Six Premiership teams began this weekend’s Champions Cup last-16 round and it is hard to know what to expect based on domestic matches since the Six Nations. We’ve seen sides get thrashed, then dish out a thrashing themselves and of all the six in Champions Cup action, not a single one managed to string back-to-back Premiership wins together in the previous two weekends.
That doesn’t immediately point to optimism but I do believe there are grounds for positivity. It might not necessarily be the year that we see an English winner again but there were improved performances and results in the pool stages and that can continue over the next two weeks.
I find it striking that we have recently moved from the Six Nations back to domestic action and in England’s case, the style of play is not as markedly different as in previous years. The attacking ambition that we saw in England’s last two matches against Ireland and France is mirrored in Saracens’ thumping victory over Harlequins, or Northampton’s mightily impressive win over Saracens.
Having that alignment between the national team and the leading domestic sides is how you have a thriving ecosystem and it has been a while coming in England.
It means that there isn’t too much adjustment when players move between the two. Of course there are elements that needed to be adapted, calls for set-plays or lineouts, for example, but it is more about having a similar mission statement rather than players having to completely start over when they pull on a different jersey.
We see it with Ireland, particularly with Leinster but with Munster too – both sides will be looking to ride the wave of optimism that comes with back-to-back Six Nations titles – and we see it with France, too.
Things were going swimmingly before the World Cup quarter-final defeat and while it might have been a slow start to the Champions Cup for some teams, and a sluggish beginning to the Six Nations, by the end of it Les Bleus were on song again and the French are going to take some stopping this weekend.
For the Premiership teams, it has been feast or famine of late but this weekend comes at the perfect time. It is almost as if they have flushed out the highs and flushed out the lows since the eight-week break and the return of the Champions Cup brings a sense of equilibrium and the opportunity to sharpen focus once more.
Plenty has been made about the fact that the draw has thrown up a host of rematches from the pool stages but to take a positive slant on the situation, it produces some excellent narratives this weekend.
Take Saracens returning to Bordeaux, having shipped 50 points in the most uncharacteristic performance I’ve seen from them in years. At the time they were struggling to contain the negative spiral that they were in but things have settled down since then – even if they were not at their best against Northampton – while Bordeaux are probably not quite hitting the heights they were a few months ago.
Owen Farrell is absent but there are still players who are moving on at the end of the season and Saracens will lean into that emotion, they will know they will have to go to some pretty dark places whereas Bordeaux will be doing everything they can to make their opponents feel like they are right back where they were in January.
On previous form, Bordeaux look the best placed of the teams outside of what would be described as the usual suspects to make the last four. In that I would include Leinster, Toulouse and La Rochelle, who have all reached the semi-finals in the last three seasons.
This weekend I expect Leinster to have too much for Leicester and while La Rochelle used up most of their lives even getting to this stage, they will fancy themselves as they head into the knockout rounds. Toulouse, meanwhile, welcome Romain Ntamack back just at the right time.
Sunday brings us to Northampton against Munster and another mouthwatering rematch from the pool stages. If last weekend’s victory over Saracens, and the manner of it, felt significant in Northampton’s Premiership pursuit then so did the way that they overcame Munster away in the pool stages with regards to their Champions Cup campaign.
The common denominator is the form of Fin Smith who was supposedly described as a “proper player” by Peter O’Mahony at full-time at Thomond Park and he does not immediately strike as someone who dishes out compliments just for the sake of it.
If Smith continues that kind of form in the next two weeks then it would appear to be Northampton who look best placed to go deepest in the competition of all the English clubs but the Premiership sides can continue with the ambition they have shown in recent weeks then the Saints might not be the only ones.
