Brendan Gallagher: New hope for British clubs as the old empires crumble in Europe

How the mighty have fallen. We still have two rounds of the Pool stages left – in fact some teams have three ties remaining after the rescheduling needed in the wake of the Paris bombing atrocities – yet already Leinster and Toulouse have been dumped out of the competition and Munster are tottering on the brink. The rugby world seems to have shifted on its axis a little.
It’s been a rockiest of rides for that clutch of former European champions and even Toulon, champions for the last three seasons, started their campaign with a humiliating thumping at Wasps although there have been signs recently that something approaching normal service has been resumed at Stade Felix Mayol.
So what’s been going on? Is this failure of the aristocracy of European rugby somehow related to the World Cup with many of the players being overloaded or does it run deeper than sheer fatigue or staleness. Perhaps success at this level is cyclical and we have no right to expect the big team, no matter how well founded and funded to keep bashing out the titles?
Leinster’s fall from grace has been brutal with four defeats on the bounce so far in Europe. Winners of the competition for three seasons out of four not so long ago they then tangled with Toulon twice in a row in the knock-out stages and to a certain extent it feels that, in the short term at least, they’ve had the stuffing knocked out of them. Yes there have been big injuries – Ica Narawa, Rob Kearney and Sean O’Brien – but their play has lacked conviction from the returning Jonny Sexton downwards.
Toulouse, meanwhile, still have a coachload of big names to call on but the stark truth is that this is now the third time in four seasons they have failed to advance from the the Pool stages. They are no longer Euro giants and the decline had set in well before Ugo Mola took over as coach from Guy Noves in the summer.
The bottom line is that domestically their success as a club and a team relates more than ever as to how they perform in the T14 and almost all their focus now is targeted on trying to stay with Toulon, Stade Francais, Racing and Clermont who boast all the finances and facilities that used to set Toulouse apart.
There is just no slack at Toulouse anymore that enables them to also go full tilt in Europe. The giveaway was the manner of their defeats at Saracens and Ulster. They were abject and disinterested on both occasions. We will not see Toulouse lording it over Europe against for a very long time. Those days are gone.
With Munster, I was tempted to say they are a team in transition until coach Brendan Foley, whose honesty and outspoken post-match comments I very much enjoy, insisted after their defeat against Leicester at Welford Road last night, that there is no such thing as transition at Munster.
“We are never in transition, with a club like this you have to stay at the peak,” said Foley, a mainstay at lock in so many of their great European wins. “We have an expectation among us to stay at the top and we are fighting to stay up there.”
Fair point but there are obvious reasons why Munster are struggling in Europe by their own stellar standards. No team is easily going to absorb the loss of Paul O’Connell to Toulon and the injured Peter O’Mahony has also been missed. Scrum-half Conor Murray is one of those Test regulars who appears to be suffering an understandable dip in form while half-back partner Ian Keatley has endured a couple of difficult games.
The force isn’t quite with them, the Midas touch has gone, but one thing I would expect from Munster is for them to come out all guns blazing in their final three games. Their chances of progressing are very slim but they could at least play themselves into form after Christmas.
At the other end of the spectrum we have the teams who are on fire and it is no coincidence that three of those are from England, packed full of England qualified players either seething with disappointment from their lacklustre World Cup campaign or just plain angry from being overlooked altogether.
Factor in the arrival of Eddie Jones as England’s new coach and what have you got? Platoons of highly motivated players looking to prove a point. Perhaps something good can come out of RWC2015 for the England team after all.
Saracens have been hugely impressive from the off and although the jury was possibly out after their home win against Toulouse – in fairness to the French side that game was the day after the Paris terrorist atrocities – nobody can argue with a 27-9 win at Ravenhill on a mucky night. They were also highly effective in putting Oyannax away in their double header, totalling exactly 100 points in the two games.
Chris Ashton – never really the flavour of the month with the deposed England management – has looked very sharp again and it is worth just pondering on what a proven try scorer he is.
In just 39 Tests he has scored 19 tries and in just 46 European Cup matches he has already notched up 30 tries and is third in the all-time list behind Brian O’Driscoll on 33 and Vincent Clerc on on 36.  Name me one other current England qualified player whose statistics remotely stack up against that.
Wasps have been a revelation and other than taking the field with “Pick me Eddie” on their jerseys the likes of Joe Simpson, Elliot Daly, Christian Wade, before he got injured, and Nathan Hughes  could scarcely have done more to state their England case, albeit Hughes doesn’t become available until June.
Their approach has mimicked some of the very best action we saw during the World Cup and there has been nothing as spectacular in Europe so far this season as their wins over Toulon, Leinster and Bath. If nothing else Wasps have made a statement of intent and, in the ageless George Smith, they also clearly made the signing of the summer.
Leicester are the other English side who are shining early doors and regardless of your allegiance the European Cup is always better for the presence of a full on, snarly Leicester team.
It’s been an odd mix at Tigers this season but it’s working with unheralded but canny Kiwis like Brendan O’Connor, Lachlan McCaffrey and Michael Fitzgerald adding a bit of edge and spice to the pack while Ben Youngs and Dan Cole have seemingly rediscovered their zest and best form since returning from
England duty. Others like Matt Smith, always a stalwart foot soldier, have suddenly emerged as players of real substance and class.
It’s still early days, of course, and in this competition we have seen before that overwhelmingly good form in the Pool stages isn’t always the best guide as to who will win the Cup.
If you watched Toulon at Wasps and Clermont at Exeter you might have been tempted to dismiss their chances this time around yet both have recovered and in Clermont’s case spectacularly so. This year’s competition is coming to the boil nicely, much more so than last season, and I sniff a couple of spectacular epics in the New Year.