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Posted 384 days ago
AS THE Home Nations gear up for Down Under, across the Channel in France the Top 14 is coming to the boil, writes Gavin Mortimer.
The French domestic season is a bit like Simon Shaw’s career in that one wonders if it will ever end. Ten months after the 2011-12 campaign began we have four clubs left standing.
Saturday’s semi-final pits the…
Posted 391 days ago
IN FRANCE they call them ‘les barrages’, in English we’d call them ‘play-offs’; perhaps the best description is the Top 14 quarter-finals, which is in effect what unfolds on Saturday when Castres host Montpellier and Racing Metro visit Toulon, writes Gavin Mortimer.
At stake is a semi-final place the following weekend with the winner of the first tie facing Toulouse and…
Posted 879 days ago
By Paul Morgan, editor of Rugby World Magazine
No English side since Bath in 2002 had gone through the Heineken Cup pool stage unbeaten, that was until Northampton won here in Castres – a remarkable achievement from what is fast becoming a remarkable side, capable of challenging at the top table in European rugby.
I’ve seen the Saints a few times this…
Posted 880 days ago
Northampton Saints director of rugby Jim Mallinder says that all of the attention this week at Franklin’s Gardens has been given to achieving a positive result in Castres this weekend.
The Saints qualified for the Heineken Cup quarter finals with their Round 5 win over Edinburgh. But with a home tie far from certain Mallinder says that he wants the Saints…
Posted 891 days ago
Castres Olympique have only qualified for the Heineken Cup knock-out stages once before – and they can take a giant step towards trying to end that nine-year wait with a Pool 1 double over Cardiff Blues when they clash in Round 5 at Cardiff City Stadium on Friday night.
Northampton Saints are firmly in control of Pool 1 but Castres are…
Posted 891 days ago
The race for the prestigious eight Heineken Cup quarter-final places is entering the final straight – but 11 of the 24 teams in the 2010 / 2011 tournament will still be in elite European club rugby action come April.
While the six Pool winners and two best Pool runners-up will prolong their Heineken Cup adventure into the knock-out stages, the next…
