Investec Champions Cup Team of the Week: England exiles and ‘Bath barrel’ shine alongside ‘imperious’ Leinster star
Hugo Keenan, Jack Willis, Ben Tameifuna and Adam Coleman make our Investec Champions Cup Team of the Week.
Now that the dust has settled on an Investec Champions Cup quarter-final weekend that saw Bath, Toulon, Leinster and Bordeaux-Begles progress, here’s our Team of the Week.
Investec Champions Cup Team of the Week
15 Hugo Keenan (Leinster): Imperious. Sale built their entire game plan around the high ball, and Keenan treated every spiral bomb, cross-field kick and grubber like a personal insult, claiming the lot with the composure of a man collecting the morning post. Scored a try, made 14 carries and 54 metres. Joint-highest rated player of the weekend alongside Juan Ignacio Brex, Dan Sheehan and Jack Willis. Thomas Ramos was outstanding in defeat at Chaban-Delmas, producing a 50/22 of devastating nonchalance and filling in at scrum-half during Antoine Dupont’s yellow card with the insouciance of a man who considers positional labels a minor administrative inconvenience.
14 Gaël Drean (Toulon): Two excellent tries at Scotstoun as the rising French star announced himself on the European stage. Only one Six Nations cap to his name but he was a threat every time the ball found his hands. Toulon’s 22-19 upset of Glasgow was built on individual brilliance and Drean provided two of the best moments. Tommy Freeman set the tone for Northampton’s extraordinary first-half blitz despite not crossing the whitewash. Tommy O’Brien was clinical for Leinster with a well-taken try and a superb early turnover.
13 Nacho Brex (Toulon): Our Player of the Weekend. The Azzurri vice-captain mixed powerful carrying with deft distribution before scoring the match-winning try, beating Josh McKay one-on-one and powering all the way to the line. His tackle in the dying moments as Glasgow threatened almost demolished the west stand. The commentary team at Scotstoun spent their afternoon cheerleading for Glasgow to the point where they entirely missed the scale of what was happening: 100 metres made, 15 tackles, 12 carries and the try of the weekend, a demolition of McKay that deserved to be narrated in real time rather than noticed in hindsight. Stafford McDowall was Glasgow’s best player in defeat, with 14 carries and 12 tackles, and vindicated his selection.
12 Fraser Dingwall (Northampton Saints): Has responded well to being dropped by England, finishing a scintillating team move for his try after Freeman’s assist and Archie McParland’s delightful one-handed pass under pressure. That Northampton lost despite five first-half tries and a backline operating at this level tells you everything about the cruelty of knockout rugby. Santiago Chocobares carried hard for Toulouse in defeat, while Rekeiti Ma’asi-White was arguably Sale’s most potent attacking threat at the Aviva Stadium.
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11 Henry Arundell (Bath): Box office whenever given space, taking a lovely line off Finn Russell’s shoulder for his try. Maybe on another weekend, Rieko Ioane would be in after scoring a try and looking more comfortable in Leinster’s system than at any previous point, but Arundell’s contribution to one of the great European comebacks edges it. Louis Bielle-Biarrey produced one explosive burst that reminded everyone why every under-10 in Bordeaux now wears a red headguard, whilst Saints’ Ollie Sleightholme scored a fine try for Northampton in a losing cause.
10 Finn Russell (Bath): Some of his early decisions were abysmal, mixed with moments of brilliance, including his own try and the sumptuous double-pump dummy that sent Arundell through. But the second-half was a different man entirely: Russell dictated proceedings and went from the ridiculous to the sublime in a performance that dragged his side home from 21 points down. Matthieu Jalibert produced 25 minutes of second-half influence that turned the UBB-Toulouse match, chipping and regathering for his own try before freezing the Toulouse blitz with devastating pump passes, but it was Russell’s arc from chaos to control that produced the most dramatic outcome. Harry Byrne was excellent for Leinster, his cut-out pass for Keenan’s try a thing of beauty.
9 Maxime Lucu (Bordeaux-Bègles): Player of the Match in the headline fixture. Lucu outshone Dupont. That sentence requires a moment to absorb. His 52-metre penalty stretched UBB’s lead to seven and drew the life from Toulouse’s comeback. Ben White had a combative display for Toulon, with Baptiste Serin adding momentum from the bench. Ben Spencer captained Bath superbly in the second half, while Archie McParland‘s first-half display for Northampton, anchored by that one-handed pass for the Dingwall try, confirmed his emergence as one of the most exciting young nines in England.
