Round 1 really couldn’t have gone much better with the completion of the Pinky Slam. All desired results went the right way. Nit-pickers might say we could have done without Castres’ late bonus-point securing try but let’s not be greedy.
Before all hell broke loose later in the week, we were looking good for all the other games in Round 2 to go our way too. A fivefold accumulator on Castres, Wasps, Stade Francais, Scarlets and Cardiff all losing was coming in at odds-on. The only fly in the ointment was that Connacht themselves were 8-1 to pull off the win at Welford.
With the postponement of a raft of games and three 28-0 There-Is-No-Scope-For-Postponement-And-This-Is-Definitely-Not-A-Sanction results confusingly left to stand, the landscape is a bit different now, but remember that last season when it all went pear-shaped, home advantage was given to teams that won their games on the field of play, so the prospect of beating Leicester away is even more inviting, and with a few players back for us and their captain Christmas shopping in another team’s club shop, that may also have gotten slightly less remote.
Of the remaining fixtures, wins for Munster and Harlequins would be preferable, but seem fairly inevitable anyway. The game of the weekend is probably, quite unexpectedly, at lunchtime Sunday, so enjoy the limelight, play what’s in front of you, and let the bizarre inner workings of the EPCR play out in Neuchatel or Lausanne or wherever their current covenstead is located.
Or course this may all have changed by the time you read this …
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