England rugby’s clubs have been in massive turmoil over the past year, but this weekend saw them win seven out of eight games in the Investec Champions Cup - a positive sign after losing three clubs last season.
The fact that England lost three clubs over the past two years - Worcester, Wasps and London Irish - all closed their doors leaving them a 10-club league meant that a number of players have bolstered other English clubs in the meantime, and as a direct consequence English clubs have had their squad depth bolstered by this.
One of the coaches who has picked up on this trend is former Springbok assistant and current Glasgow Warriors coach Franco Smith, whose side lost to Northampton in round one at home at the Scotstoun and will now need to make up for it in their round two fixture against Bayonne this coming weekend.
Smith, when asked about the trend, said it certainly had an effect on the strength of English clubs.
“It definitely has had an effect. They could still fit a lot more players into their budget because the value of the players adapted to fit the budget and because there are so many players available, everybody’s price dropped a bit.
“So with the same budget you can have more players in your squad. I do think that plays a role.”
While South African sides won four out of five in the Champions’ Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup on the weekend, generally there were some disappointing results across the board for teams in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
Smith believes this is an anomaly and that the situation will rectify itself as the competition’s league rounds play out.
“I also find it strange, I don’t have the answer right now, but even Connacht losing with 40 points at home made it interesting. The URC teams were a little bit off things this weekend, which is not normal. Usually in this competition the URC results were a bit of a surprise for me, but in our case there are enough controllables from our side that weren’t done well and that we can rectify.
“But yes, it is definitely evident that the Premiership teams did well. Usually the French teams give the first two rounds a go, and if they see they are in it, they give it a go, but if they lose they play less competitive teams.”
HOPEFUL AHEAD OF BAYONNE TRIP
With the Glasgow coach unhappy at the way his side performed at home, failing to get a losing bonus point at the end, the pressure is on when they travel to France this weekend.
“It was a tough result in the end. We got better as the game went on. I think we were a little bit shell-shocked at the beginning of the game. I thought Northampton did very well. They are a very good attacking side and asked questions in the right areas - we kicked poorly in the first half and couldn’t get out of our half, the wind was in our face. I thought the kick-chase didn’t back the kicking game up.
“After the halftime talk we had much better actions. At times we attacked far better than we have attacked at times this season. Our set-piece was unsettled by them and they came with a definite plan to unsettle us there. We have our own introspection to do, but I thought they were quite well prepared and a quality side. It is hard to measure the Premiership against the Top 14 and URC so they just made the point from the start that it is tough to play us here and they just came with a plan.”
The anomaly of results saw the away sides in Glasgow’s group do very well.
Bayonne forced a draw against URC champions Munster while Exeter came from behind to stun Toulon on their home ground.
In a tournament where home teams tend to dominate, this was also a turn-up for the books.
But that gives Smith hope ahead of the Bayonne trip, and he is still smiling.
“Hopefully that is a good sign because we’re going to Bayonne this weekend. We will give it a full go there again,” he smiled.