On Rugby: Even more than the weekend just past, next weekend's final round of Heineken European pool games promises to be a veritable feast. Save for the participants, it's liable to be sedentary, nerve-racking, stressful and even provoking palpitations. Thus, no less than those fortunate 14,000 who have tickets for Thomond Park and the 2,000 or so travelling to Bath, it's probably not especially healthy.
Nonetheless, that's what makes it one of the best rugby weekends of the season, and few have more long-term significance. For the five English and four French clubs, whose existence is ostensibly to generate revenue and win trophies, it is a potentially invaluable lifeblood, and while thoughts of the Cup and monetary considerations are a factor for the Irish provinces (and Cardiff), there is perhaps a closer link to the well-being of the Irish team.
While a lesser end-of-season load might have some benefits for Team Ireland, this would be more than offset by Eddie O'Sullivan and his management team having to lift mentally deflated players. Far better to have them link up next week on a psychological high, with their Euro campaigns certain to last into April rather than be terminated before January is out.
Still some way to go of course. Munster's set-to with the best team in England, Sale, is set fair in classical circumstances. With regard to topping the pool, we are again in Miracle Match territory. The collective mark of 119,724 (set in last season's sixth round) was eclipsed last weekend with a total of 128,020 supporters for the 11 matches played, as Toulouse set a record for the pool stages of 34,000 at Le Stadium. Had they the room, Munster would surely beat that comfortably this Saturday.
On form, with Munster defending a 22-match unbeaten record in Limerick and a 27-match winning sequence in Thomond Park and Musgrave Park, it cannot be far off a 50-50 game. Although Munster's handsome rout of Castres was a timely fillip, the noises coming out of Edgeley Park are almost as confident as Gloucester three seasons ago. "I was very impressed with Munster at Castres on Saturday," admitted Sale's director of rugby Philippe Saint-André, "and it will be very physical against them. But there will be a first time when they lose at home, and I think we can win there."
Bath will be similarly confident that their bruising pack can do a number on Leinster once more. No less than Munster then, this is it, the arch test of Leinster's supposedly soft underbelly. Against the arch stealers of Danny Grewcock and Steve Borthwick, Leinster can ill-afford to cough up 11 lineouts as they did last year, or even lose three-in-a-row as they did in the first half at the RDS last October, nor for that matter miss the tackles or the penalties they conceded last Saturday.
Matt Stevens and Duncan Bell will be licking their lips in anticipation of scrum time, and Leinster will need to hit everything that moves around the fringes. But the increasingly impressive Cameron Jowitt was missed after the interval, and Jamie Heaslip's return will add to Howitt's physicality there.
It's true that Brian O'Driscoll made three untypical handling errors and missed four tackles. But the mistakes are understandable, and the tackles were in part down to Leinster being sucked infield. This is liable to be a different defensive test, and an altogether more intense build-up and contest. Primed accordingly, if Leinster even match the forward effort of the first meeting, they have the cutting edge to pull through.
It's possibly better not to be facing French sides with a whiff of home advantage, which seems to concentrate their minds and even cure their notorious travel sickness.
Readers of Trevor Brennan's column will well remember how the club's financial controllers lectured the Toulouse squad on the Monday before last season's final pool game to remind them of the importance of obtaining a home quarter-final.
The players were reminded that Toulouse's two previous home quarter-finals had generated much of the income which helped build their fabulous facilities and reward the players.
Biarritz broadened their support base for one glorious day last year as the pride of the Basque region and mindful that another San Sebastien quarter-final is in sight, duly went to Belfast last Friday night and ended Ulster's proud 14-game, five-year unbeaten run in the Cup at Ravenhill.
Similarly, Perpignan finally recorded a Cup victory of note away from Stade Aime Giral (save for five wins in Italy, their only other win on the road in the pool stages had been at Neath seven years ago) when beating Cardiff on Saturday as they chase the prize of a quarter-final in Barcelona as the pride of the Catalans. Pastures Nou, you might say.
The chase for home quarter-finals will be fairly complicated. Mathematically, it is possible for all six pool winners to finish in the 23/24 point bracket, and thus try tallies could be critical. Munster have an outside chance of joining that group, were they to beat Sale with a bonus point and deny the Sharks one, although that could possibly leave some of their supporters in the decidedly uncomfortable scenario of hoping Leinster do a number over Bath on Sunday.
A more realistic route to the quarter-finals is for Munster, along with Leinster, to qualify as the two best runners-up. No less than Leinster, Munster would gladly snaffle that up now were it offered to them, even if it did come with the rider of a trip to Toulouse or Spain in early April.
Better to be travelling than have nowhere to go.
gthornley@irish-times.ie
