Daly and Watson braces keep English sides in contention
Bath came away from their encounter with Toulon at The Rec with a vital 26-21 victory. Coming off the back of a galling loss at the same opposition last week, Anthony Watson scored a double to help them on their way to the top of the pool. They currently seem the only English side with the knock out stages a probability. Scarlets are hot on the heels of both sides after a 31-12 win at Treviso.
With Ulster smashing Harlequins 52-24 on Friday, Wasps had a huge amount of pressure on them hosting the surprise package of La Rochelle. Fortunately, they put in a much more controlled performance and had an Elliot Daly brace to thank for their 21-3 win. They now visit Quins and host the Northern Irishmen in what should be two wins that could well see them in the quarters yet again.
Saracens have a surprise uphill struggle after losing their seventh game in a row. They slipped to a 24-21 loss, which (coupled with Ospreys 32-15 win over Saints), leaves them third in the pool. It would take a fool to bet against them, but the favourites tag has well and truly disappeared.
Reigning premiership champions Exeter are in a pickle in the competition themselves. Again, it is far from impossible for them to qualify with two eminently winnable games to come, however letting an eight point half-time lead slip to lose 22-17 to Leinster has damaged their campaign further. Montpellier kept the heat on with a 36-26 win over Glasgow.
It was effectively a crash out of Europe for Leicester, who suffered back-to-back losses to Munster. A good start collapsed to nothingness as the Irish denied them even a losing bonus point at 25-16. Also in the group, Racing beat Castres 29-7.
Newcastle striding towards quarters
Newcastle beat Dragons 27-25 to take a giant step towards the quarters, whilst Bordeaux beat Enisei 36-27 in the same pool. In Pool 2, Cardiff fought hard for a 14-6 victory over Sale and Lyon beat Toulouse 21-11. Pool 3 saw Gloucester hammer Zebre 69-12 and Pau see off Agen 26-12. Edinburgh continued their superb run in the competition with a humongous 78-0 smashing of Krasny Yar and, in the same group, London Irish were edged 26-20 by Stade Francais. Connacht looked very solid, beating Brive 55-10 and Oyonnax beat Worcester 27-20.
Hero of the weekend
After last week’s disaster weekend, it was vital that some English teams and players stepped up. Unfortunately, they were few and far between, but Elliot Daly and Anthony Watson showed exactly the sort of finishing class you need from such big players in pressure games.
Villain of the weekend
A few weeks ago, he had one of the best games I’ve seen him play, but five penalties conceded and a subsequent yellow card is a terrible return for such an experienced prop as Dan Cole. It really turned the game round and means Leicester are all but out.
Discussion Points
– Quarter final predictions?
– Is this the end of Saracens’ dominance?
– Thoughts on the festive fixtures?
by Joe Large
Apologies for the short blog this week. Best of the Weekend will be back with a roundup of the festive season in a couple of weeks. Enjoy the rugby, food and drink over the holidays!
Villain of the week was the ref who didn’t have the guts to red card Healy for a nasty, deliberate cheap shot to the head.
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I don’t generally like to badmouth the ref, but I thought he had a pretty poor game, and was really, really let down by his assistants/TMO. For both sides.
Healy was very lucky to get yellow (and should be cited). Fardy was a bit unlucky to get his. Leavy’s offload for the try certainly warranted checking, at a minimum. Exeter’s lineout try came from a penalty that even the BT English commentator said the Chief’s player was lucky as his hands were clearly on the ground before he ripped the ball. Healy got smashed in the face in a ruck (a probably deserved retaliation, tbf) and that was unnoticed. And that’s just some of the more memorable misses, there was a lot of smaller things too, like the offside line that was apparently non-existent.
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Fatigue. ALL the English teams looked bloody tired. Even those that won.
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French play acting. I know it’s panto season, but have you ever seen a bunch of grown men (not on a football field) roll around so much on the floor trying to milk penalties. Well done Morgan Parra in particular and Clemont Auvergne in general for being a complete embarrassment.
Not overly happy with the deliberate pass into an opposing player by a scrum half at a breakdown to win a penalty. Parra (again) waited for Farrell to be recovering his ground before looking at him and throwing a pass straight at him for 3 points. Is this really how we want to see games decided. The law needs looking at. Damn the kiwis for making deliberate obstruction of opposing scrum halves an art form, necessitating this law in the first place.
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Fotuali’i did the same thing earlier in the season for Bath against Sarries. Brits was really not happy and spoke to the ref. To which the ref responded, the law may well be wrong but, I didn’t make the law.
It is a bit petty but, when you’re playing to win an easy three points can always help.
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Healey should have got a red. It was an inexplicably bad decision from the officials who had the benefit of several replays.
Parra is an irritating little twerp, but he is SH so thats to be expected..
Results wise it was another poor weekend. Well done Bath and Wasps. Losing Bp’s for Exeter and Saracens werent the worst of results. Both should have done better in the first home leg.
Quins and Saints predictably went down, which leaves us with Tigers, whose limp performance was arguably the most disappointing from an English side.
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You have to give credit to both Munster and Leinster at just how dogged they can be and how they collectively pull together as a team. Even with Sexton gone, Leinster dug in and arm wrestled that game back. This is what I feel Ireland will bring to the 6N and I would personally call them as favourites now if they can keep their best players fit. I’d love to see England get some of that grit back into their players – we have the talent but i do feel this has been something we have lacked in over past few years. Not sure it is something you can teach though!
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As a Sarries fan I am disappointed with our recent run of bad form. I am also wondering what the odds are on us coming back from this and defending our European title?
We may have the biggest squad in Europe, but when you lose three or four of your starting back row, you are always going to struggle!!
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Dazza, not quite sure how you can have 4 starting back rows……! I know what you mean. All English clubs are going through the same. When Glos played you in the league, we had more internationals out than you (and we don’t have half as many to start with!) and that included our first choice back row.
The problem in Europe is that the Pro 14 clubs get to rest players more, and the Top 14 have bigger squads.
The English fixture congestion is affecting players, clubs and the National team and as has been mentioned on a regular basis, something needs to be done about it or English rugby is going to struggle – probably not disastrously, but enough that we won’t see the results that we want achieved often enough.
Am just grateful this season that Glos are in the Challenge Cup as we have been able to rest players ready for the AP.
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Itoje playing in the second row obviously 😉
I think he is referring to their 4 of their first choice backrowers as Sarries regularly rotate players in the backrow
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