Top 14 Barrage

[cormac]

Clermont half-backs were poor. No questioning Laidlaw's place-kicking but he's a hand-brake in every other aspect. Lopez had a poor game, offered little direction in attack and crabbed across the pitch. Clermont have some great attacking threats in the backs but don't really have the structure to work space for them. Too reliant on them busting a tackle to get over the gain line.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Clermont half-backs were poor. No questioning Laidlaw's place-kicking but he's a hand-brake in every other aspect. Lopez had a poor game, offered little direction in attack and crabbed across the pitch. Clermont have some great attacking threats in the backs but don't really have the structure to work space for them. Too reliant on them busting a tackle to get over the gain line.

Agreed, Laidlaw was dreadfully slow to get to the breakdown (even when the moves were just simple hands) and his kicking was appalling. The kicking was obviously tactical so wouldn't blame either of them for actually doing it, but the execution was awful. That said, Kolbe was great in the air, and so was Huget from attacking kicks. Lopez also made that awful defensive error for the first try, he really had a very poor game.

Clermont didn't really get Penaud into the game either and seemed to panic in the last 10/15 minutes, as evidenced by that mental bit of play from Naqalevu when he threw the ball out of play. They had numbers and space but he hesitated and lost the plot entirely. Nanai Williams' forward pass was poor too, might have only been marginal but it was just another example of them forcing things.

I was very surprised by how tired Clermont were at the end too. Fritz Lee could barely move off the back of one scrum and they just couldn't resource any rucks in the last few mins.

Toulouse were excellent though. They brought the physicality and aggression that they forgot to bring to the Aviva and were really clinical. Dupont really ran the show and was very impressed with Ahki too, thought he knitted everything together.

[Ruckedtobits]

Based on this result, I would suggest a Pan-European ranking as follows:

1. Sarries;
2. Leinster;
3. Toulouse;
4. Exeter;
5. Clermont;
6. Glasgow;
7. Racing 92;
8. Munster / La Rochelle.

Its a fairly formidable list and one would love to see more regular competition involving all of them, but very unlikely unless CvC Partners go after Top14 also.

[wixfjord]

What would a more regular competition between them look like? A pan Euro league you mean?

I think the current set-up means we get the best of both worlds. A competitive league without some of the pressures of the Gallagher/Top 14 combined with a Euro format that gives regular big games and a good opportunity for the provinces to win trophies.