Loose Pass: Controversial Investec Champions Cup decisions dissected as round of 16 ‘delivers’ in ‘badly needed fun weekend’
Henry Pollock clashes with Guillaume Ducat in the Investec Champions Cup.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with nuances from the European weekend…
Decisions, indecisions, non-decisions
It wasn’t a weekend being looked forward to by all. The collective groans emitted across the hills when Leicester named a weakened team for the trip to Bordeaux were the soundtrack for the build-up. South African teams have a history of being less than bothered about European away days, irrespective of who they bring with them. But the Bulls rocked up with 14 Springboks and an impressive show of power, while the Stormers sensed vulnerability at Toulon and almost pulled off a famous win.
The Investec Champions Cup round of 16 delivered. Anybody who thought Castres would be supine at Northampton was given a nasty jolt; the only supine player in the first half was Henry Pollock, cleaned out with a suspiciously tucked shoulder by Guillaume Ducat, whose yellow card saw the visitors reduced to 13 for eight minutes. Even then, Castres survived the outnumbering and led at the break before Northampton finally got clear in the final quarter.
The Bath-Saracens game was quality redolent of a bygone European era, with inclement weather leaving showboat moments at a premium but two teams engaging each other in a full-fuel physical and strategic wrestle. The same applied to Glasgow’s win over the Bulls and Sale’s storming of the Stoop. Toulon absolutely got away with one against the Stormers. While the Bordeaux-Leicester game was predictably one-sided, it was also so full of highlight reel stuff that the weakened Leicester team-sheet was soon forgotten.
And it all made for difficult days for men in the middle. Most notably for Nika Amashukeli, who was visibly groggy as he gave a staggeringly incorrect decision in the wake of being clattered by Josh Bayliss and did not re-emerge for the second half. Talk about knockout rugby.
But the difficult decisions had already begun in Northampton, with Saints fans livid as Tyler Ardron scampered over for an intercept try despite being palpably offside both in real time and the replay – and this was after Ducat was sent to the bin for that clearout that might well have been more of a cherry-yellow hue on a different day. There might have been mutiny in the stands as Vuate Karawalevu raced away to put Castres in the lead in the second half, but this time the pre-try knock-on was called, albeit belatedly.
Amashukeli had already been advised by a TMO to card Guy Pepper for a comical headbutt of the ball out of Charlie Bracken’s hands – although do we really need TMOs calling out upgrades of penalties when referees have already seen fit to penalise the offence?
Anyway, he left the field with Bath’s front-row on a warning and Archie Griffin under enormous pressure. Beno Obano had not been struggling on his side of the scrum in comparison to Griffin (who had been hooked at the break), yet Amashukeli’s parting briefing to replacement Ben Connor had clearly included the front-row warning, so when Obano went down to concede his first penalty of the game, the yellow card he got for it felt remarkably harsh.
It would also have been harsh on Louis Rees-Zammit had he seen the yellow card the match commentators were demanding when the Welsh flyer got back to deny Teddy Thomas a scorching try. Having made up a five metre head start off a U-turn, Rees-Zammit got the ball first, but it squirted off his hand and went dead. “He’s got away with one there,” was the verdict of the commentator, yet his hands clearly hooked over in an attempt to try to pull the ball back and down, rather than push it out.
Gianluca Gnecchi got that one spot-on, as did Pierre Brousset when he refused to do the crowd’s bidding after Canan Moodie had slammed Kyle Steyn into the artificial turf at Scotstoun. A rough tackle it was, but not once did Steyn tip beyond the horizontal. Less clear was the decision of Brousset to opt to penalise neither of the back-lines later in the game after both had encroached significantly beyond the five metre offside line at a scrum. Offsetting penalties is more of an NFL thing isn’t it?
The voices wailed, the teeth – those that weren’t chattering in the filthy weather – gnashed in the Glasgow crowd. Yet it was the home side’s kicker, Adam Hastings, already having been fingered by Donncha O’Callaghan for gamesmanship last week, who delivered the unseemliest trick of all, checking he had 60 seconds to take a kick that could have been back-heeled over in five, and then using them all up to run down the clock before kicking the goal for the win. It’s not the first time this trick has been used; isn’t it time that kicks for goal are not counted on the game-clock?
No such trickery on Sunday and Bordeaux ran riot and Leinster made entertainingly hard work of Edinburgh. And it’s conjured up a mouthwatering quarter-final weekend, with a rematch of the 2024 Premiership Final, a rematch of the Top 14 final of the past two years, and a rematch of the 2023 Challenge Cup Final (not to mention a couple of cracking pool matches down the years) all on the itinerary. And with the slight exception of Sale’s trip across the Irish sea, those lucky paying punters have been spared the excessive travel, a blessing in times such as the ones we live in.
Yes, the pool phase was a bit insipid and the format is still a bit rubbish. But European rugby has had a fun weekend it badly needed this Easter.
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READ MORE: Investec Champions Cup: Quarter-final dates, venues, kick-off times and TV coverage confirmed