In a pleasant aperitif to the main match of the weekend in Lansdowne Road today, UCC should provide an entertaining game at Donnybrook when they meet Grenoble in the final of the Students' European Championship. The Irish and French sides have come through a 21-team pool competition to qualify for what is expected to be a lively final at 11.30 this morning.
Lending credibility to this new tournament, now in its second year, the teams and the trophy will subsequently be presented to the crowd by IRFU president Noel Murphy during the half-time break of Ulster's European Cup final against Colomiers.
UCC have been one of the more consistently strong sides in the students' competition but tomorrow will meet a French team whose strength comes from the maturity of its players. Many of the French side have done national service and consequently they will field a side which is slightly older than Cork's. Having convincingly beaten the fancied English university Loughborough 27-12 in the semi-final, Grenoble have not had an easy path to the final. But UCC have shown their own mettle and quite considerable talent in overcoming Northumbria in the quarter-finals before demolishing Harper Adams 64-7 in the semi-finals. UCC, who have added more consistency to their game, will welcome back experienced second row Michael O'Driscoll, who played last weekend for the first time in a month, against Old Crescent, while they hope that Dave Lane will also feel up to starting at number eight having suffered a shoulder injury. If Lane is out, then Alan Hickey will come into the back row. O'Driscoll, who was a regular member of Munster's European Cup side this year, is a particularly welcome addition to a team which the Harper Adams coach believed was one of the best university sides he had seen for many years.
UCC play a positive style and with Darragh Holt operating on the left wing and Niall Kenneally on the right, there is no shortage of penetration out wide. Centres Aidan O'Shea and Paul Barry are also capable of setting up their outside men. Keneally helped himself to two tries in the Old Crescent match and Holt one.
Peter Stringer, another regular in Munster's campaign this season, should also involve himself in setting the tempo for a backline clearly full of verve and willingness.
Having lost last year in the semi-finals to the best team in the competition, Toulouse, UCC are anxious to establish themselves as the best university side in Europe. There are few who have watched them in full spate this year who believe that accolade is beyond them.
UCC: C Healy; N Kenneally, P Barry, A O'Shea (capt.), D Holt; B O'Mahony, P Stringer; A McSweeney, J Flannery, M Ross, M O'Driscoll, J Fitzgerald, B Cahill, J Cahill, D Lane/A Hickey. Substitutes: L Twomey, G Fuller, H Casey, G Murray, M Nathan, F McKenna.
European Cup chairman Tom Kiernan yesterday warned English clubs that they could not negotiate endlessly before deciding whether to re-enter the competition.
Today's final between Ulster and Colomiers will attract a capacity crowd to Lansdowne Road and gates for this season's competition have held up well despite the absence of English clubs.
It was thought that without English participation, the European Cup would not exist next season, but Kiernan said: "We cannot allow the uncertainty about England's entry to run through next summer in the same way as we did last year. I would be delighted if the English clubs participated."
England, however, are currently still hammering out a private deal with the French clubs that could see Anglo-French competition next season - but not necessarily in the official European Cup.
