Good observations, might as well put here!
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-un ... -vxwr9bhqb
Why Ebbw Vale’s revenge over Toulouse makes case for old European format
Welsh side’s violent but magical win over the French giants — weeks after a 100-point drubbing — is a reminder of the lost magic of home-and-away European rugby
Elgan Alderman
Wednesday December 11 2024, 8.15am, The Times
Arampant Toulouse overwhelmed Ulster at Stade Ernest-Wallon on Sunday. In the final analysis, 61-21 was not as dominant a scoreline as seemed inevitable early in the second half. Once, Ulster would swiftly have had an opportunity for revenge at the Kingspan Stadium. No longer, such is the format of the Investec Champions Cup.
The former rhythm of Europe gave teams two cracks at each pool-stage opponent, and December was when there would be home-and-away ties on successive weekends. The post-Covid schedule has deprived us of such encounters, though organisers dabbled in a two-legged round of 16 in 2021-22, bringing together Ulster and Toulouse. The Irish province won 26-20 in France, only to lose at home 30-23 for what, in a knockout situation, would have been a one-point aggregate defeat. In three of the eight matches, the leader after week one lost the tie overall.
The old way allowed for the old cliché: that French teams did not travel well and often, frankly, didn’t care. The effects of desire, acclimatisation and sporting happenstance permitted examples galore where the output of teams differed drastically against the same opposition. In 1999-2000, Montferrand beat Cardiff 46-13 at the Stade Marcel-Michelin and lost 30-5 at Cardiff Arms Park. Two seasons later, Toulouse beat Newcastle Falcons and Leinster by a combined margin of 76-20 at home and lost the away fixtures 82-19. Even in the more recent era there could be Jekyll and Hyde showings, such as in 2017-18 when Castres Olympique lost 54-29 at Welford Road and beat Leicester Tigers 39-0 in France.
Bourgoin had a tremendous capacity for indifference. The Isérois lost 92-17 away to Leinster in 2004 and, six days later, narrowed the margin to 26-23 in France. The following season, drawn together once more, they lost 53-7 in Dublin and, seven days later, won 30-28 at home.
Even Bourgoin, however, pale by comparison to Ebbw Vale. The Steelmen’s debut in the 1998-99 Heineken Cup did not go well: a 108-16 defeat in Toulouse. Seven weeks later, at Eugene Cross Park, remarkably they beat Toulouse 19-11. