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Heineken Cup reaction - Saturday

October 11 2008

The opening Saturday of Heineken Cup rugby threw up plenty of entertaining clashes - with a shock result at Stade Marcel Michelin surely the highlight.

However, triumphant Sale Sharks boss Philippe Saint-Andre was left counting the cost of his side's memorable four-try 32-15 win away to French Top 14 runners-up Clermont Auvergne.

Sale face reigning European champions Munster at Edgeley Park next Sunday and Saint-Andre has lost centre Lee Thomas for up to six weeks with a shoulder injury and Wales scrum-half Dwayne Peel is an injury doubt for next week after suffering a first-half stinger.

"Lee Thomas has damaged his shoulder and he could need surgery but Peel could recover in time to play against Munster if we are lucky," said the Frenchman, who described his side's display as the best he has seen from them since they beat Leicester Tigers to win the Guinness Premiership final three seasons ago.

"If you come here and you're not bold, you lose by 40 points," he said upon his return to local supporters during his time with Montferrand.

"When we had the ball we tried to attack and be adventurous and I'm very proud of my team after seeing them put on their best performance in Europe and the best I've seen since we won the Premiership Final.

"Now, we have to prove we can put two big performances back to back by beating Munster. If we win here and lose at home to Munster, the hard work we did here will count for very little."

Saint-Andre threw Clermont a curve ball before the game kicked off, leaving England fly-half discard Charlie Hodgson on the bench and starting Richard Wigglesworth instead.

Man-of-the-match Luke McAlister, who finished the game with seventeen points to his name, kicked two penalties to get Sale in front early on and they led 13-6 at half-time after David Doherty finished off a Peel break with McAlister adding the conversion.

Hodgson entered the fray early in the second half and he immediately set up a try for McAlister and by the end Rudi Keil and Mark Cueto were rubbing salt in the home side's wounds with a try apiece in the last ten minutes.

Clermont, who take on Calvisano in Italy next week, had to settle for five penalties from Australian fly-half Brock James and they never got a sniff of the Sale try-line.

"When we had the ball we attacked and tried to be adventurous and we punished their mistakes in the second half, when Charlie Hodgson came on and gave us a longer kicking game," Saint-Andre continued.

"Now, we have to see if we can put two big games like that together and we have to focus on the game against Munster from first thing on Monday morning."

Elsewhere, victorious Leinster coach Michael Cheika was ambivalent about his side's display but was delighted with the victory over Edinburgh at Murrayfield.

"I don't think we ever expect to get a bonus point up here," said the Australian, who also masterminded a 52-6 Magners League win over the same side last month.

"There were parts of the game where we performed very well and there were parts of the game when we didn't perform very well.

"We were able to take the opportunities at times when we were going really well, which pretty much made the difference because they were right in it until the end."

Out in Italy, Cardiff Blues coach Dai Young admitted he could not have asked for a better start to the Heineken Cup after his team's 56-20 win away to Calvisano, their biggest ever win in Europe.

The Welsh region scored eight tries, including six in the second half, as they put the Italian champions to the sword at Centro Sportivo San Michele for a bonus-point victory.

"I couldn't really have asked for more and I would certainly have settled for that before coming out here," Young said.

"It was a game we had to win and we also targeted a bonus point, so I'm delighted that we've done both.

"We knew it wasn't going to be easy. Calvisano were always going to be tough, especially up front, and they would try to slow the game down. But I was always confident that we had the quality to control the pace of the game and score tries."

The Blues led 15-3 following Ma'ama Molitika's early score and a penalty try but were twice reduced to fourteen men as Deiniol Jones and Jamie Robinson were shown yellow cards for dangerous tackles.

Calvisano number eight Justin Purll reduced the arrears to 18-13 at half-time before Cardiff ran out comfortable winners as Jason Spice, Tom Shanklin, Nick Robinson, Ben Blair, Leigh Halfpenny and Gareth Thomas all scored.

"The first half was tight. We wasted a few half-chances early on and lost our way a bit before half-time, trying to play too much rugby in the wrong parts of the field," Young continued.

"But we recovered and controlled the second half and scored some great tries. I was also pleased we didn't concede a late try when they finished the game so close to our line.

"This pool is going to be very tough and potentially every point could count, so we didn't want to give away any soft tries at the end."

Meanwhile, Harlequins Director of Rugby Dean Richards hailed his side's character after they came back from the dead to claim a dramatic 29-22 victory over Scarlets at Stradey Park.

The Guinness Premiership side trailed 19-3 at half-time after being totally outplayed by a rampant home side.

But, inspired by man-of-the-match Chris Malone, the visitors pulled it around in style to seal a confidence-boosting opening victory to their Pool Four campaign.

"We knew at half-time we could get back into it," Richards said.

"They could never play with the pace they did in that first half for 80 minutes, while we couldn't play any worse than we did in that first half.

"We kept the scoreboard ticking over and we took our tries well. We controlled the game in the second half and played some great rugby.

"The boys deserve a lot of credit for that, but we know it is still very much early days in this competition and we are not going to rest on our laurels."

On the opposing side, Scarlets Head Coach Nigel Davies could not hide his disappointment after watching his side capitulate in their final European game at Stradey Park.

"We are all bitterly disappointed, there is a lot of emotion in the dressing room at the moment," he explained.

"We felt we should have had the game won at half-time, we could have scored another three or four tries in that first half. But everything we talked about at half-time we didn't do in the second half.

"We didn't manage the game, we didn't play territory and we tried to play from silly errors. I thought we had what we deserved in the end.

"We can play rugby, there is no doubt about that, but when it comes to the big games we have got to learn how to win them."