Heineken Cup weekends don’t come much better for the Irish provinces than the one just gone…
To heaven for Connacht
It really is hard to emphasise just how amazing and how significant Connacht’s win over Toulouse was yesterday, but we’ll give it a go nonetheless.
Pat Lam’s men went into yesterday’s encounter having lost nine of their ten previous games and although Connacht have turned the formbook on its head in the competition before – just ask Harlequins – nobody expected them to do it in one of the most intimidating fortresses in European rugby, the Stade Ernest-Wallon, where the aristocrats of French and Heineken Cup rugby had not lost in the competition for five years.
Considering their home record and Connacht’s form going into the game, it’s no real surprise the hosts were 25-point favourites but the visitors made the four-time champions look ordinary in a performance littered with determination, vigour, guts and no little class.
It wouldn’t have been a Connacht win if they didn’t make us sweat a little towards the finish when Dan Parks sent a drop-goal wide and left a penalty attempt inches short but thanks to an aggressive defensive strategy they coped comfortably with what Toulouse had to offer and were desperately unlucky that they didn’t have a bigger cushion after Robbie Henshaw’s exceptional try was ruled out because of a marginal knock on earlier in the move.
It was labelled as Connacht’s greatest ever win and one of the best results ever achieved by an Irish team in the Heineken Cup and it’s hard to argue with that; if you want to relive the memories one more time, have another listen to the always excellent Michael Corcoran’s account of the closing stages yesterday, it won’t disappoint.
Leinster scale heady heights
It had been billed as a revenge mission for Northampton Saints after the 2011 Heineken Cup Final, but there was only one team on a mission at Franklin’s Gardens and it wasn’t the home side. No team have produced as many top-drawer performances as the Blues in the competition in recent years and this was up there with the best of them and although Northampton were poor, few teams can live with Leinster when they’re in this type of mood.
The clear gulf in class might be telling us something about the quality of the Aviva Premiership right now, but the Saints went into the game on the back of seven consecutive victories and must have fancied their chances. By half-time, they hadn’t scored a point and Leinster had a bonus point, as well as 26 points, on the board.
Everything Leinster tried came off and they were ruthless in dismantling their opponents, from their superiority over a supposedly superior Northampton scrum to the targeting of Ken Pisi at full back, which led to a brace of early tries for Luke Fitzgerald, who continued his recent rehabilitation with a well-deserved hat-trick.
The man himself didn’t agree and there were any amount of contenders, but Brian O’Driscoll was the most impressive performer and showed, not for the first time, that writing him off is both premature and somewhat insulting. The intercept try was a worthy reward for his efforts but the highlight was undoubtedly the between the legs pass, something we’re sure you won’t mind having one last look at below…
Munster march on
On the surface, yesterday’s meeting with Perpignan would have represented a good day at the office for Rob Penney. 28-point win, bonus point achieved, some fine individual performances – particularly Keith Earls – and a restoration of command at the top of Pool Six.
It’s not quite all rosy in the Munster garden at the moment, however. Given the form he was in, Conor Murray’s loss is a big blow and there remains the suspicion that Munster are not quite firing on all cylinders, apparent yesterday in attack, where they weren’t as clinical as, say, Leinster on Saturday night, and in defence, with Perpignan having plenty of opportunities to add to the eight points they put on the board.
The main thing for Munster though is that they’re winning – Sunday was their sixth win in six games since the debacle in Edinburgh in October – and Penney will be happy having plenty to iron out at this stage of the season rather than when they hit the business end further down the line.
Don’t forget to get involved with the Heineken Star Predictor ‘Get in The Game’ where you can put your rugby knowledge to the test by predicting the outcome of this weekend’s games. The top prize is a pair of VIP tickets to the 2014 Heineken Cup Final in Cardiff and there are other prizes to be won throughout the season. Click here to start predicting.
