CHAMPIONS CUP SCENE-SETTER: SA tour may yet trip up Leinster

South Africa may not be represented in the knock-out rounds of the Investec Champions Cup that start with this weekend’s round of 16 but like last year this country could have a direct impact on the fortunes of one of the favoured teams.

Last year South Africa was represented in the round of 16, and the reigning champions at the time, La Rochelle, had to travel to Cape Town to beat a DHL Stormers team that had beaten them at DHL Stadium in the pool phase.

On a blustery day in the Mother City, the Stormers took an early lead and La Rochelle had to dig deep for a narrow comeback win.

A combination of the travel and the bruising nature of the Cape Town fixture meant that La Rochelle were flat when they met Leinster, who they had been in the two previous finals, in the quarterfinal.

Leinster won comfortably and it was generally acknowledged that La Rochelle had been disadvantaged by having to go to South Africa to secure their advance to the quarterfinal.

It could work the other way this year. Leinster have just returned from a two match Vodacom United Rugby Championship tour where they played South Africa’s current top two teams, the Vodacom Bulls and the Hollywoodbets Sharks.

They narrowly lost the first and won the second, but those two matches themselves won’t have much impact on Leinster’s home tie against the English club, Harlequins, in Dublin on Saturday.

What could have an impact is how Leinster went about balancing their logistics of having two URC games in South Africa wedged into the fortnight between the end of the Guinness Six Nations and the start of the Champions Cup knockouts.

Their two Galactico overseas players RG Snyman of South Africa and Jordie Barrett of New Zealand both managed to get a gallop in the first game, but Leinster never fielded a full strength side in either fixture.

In fact, it would be a surprise if there were more than two players from the synthesis of a second and third string team that heroically beat the Springbok laden Sharks in Durban last weekend selected for the game against Harlequins.

That was the design of course, with Leinster’s several Ireland international players resting their tired bodies at the end of the Six Nations in preparation for their quest for the fifth European championship crown that has so narrowly eluded them over the last three years.

ALSO AN ELEMENT OF RISK

However, while the Leinster team will be fresh, there is also an element of risk in coach Leo Cullen’s selection policy as when they take the field against Harlequins it will be the first time the first-choice team has played together since before the Six Nations kicked off at the end of January.

While two thirds of the Ireland international side that relinquished the Six Nations crown play for Leinster, playing for the national team is different to playing for the provincial side. The systems are different.

For a start the defensive set-up, which cues the other potential South Africa influence on the deciding rounds of a competition that the local sides will play no part in - Jacques Nienaber.

The Springbok World Cup winning coach’s value to Irish rugby has been questioned by some former Ireland internationals, who blame his influence at Leinster on Ireland’s inability to make it a three-peat in Six Nations titles.

The theory is that Nienaber’s influence may have robbed some of the Irish players of their appetite for attack and also that there is too much of a difference now between what Leinster do and what Ireland do.

But doesn’t that just add even more intrigue to what already is an intriguing high pressure clash at this first step of the knock-out phase between the four time winners and narrow runners-up of the last three years and a Harlequins team headlined by England star Marcus Smith and built around an attacking template.

It was Nienaber’s defensive system that earned Leinster their win against the Sharks last week and it could well be the same story this week.

Good defence frustrates the best teams, and the Ireland players should know that only too well for it was France’s outstanding defence, coached by Shaun Edwards, in the first half hour of the blockbusting Six Nations game between the two top European nations in Dublin a month ago that set up France’s big win.

JACQUE’S INFLUENCE MAY JUST BE THE DIFFERENCE

Ireland may have relinquished their right to be called the kings of Europe at international level but it might well be Nienaber’s impact that be the point of difference that will determine that this is a year where their top team becomes the kings at club level again.


That possibility has been helped by the injury that Toulouse’s kingpin Antoine Dupont sustained in the Six Nations and will rule him out of rugby possibly until the end of the year.

Toulouse were imperious in the pool stages of the Champions Cup and ended it as strong favourites to retain the title they won by beating Leinster in extra time of last year’s final, but Dupont’s absence will be a curve ball to them as the scrumhalf is their talisman.

They shouldn’t miss him too much in their round of 16 clash with Sale Sharks, who were thumped 40-0 by the Stormers the last time they ventured away from home in the competition.

It will be in the crunch games to follow that he might be missed, and the Sale game will be a guide to just how much that might be the case.

SQUEAKY BUM TIME FOR FAVOURED TEAMS

This stage of the competition is always so-called squeaky bum time for the favoured teams as no-one wants to be knocked out now, yet it can happen now that this tie is played over just one leg rather than the double leg of a few seasons ago.

Toulouse and Bordeaux-Begles should be heavily favoured to go through, with Bordeaux hosting an Ulster team they thrashed in the pool phase and which was a bit lucky to be let off the hook by the Stormers in a crunch URC game at the Kingspan Stadium last weekend.

However there is jeopardy just about everywhere else you look, not the least for the Glasgow Warriors’ South African coach Franco Smith, who will be trying to get his team through a potentially perilous home game against a Leicester Tigers team headed by Handre Pollard and Julian Montoya.

The other URC team to have made it this far, Benetton, have a tough ask but just the whiff of opportunity as they head to French club Castres on Saturday afternoon.

ROUND OF 16 INVESTEC CHAMPIONS CUP

Northampton Saints v ASM Clermont Auvergne (Northampton, Friday 9pm)

Toulon v Saracens (Toulon, Saturday 1:30pm)

Leinster v Harlequins (Dublin, Saturday 4pm)

Castres Olympique v Benetton (Castres, Saturday 4pm)

La Rochelle v Munster (La Rochelle, Saturday 6:30pm)

Glasgow Warriors v Leicester Tigers (Glasgow, Saturday 9pm)

Bordeaux-Begles v Ulster (Bordeaux, Sunday 1:30pm)

Toulouse v Sale Sharks (Toulouse, Sunday 4pm)