Tolouse vs Biarritz, final de la Heineken Cup

Los franceses se han llevado las dos plazas de la final, en unas semifinales más flojas que los cuartos nuestros vecinos consiguieron las dos victorias. Este año el rugby francés ha llegado a la cima, el Seis Naciones, la Heineken, el Toulon en la final de la European Club, el día 23 de mayo en Marsella.

Heineken Cup wins of Toulouse and Biarritz are a triumph for total rugby

The successes of Toulouse and Biarritz against Leinster and Munster respectively were based squarely on their efforts up front, but that was far from the whole story. In any event the question must also be put: so what? If teams are able to apply huge physical force and no little skill in the forward exchanges, why should this be deemed inferior to the skills shown by players whose athletic bent is fleetness of foot?

In truth, the distinct impression from the two semi-finals was that the French teams could have played pretty much as they liked and would still have won. There was no discernible lack of effort from either of the Irish provincial sides, though Munster have not played as poorly as they did on Sunday for some time, but they were bested in the set pieces after being competitive early on.

Though the scoreboard registered that Leinster and Munster were within touching distance for what seemed an unnaturally long time, given the dominance of the French, they were nevertheless always chasing the game in terms of producing something that had the hallmark of present-day Irish rugby. That is to say anything with momentum, involving successive phases of quick ball, that prevents an opposing defence reorganising and which exposes mismatches which can be exploited.

All too often the ball that was moved by the Irish teams was done so behind the gain line and into a defence that was square on and still in situ. This is the problem when you cannot get good first-phase ball, the manoeuvring of opponents is made that much more difficult because they do not have to turn at any point.

The French, unlike most of the rest of the world, probably barring the South Africans and Argentines, have never subscribed to the notion that the scrum is only a way of restarting the game. Now that there appears some official movement around the issue of crooked feeds and collapsed scrums their national and club teams are rightly poised to reap the rewards of keeping the faith.

In both semi-finals the scrum was a focal point of aggression and it was so because of the psychological damage caused to the opposing forwards when they are physically beaten and driven backwards. Not only does it make an opponent's job more difficult in terms of having to run longer lines to get involved at the breakdown, it holds his manhood open to ridicule – and publicly so.

If you think that this is being a tad melodramatic you should take another look at the reaction of poor Cian Healy, who was taken off by Leinster coach Michael Cheika after just 30 minutes. The mortification writ large as he watched Springbok prop CJ van der Linde take his place was as excruciating as it was interesting.

Healy may well in his defence cite a differentiation in the way referee Nigel Owens ruled over the scrums. Owens rightly stopped Leinster pushing before the ball came in when it was the Toulouse put-in. This contributed hugely to the stability of the scrums. However, the standard Toulouse put-in did not come until after their pack had started to drive and, having gained momentum, they simply walked over the ball that was fed by the excellent Byron Kelleher, the scrum-half.

Leinster always had to react to the drive as Toulouse knew when they would start, so it meant that the Irish pack were going backwards, and they continued to do so. This does not explain the extent of the French side's dominance and Toulouse were comfortably the better team, but it is something to which referees and coaches should pay attention.

At least Leinster posed some form of threat out in the backs when they did get decent ball. Munster's backs were as shell-shocked as their forwards and on numerous occasions they forgot occasions one of the absolute laws of rugby: when you are in the ----, do not pass the ball back and make it worse.

When they tried to fashion the impossible out of the improbable they ended up giving the Biarritz scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili a kickable penalty and he needed no second invitation to keep hammering home his forwards' dominance.

So, these were not classic matches in the accepted sense, but they were for those able to understand the degree of expertise that is needed to fashion wins in this way.
One further thing to say about both the French winners this weekend is that they have proved on their way to the final that should they need to satisfy the cultural snobs of rugby, they can do that as well and with something to spare.