Heineken Cup flowing, even when it’s snowing.

 
Pot Hale Roar Guru

By pothale, 22 Dec 2009 Pot Hale is a Roar Guru

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The turnaround ties in Round 4 of the Heineken Cup were played this weekend, despite several snow blizzards, frozen pitches, postponed games and icy terraces.

And fortunately the tries kept coming too after an initial bout of stodgy rugby.

The back-to-back period of the Cup is regarded as the most critical for teams in setting them up for the final pool stages at the end of January.

Teams that played at home last weekend, travelled away this weekend to meet the same opponents.

Friday’s bout had only one match – Dragons v Biarritz – lined up and early snowfalls postponed it with Rodney Parade frozen out.

By Saturday lunchtime, matches featuring Edinburgh V Bath; Treviso v Northampton; Dragons v Biarritz; Toulouse v Cardiff Blues were all meant for kick-off.

Except willing hands were needed to wield snow shovels to clear many of the pitches. Delays of up to an hour were expected.

Word came that the King Baudoin Stadium in Brussels had frozen over and the planned sell-out match between Stade Francais and Ulster was postponed.

A mad scramble was underway to find another stadium to play the game within 24 hours somewhere in France that didn’t have snow.

At first it looked like the weather was going to prevent anyone crossing the try-line as Edinburgh battled gamely against Bath eventually winning by three penalties to two – 9-6. The two teams at times could hardly see in front of them with the swirling wind and snow.

One eye was being kept on a match that had just kicked off in Italy behind schedule. Treviso were inducing heart attacks in another coaching team. Instead of rolling over like Italian teams had done in the past, the side that had already beaten Perpignan in the opening round were 3-0 up on the Saints after 20 minutes. Unfortunately, South African Marius Goosen, hadn’t brought his proper kicking boots or they’d have been further ahead by the time the Saints got over the tryline just before half-time. Treviso stayed on Northampton’s tail all the way to the end, getting over the whitewash twice but falling short 18-21 at the final whistle.

Meanwhile the Dragons were hoping to haul Biarritz back from romping away into the quarter-final stages at the top of Pool 2. To no avail, as the French side showed no signs of weakness in the Welsh den at Parc y Scarlets.

The postponement did no favours for the crowd attendance with the two squads and their assembled coaching teams seeming to dwarf the 600 odd who turned up.

It was probably just as well as the Dragons were eventually vanquished 8-26. They had the majority of the pressure in the first half but precious few points to show for it. Fussell touched down for the Welshmen, but Dmitri Yachvilli was in flying form with Biarraitz and notched three kicks to go in 8-9 ahead at the break.

Yachvilli crossed the whitewash twice in the second half and kicked his conversions in a display that will have Marc Lievremont relieved since he’s lost Dupuy for 6 months. Biarritz are now practically qualified on 18 points, but they need wins from their last two matches to guarantee them a home match in the next stage.

French dominance continued on home soil with Toulouse quickly dismissing any notions of a Cardiff Blues repeat of their victory last weekend. And it was another sometime French scrum-half who got them through.

Standing in for NZ regular, Byron Kelleher, Freddie Michalak directed events with great assuredness whilst notching 6 kicks and won the man of the match award. The three-time H Cup winners made hard work of it though, and both sides only managed a try apiece.

Toulouse finished 23-7 to the good, and only lead their Pool by one point over Sale Sharks. They’ve work to do. Cardiff on the other hand, are now likely out of this year’s comp.

However, one Welsh side was making hay despite the weather. Ospreys had their return fixture with Italian side Viadana. They ran out easy winners, running in 6 tries to finish 45-19. They lead their Pool by 4 points ahead of Top 14 perennial bridesmaids, Clermont Auvergne, and two-time Cup winners, Leicester Tigers, in the hunt.

The two teams met at tea-time on Saturday in Welford Road, with Tigers’ fans hoping to keep their qualification hopes alive after their team was squashed by a storming display from Clermont in the first match. The Tigers didn’t disappoint. A cracking match finished 20-15 to the home side, and their two tries scored in either half made the crucial difference. This pool will likely go to the wire in the final weekend in a three-way battle with the Ospreys to decide the winner.

Pool 6 has two Irish sides in it. London Irish had disposed of Brive in the last round easily, and this week was even easier as the notoriously poor French travellers fetched up in the Madejski Stadium and were promptly put to the sword by the Exiles, collecting their four try bonus point in the final minute from a brilliant display by the returning from injury, Delon Armitage.

In truth, Irish had the game in the bag by half-time leading 20-6, and the final scoreline of 34-13 probably doesn’t do justice to their dominance throughout the game. Brive managed a couple of record lows in the match – they had four players sin-binned and are still without a solitary point after 4 games.

They’ll be easy meat for their next opponents, Leinster, who completed a double rout of the Scarlets at the RDS in Dublin. A sell-out crowd of 18,500 saw the Heineken Cup champions deliver one of their best season performances.

Seven tries to one and a much more complete display than last week saw Rob Kearney, Gordon Darcy and Brian O’Driscoll cross the line twice in a series of sweeping back-line moves, and in a repeat of last week, the revitalized 31 year-old Shane Horgan galloping down his wing for a length of the pitch run after an interception in his own 22.

It finished 39-7.

Any signs that Leinster might miss Rocky Elsom are being quickly dispelled with youngsters Kieran McLoughlin and man of the match, Sean O’Brien, putting in commanding performances in the backrow, alongside the NH Number 8 of the year, Jamie Heaslip.

Kidney will be happy to see some of his newbies developing nicely in time for the 6 Nations – with Cian Healy also putting in a powerful turn in the front row. Australian Shaune Berne had a disappointing night with the boot, only managing to convert 2 of the tries on offer.

