THE CRASS amongst us would suggest that it is easy to place French powerhouse Clermont Auvergne straight into the final of the Heineken Cup. They are strong, they are slick,…
European Champions Cup
Picture gallery: Best European quarter-final Action
LAST WEEKEND was a rip-roaring weekend of European rugby, with the action starting on a Thursday evening with Gloucester v Biarritz and finishing as the sun set on Sunday evening…
Fantastic four: Heineken Cup quarter-final review
CLERMONT AUVERGNE demonstrated just why they are the favourites to lift the Heineken Cup this year as they clinically saw off Montpellier. Rugby World, however, has decided to pinpoint a…
Goode ready for European test
GIVEN THE intelligent, unfussy rugby instincts that characterise his game, it comes as no surprise that Alex Goode also possesses a pretty precise memory. Describing a short sequence an hour…
Heineken Cup: Can the Tigers take the heat?
COMPARED TO the chill winds that have been blowing through Leicester of late, Toulon on Sunday will feel positively balmy for the English club. Spring has been slow in showing…
Smash! Wayne Barnes gets hit in the face
IT’S A tough life being a referee – hundreds of decisions to make, crowds jeering you, coaches blaming you. There was an even more painful moment for Wayne Barnes recently.…
Statistics: Heineken Cup’s most effective players
MUCH LIKE younglings obeying a magical, umbrella-toting nanny, we have packed the Heineken Cup away in its box until March. We have no use for it when we have the…
Heineken Cup Round Six: Winners and Losers
AFTER THE final pool matches at the weekend we now know the quarter-finalists, who drops into the Amlin Challenge Cup and who goes back home, wondering what could have been…
Heineken Cup Round 5: Winners and Losers
WE ARE now left with one last round in the Heineken Cup pool stages, with teams not so much balanced on a knife’s edge as trying to clamber onto the…
Heineken Cup Round 5: Five must-watch clashes
SPORTING CLICHES are often abused. Every tournament has a Group of Death and every player is weighed and measured to see if they will be found inferior or capable of…