By Barney Burnham
October 19 2006

There’s no point beating about the bush - for a side which has won seven major domestic trophies since the game went professional, our Heineken Cup record is lousy.  

Yes, I know we all have indelible memories of that glorious day in May 2004, when the Hand of Howley took us to the top of European club rugby. Yes, I know that we stormed through the Parker Pen Cup in 2003, culminating in a sound thrashing of Bath. But if you set those two years aside, a look at our overall Heineken Cup record makes for pretty dismal reading.

Overall record (in eight years in the competition) - played 51, won 31, drawn 1, lost 19. Apart from 2004, the best we’ve managed is two quarterfinals. Since 2004, we’ve failed to reach the knockout stages, despite going in to the tournament as Premiership champions. Yes, we can blame ‘groups of death‘, Serial Trippers, awful weather, but the unpalatable truth is that we’ve underperformed - badly.

This season’s draw - apart from being a joy for all Eurowaspies - gives us a glorious opportunity to put things right. Two French sides in poor form and an Italian outfit which has nice shirts, but lost all their pool matches last season .

Let’s look at this season’s pool opposition - in alphabetical order, which is also the order in which we play them.

CASTRES
________

Overall record (5 seasons in the competition) - played 28, won 12, drawn 1, lost 15. Best performance - semi-finals 2001/2, when they lost to Munster 25-17.

At home, they have only lost four times (twice last season), but they’ve only ever won two away matches - both in 2001/2, when they won at Harlequins and Bridgend. They have never played against Wasps.

They’re currently 11th in the Top 14, with just four wins from 11 games, all of them at home. In their last home match, they lost 19-16 to unfashionable Albi, Prior to that, their only home defeat had been on weekend 2 of the tournament, when they went down to Stade Français, currently the runaway leaders. They lost their game at Perpignan, 20-16.

Early analysis from Twyford Avenue tells us that Castres are keeping it in the forwards. Their pack boasts All Black prop Carl Hoeft, along with new signings Pascal Papé - the French international lock - from Bourgoin, and veteran backrower Patrice Tabacco, from Pau.

In the backs, this season’s newcomers include former Wallaby centre Steve Kefu, Scotland flyhalf Gordon Ross and French international scrumhalf Christophe Laussucq.

PERPIGNAN
___________

Overall record (6 seasons in competition) - played 42, won 26, lost 16. Best season 2002/3, when they lost 22-17 to Toulouse, in the final. Last season, they lost away to eventual winners Munster 19-10, in the quarterfinals.

Their home record is mightily impressive - they’ve only lost twice in 19 games, with their last defeat being against - Wasps, 34-6, in the final pool game in 2003/4. Wasps had won their home fixture, by 28 points to 7. Those are the only two occasions on which the sides have met.

USAP are currently 6th in the Top 14, but their recent form has been poor. Their supporters are openly talking about a ’crise’, and there’s also talk of backroom dispute, with strong rumours that senior officials are set to step down. Last weekend, they ended a run of three successive defeats, with a 13-6 win at Agen.

They’ve always had a powerful pack, but Ian McGeechan says that, despite their recent results, they’ve been playing some good rugby. Their main weapons behind the scrum are Australian fly half Mannie Edmonds, French international fullback Julien Laharrague and scrumhalf Nicolas Durand. New recruits include another Scottish internation fly half - Dan Parks, from Glasgow.

Their home ground, Stade Aimé Giral, is nicknamed ’Le Chaudron’ - the cauldron. Those who were there in 2004 know exactly why!

TREVISO
_______

Overall record - (nine seasons in the competition) played 48, won 14, lost 34. Their best seasons were in 2004/5 and 1998/9, when they won three and lost three. They’ve never progressed beyond the pool stages, but they did beat Wasps at the Stadio Comunale di Monigo - 32-17, in 2001/2. Wasps won the game at Loftus Road, 29-24.

Always the strongest of the Italian sides, they have managed some excellent results, even registering away wins at Edinburgh, Harlequins and Bourgoin - although that win in France was against a side notorious for not taking the Heineken Cup seriously, and putting out weak sides once they’re out of the running for knockout places.

After the promising campaign of 2004/5 (including a 29-23 home win over Bath), which raised hopes that they were on the way up, they crashed down to earth last season, losing all six games and conceding 207 points to Ulster, Saracens and Biarritz.

Gone are the days when they provided the lion’s share of the Italian national side. Last season’s Six Nations team against England only boasted one Treviso player in the starting lineup, with two more on the bench. Their squad still has its fair share of Italian internationals, but the bigger Azzurri names are now to be found plying their trade in England and France. Good for the national side, but bad for the club game in Italy - rather borne out by the fact that the main rugby websites carry no information about the Super 10 tournament. After a fruitless half hour scouring through the internet, I gave up trying to find Treviso’s current position, but I’d put at least 5p on their being in the first two.

So what of our own form? Judging by last Sunday’s comfortable win over Newcastle, it’s good - but with room for improvement. We’re better placed in the Premiership than we have been for several years, at this stage of the season. Ian McGeechan’s avowed intention in the early stages of the season has been to give as many players as possible game time with the first team. This will ensure that, when the inevitable international calls come our way, all those filling the gaps will already be comfortable in the Premiership environment. The possible disadvantage of this, as McGeechan himself admits, is that it’s hard to build consistency with a different lineup each week. Despite that, we’re creating try scoring opportunities galore, even though we’re managing to make a mess of many of them. The defence has been more worrying, with an alarming number of tries being conceded. Defence guru Shaun Edwards has expressed concern, but he will have been heartened by the second half performance last weekend.

So, what are our chances this season? You have to say that they’re good. We have a great opportunity to reach the last 8, for only the fourth time ever. None of the other sides in our pool are pushovers, but a good win on Sunday - and our last four home European games against French sides have brought us three wins and a draw - would put us in good shape for the more challenging visit to Catalan country. After the brutal match there in 2004, everyone will be ready for a physical battle. A win there, and a quarterfinal place would be there for the taking.

After that, who knows?