With Nick Evans, Dave Streetle and Tiesi injured, Quins back line must be one of the youngest to appear in the HC.

Danny Care 21
Malone 28
Amesbury 20
Turner-Hall 20
Moyne 24
Williams 24
Brown 23

Playing at the Stoop v Ulster, inexperience could be a problem, but then Dean Richards is no fool.

Clermont: 15 Benoît Baby, 14 Napolioni Nalaga, 13 Gonzalo Canale, 12 Seremaïa Baï, 11 Julien Malzieu, 10 Brock James, 9 Pierre Mignoni, 8 Elvis Vermeulen (c), 7 Alexandre Audebert, 6 Julien Bonnaire, 5 Christophe Samson, 4 Julien Pierre, 3 Jacobus Roux, 2 Mario Ledesma, 1 Simms Davison.
Replacements: 16 Mirko Lozupone, 17 Thomas Domingo, 18 Loic Jacquet, 19 Emmanuel Etien; 20 John Senio, 21 Anthony Floch, 22 Arnaud Mignardi.

Montauban gravitate closer to their first team, and Clermont pick the tried and tested. Whilst this competition is new to Montauban last weeks game may have boosted their confidence somewhat. Conversely Clermont may be determined to win, and if Munster win at Sale then the pool is open again. I think Clermont will win as Montauban have T14 priorities but it should be noted that Montauban have a superb home record and have dispatched Clermont before. Nonetheless I’ll have a shout on Clermont.

Munster: 15 Paul Warwick, 14 Doug Howlett, 13 Keith Earls, 12 Lifeimi Mafi, 11 Ian Dowling, 10 Ronan O’Gara, 9 Tomas O’Leary, 8 David Wallace, 7 John O’Sullivan, 6 Alan Quinlan, 5 Paul O’Connell (c), 4 Donncha O’Callaghan, 3 John Hayes, 2 Jerry Flannery, 1 Marcus Horan.
Replacements: 16 Denis Fogarty, 17 Fredericio Pucciariello, 18 Donnacha Ryan, 19 Justin Melck, 20 Peter Stringer, 21 Barry Murphy, 22 Denis Hurley.

Some interesting selections from Saint Andre: Rory Lamont plays in his favoured 15 jersey; Chabal plays in his less-favoured position of lock; Wigglesworth persists at 10 and McAlister plays again at 13. The pack looks meaty and playing Chabal at lock places less of an emphasis on his running which could be beneficial given how Munster targeted the Frenchman during their previous encounter. The other side of that is that Sale are risking playing a number 8 against two of the better second rows in Europe and perhaps the world. However Chabal may well swap with Chris Jones for offensive scrums.

The selection of Lamont at 15 adds a bit more verve to the backline but then the addition of Keil evens that out. Why won’t Saint Andre play McAlister and Tait? Although Wigglesworth had a good game against Clermont Sale rely on their kicking game thus I’m not sure how well this will work out against Europe’s best tactical kicker. The Sale bench looks very strong, however.

Munster also ring the changes. Keith Earls gets a run at 13 – his best position – after looking like a centre out of position last week. I’m not sure if Tipoki is injured? Warwick at full back is a bit of a puzzler given that he doesn’t play there but as Rory Lamont doesn’t really have a kicking game it is likely that Warwick will not be fully tested. Tomas O’Leary comes in for Stringer.

In the forwards Justin Melck drops to the bench in favour of O’Sullivan. David Wallace’s running game is transferred to number 8 – which will be interesting. If Sale scrum well then he may not have much to work off, which is perhaps why Munster have selected two opensides.

I would normally plump for Sale but I am somewhat perplexed by Saint Andre’s selections. The Montauban debacle may be just what the doctor ordered so I’m going to pick Munster to win.

Tait should be playing 13, especially with Lamont’s form yesterday but apparently the player wants to play 15, which is unfortunate as I feel he would benefit hugely by playing with McAlister in mid-field.

Sale’s performance was excellent, as was Bath’t today, however Gloucester were awful and Leicester weren’t much better. They were powerful and passionate but that will only stretch so far. I think the most pleasing aspect has been that the Italian sides appear to have improved.

It’s been a good dayfor the English sides and I hope Leicester, Bath and Wasps carry on the good work. I look forward to the Toulose-Bath game with interest. I hope Bath come out with the same attacking mindset that Sale came out with against Clermont, which I expect them to do and they could cause a shock. So far it’s been a superb opening weekend in the HC, with virtually every team raising their game. It’s certainly been played to a higher standard than the GP and ML and for me it’s the greatest club competition in the world.

Btw, I have a sneaking suspicion that Bath might cause an upset tomorrow.

Clermont 15 – 32 Sale
A superb and massively unexpected victory from Sale. Luke McAlister was supreme which is significant because Saint-Andre played Wigglesworth – a scrum-half – at no.10. The game was rather disjointed but nonetheless this win was epic. Clermont are basically out unless they can win in Manchester or Cork.