But he lead the line well, making a couple of telling passes for his team-mates to score. The bookies have shortened the odds on the Leinstermen repeating their Cup victory to second favourites at 4/1.

They now lead their pool on scoring points difference over London Irish. There’s a humdinger of a match between the two to settle the winner at the end of January.

The last four matches played on Sunday saw Stade Francais play their postponed game against Ulster at Stade Jean Bouin. Losing Dupuy and Attoub to gouging citings didn’t affect them as they moved past Ulster to top their pool in a 29-16 victory with only a single try in the match.

Beauxis kicked all the points, and the Ulstermen had only themselves to blame in not picking up from their victory in last week’s match.

Still this pool remains open with Stade only leading by four points and Ulster and Edinburgh remain in hot pursuit over the last two rounds.

Gloucester and Glasgow fought out what is likely to be a dead rubber with Biarritz sitting pretty at the top of their pool and ten points ahead of the rest. Glasgow took an early lead through two penalties, but the Cherry & Whites fought grimly back and with a try apiece from Brown and Sharples, finished 19-6 to the good.

Sale Sharks are one of the teams in hot pursuit of Toulouse in Pool 5, and their victory over Harlequins – 21-17 – kept them in the hunt. With two tries each, it was a kicking duel between Charlie Hodgson and Nick Evans that settled it with Hodgson landing his conversions and 3 penalties with assurance.

The final match of Round 4 served up on Sunday was a bit like the last of the wine at the Cana wedding. Perpignan vs Munster.

The Top 14 champions on their home turf up against the Magners League champions who have been less than powerful this season.

The Munstermen sneaked a victory last week through the restored boot of Ronan O’Gara despite Perignan getting three tries in the match.

All the pundits before the match had Munster painted as the rapidly fading, ageing heavyweight fighter.

The two-times H Cup winners had been lucky. But playing Perpignan at home where they had gone undefeated for 40-odd matches was a bridge too far.

According to Stuart Barnes in the Sunday Times before the match “The Red tide will probably be reduced to a trickle in Perpignan today … if they are to come away from the home of the French champions with a solitary bonus point, let alone a victory that would rank high among their list of great European achievements,” he opined.

“Munster are not so much set to make history in Perpignan as become history…… This is the most daunting assignment in European rugby,” said the former English international and Sky TV pundit.

Barnes didn’t mince his words in his assessment of Perpignan’s strengths: “Munster’s pack will be savaged at the scrum, the midfield will be hanging on in defence and the ears will be screaming for release from the constant haranguing of this volatile crowd….There was a palpable sense of decline in the Limerick air last Friday; today could see the fall of what was once a mighty side.”

Some people swear that Barnes did it on purpose. He knows that nothing gets up the nose of Munster players than calling their ability and values into question, particularly in making the hard yards at scrumtime and in the breakdown. McGahan probably pinned the newspaper piece to the dressing-room wall. Adding to the stew had been the unfortunate comments from a 21 year old Perpignan player who thought Munster had played in the previous game like academy players.

Cue a firestorm at Stade Aime Giral. The Top 14 champions never knew what hit them. Or when they did, what to do about it. In a display that was as blistering as it was breathtaking, Munster won the scrums, lineouts and breakdowns with commanding ease as the game wore on.

O’Connell played one of the games of his career, pilfering ball on every second Perpignan throw and demanding 100% accuracy from his own players. Mafi, Earls, O’Leary all had their stone faces on. Warwick at full-back and Howlett on the wing looked like they were going to burst, so intense were their faces at kick-off. With 7 minutes gone, someone turned to me, and said this is going to be one of those days – Perpignan are dead and they don’t even know it.

Big hits abounded. Mafi, Wallace and Leamy acting as personal ball-wreckers whoever they came up against. There was plenty of tetchy stuff, with Gallic snarling and swearing to go with the raucous stadium atmosphere.

USAP were first on the scoreboard and the crowds were cheering. O’Gara missed a drop goal and then nailed a penalty kick. USAP threatened through Tincu, Mermox and Mele making breaks. Munster weathered and then hit back with Quinlan powering towards the line. He was held up but the pressure continued and Denis Fogarty went over. O’Gara converted.

The two sets of forwards mashed into each other, and Perp gained a couple of penalties before the half-time to leave it 9-10 at the break. They could have been ahead when Munster got sloppy in the last 5 minutes of the first half, but Mele missed two chances of kicks.

The second half opened with a bang, or rather a head-butt – by Schuster on Leamy. Cue sin bin. And a penalty by O’Gara. And then another. And then O’Gara got sloppy, and got binned for cynical play. Munster didn’t withdraw. They moved to Perp’s line and a fantastic pass by Warwick to Hurley put them over the line again.

Perpignan rallied briefly and off a lineout, Guirado stole over the line to briefly close the gap. As O’Gara returned to the field, on came de Villiers from the bench. He made his presence felt within a couple of minutes, making a brilliant break to the line and touching down under the posts. The congratulations from his team-mates showed that he has finally arrived.

Munster could not be denied. The fourth try had to come. As the clock ticked to 80, Munster were camped in the Perpignan 22. Munster stole the ball again at the breakdown and out it came to O’Gara. He looked up at the onrushing defence, and calmly chipped through on the ground, Howlett sped through and grounded. O’Gara converted and the ref blew the whistle. 37-19 to Munster.

Cue pandemonium in the streets of Cork and Limerick. The bookies re-installed the Munstermen as favourites.

Not a bad way to start the Christmas.

Enjoy the break, everyone.

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