| |
Group 4 again
So, there we have it – after all of the pontifications, formulae and probabilities, it has been announced; Ulster have drawn Stade Francais, Bath and Edinburgh in next season’s Heineken Cup. Given the structure of the draw and the restrictions caused, not only by national divides but also the tiering system, there was a certain inevitability about who Ulster would draw. Indeed, one needs to look back to the 2005/2006 season to find the last time that Ulster didn’t draw a French, an English and a fellow Magners League team and 2001/2002 for the time before that.
There’s always a certain disappointment when Ulster find their group completed by a Magners League team, of course. Llanelli and Glasgow can hardly compete with a late-spring fixture in Viadana and even Edinburgh, the Athens of the North, doesn’t quite have the same hold as a journey to Treviso. In rugby terms, however, does drawing a Magners League team really matter?
Some may look at an Italian team as a guaranteed ten points. Indeed, in the seasons mentioned above, when Ulster drew Treviso from the hat, they scored four tries in three of the four games. The trouble is that Italian sides are equally untroubling for the English and French sides that inevitably make up the other half of the group. A Magners League team may trouble Ulster more than an Italian team but they will equally trouble the English and French sides. A group with three meaningful teams will prove, if anything, to be more competitive than a group with four meaningful teams as Llanelli's disastrous 2006/7 campaign shows.
While the groups are no less competitive, there is also the long-standing myth that having an Italian team in your group means that it’s easier to gain one of the two best-placed runners up places in the knock-out stages. In theory, this makes sense – an almost guaranteed 9 or 10 points from two games should enhance the opportunity for out-scoring the second-placed team in a more competitive group. That said, over the last five seasons, only four of the ten second-place qualifiers have come from groups featuring Italian sides – in other words, 40% of the qualifiers have come from 33% of groups.
This is enough to suggest that there is some bias but it is certainly not as significant as some would have it. In no Heineken Cup season have both second-place qualifiers emerged from groups containing Italian sides. Of course, this is not to mention the fact that the second placed team in Ulster’s pool failed to qualify for the knockout stages in each season that Ulster have drawn an Italian side. No more dishearteningly was this the case than in 2001/2002, when Ulster lost out on a quarterfinal place, to Llanelli, on points difference.
But where does all of this leave Ulster in the coming season? Realistically, the lack of an Italian team should make no real difference; Ulster would still have faced stiff competition from England and France and would still have to defeat English and French opposition to progress from the group.
Despite the BBC’s suggestion that Ulster have been given a tough draw, it really could have been much worse. For a team like Ulster, there is no draw in this tournament that isn’t tough. If you don’t draw a Bath, you get a Leicester or a Toulouse or a Biarritz. If you don’t draw Stade Francais, you get a Gloucester, an Ospreys, a Perpignan or a London Irish. If you don’t draw Edinburgh, you get a Glasgow, a Brive or a Harlequins. There are no easy groups for a team of Ulster’s quality and the truth is that the group could have been more dangerous than it is.
There should be no doubting the quality that runs throughout the Edinburgh side, nor the huge leaps that they have made under Andy Robinson. The quality Edinburgh have, especially in the half-backs and centre should not be underestimated and, in Chris Paterson, they have the ability to punish the kinds of silly mistakes that Ulster made throughout last season.
At the same time, we should not doubt Ulster’s ability to trouble Edinburgh and to deal with their threat. Only twice, since 2004/2005, have Magners League games between these two sides not resulted in a losing bonus point, with neither team gaining a winning bonus point in that time. They are teams that, over recent seasons, have competed well with each other and have been well matched on the park. The games have been tight, terse and, while perhaps lacking in skill, have rarely been anything other than exciting.
Edinburgh moved up the Magners League at the end of last season to finish second but, if recent games are anything to go by, the difference in quality between these two sides is not six league places or 19 league points and it would take a lot of bravery to call the results of these two games – either team can win both or lose both but the points may well be split in two, with the home team taking the spoils.
In the opinion of this column, Bath are the wildcards of this group. Their quality on the park over this past season cannot be denied. At times, they played truly beautiful rugby yet appear to have combusted, in a drastic manner, behind the scenes. Recent news stories, scandals, retirements and drug issues give the image of a club that, off the pitch, is in some state of disarray. It would be imprudent to write a team like Bath off at this stage but the way in which the club emerges from this coming summer could well determine the fate of this group. If whatever internal conflicts are left unresolved, Bath could well relegate themselves to group also-rans.
Even though they are the tier 2 team, Stade Francais may well start as group favourites. When you look at the names they are capable of fielding, and those they name on the bench, there is no doubting the depth of quality. Having finally left Ravenhill with the points last season, it’s likely that Stade will feel that they’ve got a certain monkey off their back. At the same time, precisely what Ulster have been capable of, at Ravenhill, against quality opposition, in the past lives fresh in the memory. A visit to Ravenhill early in the competition, or a mild off-day and Stade could find themselves struggling for the rest of the campaign.
This column is not prone to flights of fantasy, nor unfounded optimism. As it has been, each and every season for the past decade, the chance of Ulster qualifying from this group is fairly low but there is still reason to be cheerful. There is no reason to believe that three home wins is beyond the realms of possibility and, with a little luck, an early home victory against Stade Francais, you just never know... Qualification for the knockout stages is unlikely but this draw has been kinder to Ulster than some would believe and, certainly, no more unkind to the men in white than any other group would have been.
The Archipelago.
|