To put the foreign imports into some form of perspective, most GP clubs will carry a squad of circa 35 players. In Quins case and other clubs, the SH players represent in the region of 20% of the squad. In addition there are a number of Welsh, Irish, French and Scottish players but the greater number are English players. If you have a look at some of the web sites you will see that many of the squads will carry in the region of 8 young players who have come through the academy, in addition to the more established English players.

If I recall you remarked upon the size and power of the England U20 squad v OZ and you may be interested to kinow that a number of these players are beginning to break through into their clubs first XV. As illustrated by the performance of young Farrell the youngest player to have appeared in a GP team, the elite programme is beginning to bear fruit as the likes of Cipriani, Haskell, Care and others are beginning to break through into the internatonal arena. One tends to forget that Tait (22) and Flood (23) who now have a number of England caps are still very young.

The professional era in England has allowed more of the top players to concentrate on rugby and develope players from a young age as they can see a worthwhile career in rugby. Incidentially Cipriani and Haskells current contracts with Wasps expire at the end of the season and I see that Cipriani is probably looking for a retainer of £200.000 per annum that is on top of a recently secured contract with Addidas which will pay him £1M over 4 years; not too bad for a 20 year old!! I forget add in the £100k for playing for England; plenty of incentive for young English players.

The nature of the Top 14, market men and sugar daddies et al, means that there tends to be few actual rugby men who own the top clubs. Take the Toulon owner as an example, demanding immediate success just because he purchased Collins and Williams. These players were bought at the expense of developing a tight five thus the club is immediately behind the 8 ball, so to speak. France tends to have a slight inferiority complex whereby the idea of Super 14 rugby conjures up imagery of exotice greatness, therefore the Top 14 is filled with SH journeymen, Tomiki, S.Kefu, McIntyre etc, as opposed to the GP whose teams invested more wisely in better players; McAlister, Hayman, Jack, Latham etc. That is also why the T14 is seemingly obsessed with NRL players.

Incidentally the most successful club in the GP, Wasps, have the fewest foreign players and Dean Richards at Quins and Dean Ryan at Gloucester have spent the past two seasons developing young English players. To that extent the GP has developed a different emphasis and thought process. It is also no coincidence that teams like Quins, Gloucester and Northampton are playing a different style of rugby to the traditional English type. It is unfortunate then that the new EPS agreement between the RFU and the clubs means that teams who produce English internationals are not appropriately rewarded, thus Bath who had a superb English core last season have been forced to invest in foreign players in order to balance the books during the international periods. Slowly but surely the majority of GP teams have been creating a balance of English players and foreign players, as opposed to yesteryear when players like Warren Britz were brought in under the premise that they were automatically better than home-grown players, which is the attitude that the Top 14 seems to be persevering with currently.

Davo, James has been supreb in France, far better than Parks. I think he was the Top 14 highest points scorer last year?! Admittedly he has had an armchair ride from the Clermont pack but he has been excellent, really very good. I suppose that is what happens when you get regular game time at the top end. If you play 35+ games a season then you have an extended period in which to develop your game. James is an accurate kicker who mixes his play well. Parks is just a kicker compared to James. Manny Edmonds also had an excellent few seasons at Perpignan. I don’t suppose it is a coincidence that they both played behind such strong forwards and their games improved.

Thanks for the interesting overview. The HC seems to be the kind of terrific cosmopolitan competition that we sadly lack here in the SH. I for one would like to read more.

Why would NSW even look at Cau Cau? They have an abundance of good wingers, Tuquiri, Turner, Tuquiri -cousin, Tahu,
Horne just to mention a few. Buying Cau Cau would be buying trouble and I think JON would bang that on the head if he has any influence.

To everyone else please do not turn this into an ELV debate!!! I would just like to get some feedback!!!

Cheers

Skip

I have to agree with Jones’ comments about Caucau, he is one freakishly talented player but absolutely zilch discipline.

He is from a remote region of Fiji, and Im sure you have heard the term ‘Fiji time’, well I think Caucau lives his entire life on Fiji time.

Heynke Meyer is dreaming if he thinks Caucau is going to turn up to Leicester.

A few years ago Caucau wanted to represent the All Blacks, I really wonder if he would ever have the discipline and ticker to establish himself as an All Black great…having said that, Ive heard that NSW is considering signing him up

Delesau scored recently against Toulouse, when Montauban went down 10-41. At the end of Sept. he was the Top 14 top tryscorer with 4 tries. He’s a great player. Bizarre that he was so under utilised by Clermont last season.

how is Delasau going for Montauban…a few years ago he got suspended by the Fiji Rugby Union for smoking pot.

Where is the other serial offender Caucau playing this year, I read he was going to be playing in Leicester?

I have seen all games this season either live on Sky, or on Rugby Club.