Perhaps it was Johann van Graan, the Bath head of rugby, who best summed up the difficulty of challenging in both the Investec Champions Cup and Gallagher Prem when he compared the two competitions to a sprint and a marathon respectively. Any runner will tell you that it is very hard to be good at each; a sacrifice has to be made somewhere.
It is a lesson that Van Graan and his side learned last year – losing semi-finalists both domestically and in Europe, a season that promised plenty for a club with dynastic aspirations ultimately delivered little.
Van Graan had been asked specifically about how Prem clubs can remain contenders against the playing and financial might of the Top 14 sides but correctly pointed out that it is not just an English problem. While it would be a surprise if it is not French hands – with a nod to Leinster, too – lifting the trophy in Lyon next May, even the biggest and best squads can struggle to fight on two fronts.
Toulouse were beaten by both Saracens and Glasgow in the course of last year’s pool stage, while even the eventual champions did not achieve all of their goals. “Bordeaux won the competition and didn’t finish in the top six of the Top 14,” Van Graan assessed of the back-to-back Champions Cup winners. “You need a bit of luck, you need a bit of grace, you need very few injuries. It’s very tough to win this competition.”
To the start line, then, with greater haste than ever before. Van Graan’s assessment of this competition’s structure is more accurately outlined as a series of sprints given another slightly baffling season schedule. At least a launch in the depths of December has been ditched, though a one-week window in October hardly generates momentum before a two-month pause, with the Champions Cup only really picking up in earnest in the New Year.
It is no one’s idea of an ideal structure. Indeed, in a rarity for rugby, there is now something resembling total agreement across the sport that the Champions Cup requires a complete revamp, but no figure yet quite willing to grasp the Gordian Knot it has become. Preferred by most would be a slimmed 16-team competition, perhaps played in straight knockout style, but with contracts signed until 2030, a move in that direction is not necessarily imminent. The mooted Club World Cup appears to have been shelved for now.
There is always plenty to consider, though. Take, for example, the South African sides, who have caused their fair share of logistical headaches by being added to the competition but, at the same time, been key in attracting a significant sponsor in Investec. Equally, though, it can be said that we have not seen the best of them, dealing as they are with a year-round calendar and a common goal in a greater Springboks good.
This is, meanwhile, the last year of Premier Sports’ announced deal as broadcast partner in the United Kingdom – it is hoped that TNT Sports, which has lost the rights to European football, may be tempted back to the table after withdrawing from negotiations last time. A new format could prove more desirable to broadcasters.
For now, though, into the competition 24 would-be contenders will plough. The Bath flanker Guy Pepper recalled this week that he had first been taken in by the competition’s theme tune as a young lad, an anthem that provides a prestige feel perhaps lost in some other aspects of what it has become. Yet still, and particularly when it reaches the knockout stages, the Champions Cup carries a certain significance and stature.
“Some of my best memories in rugby have been around this competition,” three-time winner Jamie George, embarking on his final campaign with Saracens, said. “It’s a very different competition than 10 years ago. That doesn’t make it a bad thing, because I think the quality of product is a very good one.
“I think it is harder now [for English teams to compete]. It’s so important to keep key players fit. I think we’ve got a really good squad who give us the opportunity to fight on both fronts. I think there are a handful of other clubs that will back themselves to do that too. But it is as challenging, if not more, as it has ever been.”
An additional issue facing the entrants each year is adjusting to the slight stylistic differences of officiating teams. While senior sources within the game believe that a World Rugby drive for greater alignment across the game is working, marked differences can be seen in the season’s opening skirmishes across the Prem, Top 14 and United Rugby Championship.
The English top flight has been characterised by high scorelines and sharp policing of offside lines and the defensive breakdown, while tweaks to the maul laws have made the lineout drive a bountiful strategy across competitions. One would expect that to continue in Europe, though a change to the attacking bonus point system – with teams now needing to register at least three tries more than the opposition rather than merely bank four scores – may keep jeopardy in a contest for longer.
Will the same be true of the competition at large? One would not forecast against Bordeaux-Begles’s chances of a three-peat, nor a Toulouse team with a point to prove. Leinster’s quest for a fifth star goes on, while Northampton, Bath and Glasgow will harbour some expectation after recent successes. If any find their stride then a dip at European glory could be within sight.