)
Mike Ford’s Toulon may have escaped the frying pan last week – scraping the losing bonus point they needed at Saracens to reach the European Champions Cup quarter finals as the eighth-placed side – but they find themselves right back in the Top 14 fire with a tough match against second-placed La Rochelle. The two sides could not be separated when they met earlier this season at Stade Marcel Deflandre. Expect this game to be equally tight with both sides hit by international call-ups ahead of the Six Nations, which kick off next weekend.
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Anglo Welsh Cup: Leicester v Northampton (Saturday, January 28, 11pm HKT)
Back to the Anglo-Welsh Cup for Saturday’s final match – and the second match of the day’s derby double – where the pressure on Aaron Mauger’s Leicester tyros will be immense following last week’s European Champions Cup 43-0 humiliation at home to Glasgow. There were no positives for the Tigers to take from that encounter – the first time they had been nilled since 1976. Now it’s up to their young guns, who generally make their first team bow in this tournament, to restore a little pride and belief among the Welford Road faithful.
Top 14: Castres v Montpellier (Sunday, January 29, 1.30am HKT)
These two sides must be getting bored of each other. This is the fourth time they have met this season, with the results so far in favour of Montpellier, who have two wins to Castres’ one. Both those wins came at Montpellier’s Altrad Stadium. This week, Jake White’s side head to Stade Pierre Antoine, where the hosts have not lost since the second round of the Top 14 – nine matches, eight wins and one draw ago. This is a genuine clash of styles, as big, brutish, direct Montpellier face a Castres side that prefer an unstructured, open game. The last time the two sides met here, in the European Champions Cup, Castres edged it 29-23. It’s likely to be as close again.
Top 14: Bordeaux v Clermont (Sunday, January 29, 11.45pm HKT)
Another fourth encounter of the close kind is likely as the Top 14 and European Champions Cup pool rivals meet yet again. Interest in this match is so big that Bordeaux have moved it from their regular home of Stade Chaban-Delmas to the larger Matmut Atlantique stadium, which was built for soccer’s 2016 European Championships. League leaders Clermont have the wood on their hosts, having won all three of their meetings this season. But their last encounter – in the Champions Cup – was an unusually dour affair, which Clermont won 9-6. Given that 138 points were fairly evenly spread between the previous two encounters, it’s a fair bet the European result will be proven something of an anomaly.
