Monday 22 January 2018 16:51, UK
Stuart Barnes reflects on the twists and turns of the final round of the European Rugby Champions Cup pool stage and looks ahead to the competition's quarter-finals.
1. Down to eight and the route to Bilbao is clear. The draw for the knockout stages is a thing of mathematical beauty (to a non-mathematician like myself.) The top two seeds are guaranteed home quarter-final status and dependent upon other results could have the benefit of playing the semi-final in their own country.
The third and fourth seeds are also guaranteed home quarter-finals but will definitely play their semi-finals away from their native lands, should they get there. The fifth and sixth seeds will play their semi-finals on home soil but would have to win quarter-finals away from home first, while the seventh and eight seeds could benefit from a home-semi final but it is possible they might play away twice en route to the final.
To reiterate: only the top two seeds could play two 'home' knockout games. The third and fourth seeds are guaranteed one home game. Fifth and sixth could have the benefit of home advantage once, while seventh and eight are the only seeds not guaranteed at least one game in their own country. Well, I think it is a lovely little formula anyway.
2. Now we have peered over the horizon at the semi-final permutations, let's consider those quarter-finals. On the radio I heard Richard Wigglesworth being asked whether Saracens either feared Leinster, or thought they had a chance.
I can't remember the exact phrasing but I do recall thinking it would be one hell of a shock if the Saracens scrum-half said 'yes' to one and 'no' to the other. Not a penetrating question but a magnificent quarter-final.
The Six Nations stands between now and then but let's hope both teams enter the tie at full tilt. Leinster have been the best team in Europe through the pool stages, by a distance, and their reward for excellence is probably the toughest tie they could have wished. The team that has been the best team in Europe for two seasons. The Irish team deserved better than that.
3. A brief digression, based on point two. How about giving the top seeds the pick of the three best runner-ups? That would make the race for top spot even more relevant. Leinster wouldn't have picked Saracens, that is for sure.
My money says they would have opted for Racing 92. In the last four years, there have only been two away quarter-final wins in 16 games. Saracens won both of them. Racing in Dublin? No one would even contemplate a third away win, probably not even the French team.
4. I am not sure whether the choice home quarter-final pick is against Racing or La Rochelle? The Scarlets will be quietly delighted with their draw.
La Rochelle lit the tournament up in the early days but have wilted under pressure and look half the side away from home - and they didn't look any great shakes at home against Harlequins.
That narrow victory against a typically tough and tenacious Toulon team has handed Wayne Pivac's team a huge opportunity to make the semi-finals where they could meet Leinster. They beat the European favourites at the semi-final stages of last season's PRO12. Could lightning yet strike twice?
5. Apart from Saracens, Toulon is the team you don't want coming to your patch. Beaten away in the last two quarter-finals, they'll be underdogs all right but Munster will respect their bite.
For much of the second half, they looked the likelier winners against the Scarlets. That in itself tells you about their team. Home advantage is everything for Munster but they'll have to do a lot more than turn up and let the crowd roar them into the last four.
6. So much for the teams left in the tournament. What about the ones eliminated. Exeter were the biggest casualties of the weekend. Glasgow, with nothing but pride to play, for produced a stunning win.
Exeter had the monopoly of territory and possession but made too many errors and lacked any real inspiration. A real hit and run job by Dave Rennie's team with my pick of the try of the tournament to date - that length of the field third try with Stuart Hogg directing operations.
Ninety metres plus with the ball kept between touch and the five-metre line. The ball carrier had options, all the way, left and right apart from the initiation of the move when Hogg deliberately ran towards touch to draw Exeter defenders and open up space for others.
This was counter attack as art form not individual inspiration. It reminded me of the Crusaders and their diamond formation support lines. Dave Rennie's Chiefs (Waikato that is) were none too shabby on the counter either.
7. A word for Harlequins too. They may have lost to La Rochelle on Sunday but still, the team that was out of the competition as soon as any, played a significant role in defining the tournament's final stages.
Their stunning comeback effectively ended the hopes of Wasps in round five while their gritty effort against La Rochelle must have had them singing hymns, arias, Calon Lan, the lot in West Wales.
By preventing a bonus-point win for the home team, they flipped the fourth and fifth seeds around and with home advantage the factor it is, probably helped the Scarlets towards the semi-finals.
8. Northampton, another of the losers who gave the tournament a jolt with round five heroics, were back to their usual battered selves against Saracens.
Twice the European champions have scored 50 plus points against them this season - until Saturday as they crossed the border and entered the sixties. If Saracens get themselves a psychologist who can convince them every team they play is, in fact, Northampton, nothing will stop them.
9. It has been a bad Europe for England. Saracens' two titles masks the fact that last season was a fall off from the previous high point when England had five of the eight quarter-finalists.
Newcastle and Gloucester join them as survivors from the Challenge Cup. Three teams in the last 16 of Europe.
A lot of Englishmen - from owners to media men - who didn't think the dominant year of 2015/16 was a blip are already saying this year is exactly that. I say what goes up comes down.
10. Oh for Nemani Nadolo. Montpellier are out and with it one of the great crowd pleasers exits centre stage (or should that be stage left?)
Watching him play is akin to being returned to the cosseted warmth of a childhood where parents read frightening bed time stories of angry giants; scary but thrilling.
Whether in the commentary box or the comfort of your sofas how we will miss this rugby behemoth. I suspect I might wait in vain for a `here, here' from his bruised opponents.
