Following an opening round of 92 tries, a 36-36 draw at Kingsholm, a 43-40 epic in Toulouse and an afternoon in La Rochelle that was about a great deal more than rugby, here’s our Team of the Week.
Investec Champions Cup, Team of Round One
15 Matias Remue (Toulouse): Seven defenders beaten, more than anyone managed all weekend, 14 carries for 87 metres, two tries and two assists, and all of it with 14 men in front of him. The Belgium international had been read as a runner filling in for Thomas Ramos; by the hour he was the one shaft of light in a Toulouse side that had lost two 12s, a prop and a wing, and his second try, an in-and-out and a step off the left foot, put them back in front. Théo Attissogbe made the break from deep for Rodrigo Marta’s first and the pass for Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang’s, 12 carries and two line breaks for a Pau side that’s looking very handy, whilst James Pater marked his European debut for Saints with a try, a conversion and a second-half intercept, which isn’t bad for a lad most of the Gardens hadn’t heard of in August.
14 Seabelo Senatla (Stormers): Still got it. Player of the match in Cape Town with a try inside seven minutes, an assist for Leolin Zas that involved beating four defenders and then having the manners to offload, a turnover and a dominant tackle, in a side that played 20 minutes a man short. Zack Wimbush scored a hat-trick at Toulouse against the six-time champions and went home with two bonus points, and Kyle Steyn captained Glasgow to seven tries at Sale, scored one and made Jamie Dobie’s with an arcing run that opened the Sharks up like a tin.
13 Cathal Forde (Connacht): A try, two turnovers won and 11 carries in a 13-try game that had both defence coaches reaching for the gin, and the man Connacht’s midfield kept finding where Saracens didn’t expect him. Portugal star Rodrigo Marta scored twice for Pau, made two dominant tackles and tops the Top 14 try chart with six in five, and Kalvin Gourgues won a penalty try, took a head shot that cost Exeter a man and made 13 tackles as the last specialist centre Toulouse had left.
12 Fabien Brau-Boirie (Pau): Three line breaks, 16 tackles, 12 carries, the pass for Marta’s first and the intercept that finished Leicester from 35 metres. Pau had less than half the ball and made nine line breaks to Leicester’s two, and most of them went through him. Will Butt was the most direct carrier on the field in Toulouse, 67 metres, two breaks, two offloads, a try and a turnover, and Sione Tuipulotu made the carry that produced Glasgow’s penalty try and the break and offload for Ollie Smith’s, in a game that outlined Glasgow’s Investec Champions Cup intentions in bold.
11 Cheswill Jooste (Bulls): 20 years old, a hat-trick at Loftus, 13 carries and five line breaks, and the first try came about 20 seconds in off a Harold Vorster grubber he’d chased before anyone else noticed the game had started. It was Stade Français’s second XV, a side so rotated their own supporters needed the programme, but you still have to run past them. Louis Bielle-Biarrey scored twice at Kingsholm, made Pablo Uberti’s and finished the last 10 minutes at fly-half because Bordeaux had run out of them, and Davit Niniashvili scored, broke the line and created La Rochelle’s last try on an afternoon when the rugby was the least of it.
10 Antoine Dupont (Toulouse): Our Player of the Weekend, and at 10 rather than nine because that’s where he spent the 38 minutes that won the game. With two 12s broken and Romain Ntamack moved to centre, Dupont stood at first receiver against the side that keeps the ball longer than anyone in England: 45 passes, 11 kicks for 272 metres, half of Toulouse’s kicking on his own, the steal off Stephen Varney at 74 minutes with timing rather than force, the pass for Remue’s second, and the back-door offload in his own 22 that started a 90-metre try so good you wanted to write it in fountain pen on hammered vellum. Ciarán Frawley scored twice on his Connacht home debut, and Sam Prendergast was Player of the Match for the second week running, 16 points and an 80-metre counter he started and finished at Clermont.
9 Craig Casey (Munster): Player of the Match on the afternoon Munster remembered Anthony Foley. A try from the maul off Marnus van der Merwe, a held-ball assist for Fineen Wycherley with his first touch after a spell off the pitch, and the tempo that gave Munster 94 per cent of the ball in the last 10 minutes with the game still in the balance. George Horne kicked four from five in Glasgow’s 47 at Sale and ran the show whilst the Sharks were collecting cards, and Stephen Varney passed 72 times, box-kicked for 196 metres, ran for 76 more than anyone on the park, scored one and made one, and still went home from Toulouse with a sore head.
