Peter Jackson: Black time for Blues underlines Euro row

Cardiff Blues have played 30 matches in all competitions this season and lost 20 of them – two defeats in every three. No wonder, therefore, that they are to be found floundering in the bottom four of the Pro 12. Edinburgh, also beaten 20 times this season despite playing three games fewer than their Welsh counterparts, are in a worse position, cushioned from rock bottom only by the under-nourished Dragons and the Zebre chopping blocks.
Under the terms of a reorganised Europe as proposed by the rebellious English and French, the Northern Hemisphere’s foremost club competition would go ahead without the capital cities of Wales and Scotland.
Neither would qualify under the criteria outlined by what some see as an unholy Anglo-French alliance. Nor would they be in a rush to seek recourse via the European Court of Human Rights.
The English-French concept of a new Europe revolves around the principle that only the top six of the three major leagues will qualify. The Heineken Cup, by its very definition, is supposed to be a tournament for the European elite and rightly so.
There is nothing elite about qualifying from the bottom four of the Pro 12. In football, the Champions League may be a misnomer but at least they draw a line beneath the top four of any national championship.
ERC Ltd, organisers of the Heineken Cup, have their own way of doing things which is one reason why the English and French have given notice to quit in just over twelve months’ time.
They do have a point. Only the top six in their leagues are guaranteed access to the Heineken whereas eleven of the Pro 12 get there come hell or high water.
The English and French say they will create a better event, not least commercially. They also vow they will make it more elitist, shrinking the number of qualifiers from 24 to 20 and running it in tandem with an expanded secondary competition. The downside of their scheme is that it will inevitably dilute the European element in the European Cup, wiping the Italians out at a stroke and leaving the Scots with one qualifier, if they are lucky.
No wonder Italy and Scotland are implacably opposed to anything which changes the status quo. The Welsh regions run the risk of their representation being halved from four to two but realise that any political alliance with the English clubs could give them significant bargaining power when it comes to a reformed Europe.
Even the most one-eyed Blues fan will be hard pushed to defend his club’s right to justify a place in Europe’s top competition. They lost five of their six ties and yet still increased their merit points by two.  And for what? For finishing third in their pool behind Toulon and Montpellier.
Heaven knows rugby is littered with rulings which defy logic. The Blues’ official ranking in Europe, as drawn up by ERC, is probably the most illogical of the lot.
They are supposedly the eleventh best team in Europe, not unreasonable at face value given their trio of  Welsh superstars – Leigh Halfpenny, Sam Warburton and Alex Cuthbert except that their regional employers suffer for their national success. As with other Welsh-based players they spend almost half the season on national duty.
The Blues are ranked behind, in descending order: Leinster, Toulouse, Biarritz, Clermont, Toulon, Munster, Ulster, Northampton, Stade Francais and Harlequins. Incredibly, they are still ranked one place above Saracens who could possibly finish the season as champions of England or Europe, or both.
ERC put the capital region as the No. 1 in Wales with the defending Pro 12 champions the Ospreys down at 17 and the Scarlets, probable semi-finalists, at 18.
All that is calculated on a system of merit points based on European results over the last four seasons, at least one season too many given that form can fluctuate wildly in a matter of weeks.
The Blues have now lost ten of the starting XV when they beat Toulon in some style to win the Amlin Cup in Marseilles three years ago – Ben Blair, Casey Laulala, Richie Rees, Rhys Thomas, Deiniol Jones, Paul Tito, Mama Molitika, Martyn Williams, Xavier Rush and, now, Jamie Roberts.
This season the Blues have conceded seven tries to Ulster at the Arms Park, nine to Leinster in Dublin and seven more in the course of back-to-back defeats against Montpellier in the Heineken Cup.
All that in a season when their footballing neighbours won promotion to the Premier League. Instead of continuing their ground-share, the Blues left the green baize surface of the Cardiff City stadium for a return to their mudheap at the Arms Park.
Abandoning the bigger stage amounted to a tacit admission that the club were not as big as they thought they were, in terms of filling the football ground.
They failed in that respect not because the old guard of their membership refused to cut the umbilical cord with the Arms Park but because the team have failed to perform to any consistent level since winning the Amlin.