Saracens became the only Premiership club to gain a European Champions Cup quarter-final place, Scarlets were the comeback kids and injuries made grim viewing for GatlandWasps must be kicking themselves for their late capitulation at Harlequins the previous weekend for there can be little doubt it was at the Stoop where their hopes of reaching the knockout stages disappeared. To their credit they produced perhaps their best performance of their campaign to eliminate Ulster, securing an emphatic bonus point win only to come up just short as they and Exeter finished as the two runners-up who failed to qualify. In doing so they may have also answered a few critics who could suggest they are a fairweather team – scoring...
Of the five Champions Cup groups, Pool 5 looks like going down to the final weekend – with one point separating the top three: Bath, Toulon and ScarletsTake nothing away from Wasps’ hugely impressive victory against La Rochelle but the absence of Victor Vito, Levani Botia, Pierre Aguillon and Jason Eaton from the starting XV must be taken into consideration. Wasps certainly learnt from their mistakes of seven days previous however, were far more physical in the collisions and had Danny Cipriani in fine fettle at fly-half. It is not so long ago that Wasps were in somewhat of a crisis, languishing down towards the foot of the Premiership table amid a terrible run of injuries. Elliot Daly may yet...
The dominance of Leinster, Munster, Glasgow and Ulster in the Champions Cup was a result of performances as eye-catching as their resultsSo let’s just examine the old scoreboard. Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Glasgow played Northampton, Leicester, Clermont Auvergne and Racing Métro in the European Rugby Champions Cup last weekend and the supposed English and French heavyweights, as they say on television sports-news bulletins, may want to look away now. Adding the four results together makes for distinctly one-sided reading.So here are those stats in full: Pro12 4 Premiership/Top14 0. Tries scored 16, tries conceded 7. Points for 137, points against 56. A star-studded Wasps did beat Connacht at home on Sunday but even that was less than straightforward. How different...
Dylan Hartley’s greatest opponent is himself, Jamie George and Owen Farrell can both replace him and it was a good weekend for the Irish If Dylan Hartley had not been sent off we would all be talking about Leinster’s excellence. Perhaps we still should be; even when they were down to their third-choice fly-half the Irish side looked revitalised, for which credit must go both to the players and, in particular, their reshuffled coaching panel. The contrast with Northampton’s flat-footed start was particularly glaring, as the home skipper Tom Wood made abundantly clear after his side’s 37-10 home drubbing. Ultimately though, Hartley’s 58th-minute red card for a forearm smash to the back of Sean O’Brien’s head was the kind of...
Maro Itoje has a perfect mentor at Saracens, home truths for Exeter and New Zealand-born Joey Carbery shows he has a bright future at LeinsterYou can read Robert Kitson’s tribute to Anthony Foley, the Munster head coach who died aged 42 before his side’s scheduled match against Racing 92 in Paris on Sunday, here.Sometimes it is less the number of games a sportsman plays than the heart and soul he pours into the jersey he wears. Anthony Foley had the rare stamina and inner passion to satisfy both criteria, which is why the desperately sad news of his death at the age of 42 cast such a depressing shadow over European rugby. Foley was not just any old retired player;...