England lock Courtney Lawes has the potential to be one of the greats, says Stuart Barnes
Stuart sees a bright future for Saints second row
The lasting memory I will take from the weekend (well, from Thursday onwards, some weekend!) is the indestructible efforts of Courtney Lawes for Northampton on Sunday.
Poor Ulster; they produced some high-quality attacking rugby but were cut down by the Saints pack, for whom the England lock forward was absolutely awesome. I hate the way that word is now used for anything from a pop song to a pair of shoes but hell, Lawes was AWESOME.
In the last half hour in particular, he astonished me. It was a hot afternoon and players were expected to wilt but the second row forward grew in front of 20,000 sets of eyes.
Wherever there was an Ulsterman to be cut down, there he was; sprinting around and levelling opposition with frightening horizontal hits. Swift as a flanker over loose balls and technically like a stretched Neil Back, he was making a bruising open side from a generation that I didn't think had yet evolved. This was special, of that there was no doubt.
Here is a player who could emerge as a 'great' in time. There are few of those to the pound. This century I would include Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Fourie du Preez and possibly Victor Matfield of the current players alongside Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio and Brian O' Driscoll as 'greats'.
Greats of England would have a roll call comprising the aforesaid and Jonny Wilkinson, Jason Robinson and Richard Hill. Lawes only has eight caps and his career remains one of potential rather than achievement at the highest level, but Sunday was a glimpse of what could be.
He was the figurehead driving a Northampton pack that has refuelled itself on the hard grounds it so loves. The dynamism got bogged down in the mud, but this blistering mix of driving play and collective surges at the set pieces has the potential to overwhelm better teams than Ulster and Ulster, I repeat, were not bad.
Considered
My reservations remain in place, however. Ian Humphries was far more considered and threatening in his play than Stephen Myler, who rebounded well from a missed kick to take his chances, but his game management was not brilliant in the first half. It took the complete authority of the Northampton pack to settle the team.
Will they get such dominance against Perpignan? It is unlikely but not impossible. The French side were extremely nervous for 20 minutes against Toulon. Perhaps it was the 55,000 capacity stadium and all the brouhaha of playing the match in Barcelona, but they were eminently beatable in that period.
In the last hour they were impressive with that Catalan balance of narrow driving forward play with those soft handed pop passes and the extreme switch of gear as the ball moves wide. In the end, Toulon and its galaxy of stars were comfortably eclipsed.
Northampton has home advantage and what a noisy surprise Milton Keynes was as a new home. I am counting the hours for this semi-final. The other semi has a more familiar ring to it with Toulouse, last year's champions, meeting Leinster, the previous year's winners.
Toulouse negotiated their tight rope in the Basque against Biarritz but an away game in Dublin will be an even greater test of their will to retain the trophy.
The two sides met in France at the semi-final stage last season and Toulouse will hope that having repeated the medicine against last season's beaten finalists on Sunday, they can do likewise to the conquered semi-finalists at the end of the month.
12 months ago the bench played a decisive role in winning the game as Toulouse went from third to fifth gear in a few minutes and left Leinster for dead. The impact from the bench is a major threat to the Irish but this looks an infinitely better Leinster team.
Mike Ross and Richardt Strauss have added edge to their pack and, another year older, Cian Healey appears readier for the challenge of the Toulouse scrum. Sean O' Brien will fear no one and with the roars of this new stadium filling their ears, the home side will be formidable hosts.
Greatness
The quarter-finals were good. Let's hope we can reach beyond good and approach greatness at the semi-final stage.
In the Amlin, Stade produced an amazing comeback at home to high flying Montpelier. Lowly placed in the Top Fourteen, the Amlin is their only hope of a trophy and, more significantly, their only route back into the Heineken Cup.
If Clermont Auvergne play as they did in La Rochelle (an awful way to start the weekend, let no one kid themselves) the Parisians are heading for Cardiff and a final where Munster or Harlequins awaits them.
Munster were forced to go the distance in a thrilling game in Brive; Harlequins played superbly in patches, but were forced to go nearer the distance than perhaps they should have against a brave but troubled Wasps team.
If Harlequins can find 80 minutes to match the first 10, anything is possible but Munster are long odds on to make the final given the venue of the semi-final.
Rollercoaster
Away from Europe, Leeds! What can be said? Appearing all but down when Newcastle beat them with ease not so long ago, Neil Back's side defied logic and won a rollercoaster of a game in Newcastle to go 11 in the table with Newcastle a point behind with a game in hand.
The suggestions that Exeter could be docked 10 points and thrown back into the scrap is another twist, although no right-thinking rugby fan would want to see Rob Baxter and his team hammered by an error of administration.
10 points seems a lot of points to me, Nadolo certainly hasn't singlehandedly earned them for the Devonians. Fingers crossed for Exeter and fingers crossed for both Newcastle and Leeds. May the best team survive.