The forwards
8 Will Trenholm (Gloucester): Two tries inside four minutes of coming off the bench against the champions, and Player of the Théo Ntamack carried 14 times for Toulouse with 11 over the gainline, 62 metres, two offloads, 11 tackles and a turnover, and was the broadcaster’s Player of the Match; Fabien Galthié will be calling him this week. Jack Clement carried 18 times for 108 metres at Kingsholm, more than anyone in the round, and made the 40-metre break for Max Llewellyn’s try.
7 Alexandre Bécognée (Montpellier): Five turnovers and a try, and a Bath side that led at half-time at the Rec taken apart after it by a back-row that wouldn’t let them keep the ball. Montpellier won the turnover count nine to five and he had more than half of them himself. Rory Darge scored off Dan Lancaster’s inside ball at Sale, and Oscar Jégou scored, made 15 tackles and two dominant ones in La Rochelle, on an afternoon when a lot of very good players found it hard to concentrate.
6 Cian Prendergast (Connacht): Two tries, the assist for Forde’s, 15 carries and the captaincy in a game Connacht had to win twice, level at 19 at the break and 45-36 at the end of it. François Cros, on his 50th Champions Cup appearance, dropped the first restart, gave himself a stern ticking off and made 17 tackles, second only to Dafydd Jenkins in the round, the glue that held 14 Toulouse men together for an hour. Ethan Roots made 16 tackles and won a turnover in the same game, on the other side of the collision.
5 Tadhg Beirne (Munster): A try, 11 carries and two turnovers won as captain in Cork, and the first-phase play that produced Munster’s third try after the break. Scott Cummings drove the Glasgow maul that produced the penalty try at Sale and was the engine of a pack that won the ruck count 103 to 79; Josh Murphy made 21 tackles for Connacht, the joint most in the round; and Dafydd Jenkins made 19 in Toulouse and led the pack through the home scrum at 80 minutes, which would have been the story had Henry Slade’s foot behaved.
4 Joe McCarthy (Leinster): 16 tackles, the most at Clermont, and the lineout disruption that produced Dan Sheehan’s second try, plus a yellow at 80 minutes that will have earned him a word from Leo Cullen. Arthur Clark scored Gloucester’s first inside eight minutes and did the tight work in a pack that held the champions; Joshua Brennan scored for Toulouse off a run of Exeter offsides and made 10 tackles before Ugo Mola emptied his bench; and Tom Hooper made 12 tackles, won two turnovers and carried 10 times in the Exeter engine room.
3 Tadhg Furlong (Leinster): A try after nine minutes, then a scrum that put Clermont through 11 of them, had Nohem Ez Zahouany binned for collapsing one on his own line and produced the penalty try that settled it. Jon Zabala scored for Pau and anchored a scrum that gave Leicester a long afternoon, and Ciaran Knight was the cornerstone of a Gloucester front-row that held the champions’ pack to parity at Kingsholm.
2 Morné Brandon (Lions): The Lions played La Rochelle the day after their lock Hyron Andrews died in the team hotel, aged 31, with his number five shirt laid on the pitch and Ruan Delport wearing 24 in his place, and they chose to play. Brandon scored from the maul at 33 minutes, threw to a lineout that went 14 from 14, anchored a scrum that went six from six, and with the game gone in the second half kept carrying his team with him. They lost 31-14 and nobody should read a thing into the score. Dan Sheehan scored twice at Clermont, made two line breaks and ran a lineout at 93 per cent against the hosts’ 53, and on any other weekend he’s the pick. Thomas Lacombre won a one-man turnover for Toulouse with Exeter flying, and stood in for Julien Marchand on the floor better than anyone expected.
1 Danilo Fischetti (Northampton): Five dominant tackles, the most in the round, 11 carries and a scrum that gave Cardiff nothing on the afternoon Saints were the one PREM side to win. Andrew Porter was the other half of the Leinster scrum that won a penalty try at Clermont, and Will Goodrick-Clarke made his first start of the season for Exeter at loosehead, went 100 per cent at the scrum, held Dorian Aldegheri’s timing and then pushed Joel Merkler, and the shirt’s his for a while.