The forwards
8 Alfie Barbeary (Bath): The Bath barrel. Player of the Match as his side came from 21 points down to beat Northampton 43-41. Barbeary was the catalyst for Bath’s transformation, a game-changer off the bench whose carrying, physicality and bloody-mindedness dragged his side back from the dead. England boss Steve Borthwick has so far snubbed him, which, on this evidence, looks like an act of self-harm. Henry Pollock was brilliant for Northampton before a controversial late yellow card from Andrew Brace, smashing through three defenders for the opening try and competing ferociously throughout. Ted Hill scored the match-winning try, while Mikheili Shioshvili, Toulon’s 19-year-old Georgian, put in 12 carries, 18 tackles and two turnovers at Scotstoun.
7 Jack Willis (Toulouse): Maybe the individual performance of the weekend, and arguably the finest single display of the entire Champions Cup campaign, came in a losing cause. Willis‘s first intervention set the tone when he melted Salesi Rayasi with a try-saving hit on the five-metre line after a 90-metre counter-attack. He held up Arthur Retière with Toulouse down to 13. He tracked back from a maul break to make a covering tackle that single-handedly kept Toulouse in the competition. He did all of this in a match featuring Dupont, Ramos, Jalibert, Romain Ntamack, Bielle-Biarrey and Lucu, and he was the most influential player on the pitch. England’s continued failure to find a place for Willis looks more baffling with every performance of this calibre. Rory Darge was excellent for Glasgow in defeat, while Sam Underhill’s first-half was curtailed by an HIA.
6 Charles Ollivon (Toulon): Le Grand Charles, back to his very best, was the heartbeat of the biggest upset of the round. 21 tackles against Glasgow, relentless with and without the ball, and the last-gasp defensive play that secured Toulon’s passage. Conceded three penalties and missed six tackles, which on any other afternoon would be damaging, but his influence at the critical moments overrode the blemishes. Guy Pepper was a big reason for Bath’s turnaround, hugely physical around the contact area as the West Country side got their opponents going into reverse. Cameron Woki was immense for UBB, holding up a Toulouse try and drawing the Dupont yellow card with a powerful maul break. Ryan Baird scored a fine try for Leinster and showed great composure to set up Keenan’s score.
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5 David Ribbans (Toulon): Oh, how England miss this man. The Toulon captain produced a rumbling display at Scotstoun that was central to a famous away victory, with big contacts on both sides of the ball driving the upset of the number two seeds. Emmanuel Meafou ran hard for Toulouse with 10 carries and deft offloading but faded as Bordeaux found their rhythm. Tom Lockett put in a massive shift for Northampton before Bath’s bench turned the tide.
4 Adam Coleman (Bordeaux-Bègles): Quietly excellent as UBB took the fight to Toulouse’s fearsome pack and won. Coleman’s work in the tight, at the lineout and in the carrying game provided the platform from which Jefferson Poirot, Woki and Ben Tameifuna could produce their headline moments. The kind of performance that rarely makes the highlights reel but is fundamental to everything around it. Joe McCarthy was busy for Leinster, using those long legs to beat four defenders.
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3 Ben Tameifuna (Bordeaux-Bègles): Pay him in steak. All 150kg of Big Ben came off the bench, scored a try from the maul for the second consecutive weekend, produced a critical turnover with Toulouse threatening, and generally imposed himself like a small building arriving at a cocktail party. Thomas du Toit‘s scrum penalty at the death was pivotal in Bath’s comeback, while Asher Opoku-Fordjour was dominant at scrum time against a Leinster pack with two current Lions in it.
2 Dan Sheehan (Leinster): A truly wonderful display from a man who can play anywhere in the forward pack or the backs. Sheehan made 123 metres from 12 carries, beat six defenders, opened the scoring, captained the side with authority, and produced a remarkable break in the final play for Jamie Osborne’s try. At various points, he propped, hooked and flanked all in the same match. Joint-highest rated player of the weekend. Maxime Lamothe scored UBB’s opening try from a brilliantly executed maul before being replaced at half-time.
1 Jefferson Poirot (Bordeaux-Bègles): Big Jeff. Four turnovers in 50 minutes from loosehead, the kind of return that borders on the absurd from a 130kg prop. Poirot set the tone for everything UBB did at the breakdown, contesting the contact area against Willis and Francois Cros with a ferocity that defied his positional description. He walked off to a standing ovation, having produced the loosehead shift of the season. Jean-Baptiste Gros was a powerhouse for Toulon, scoring a try by bulldozing through three defenders and making 18 tackles. Danilo Fischetti did brilliant work in the loose for Northampton, whilst Si McIntyre was excellent for Sale.
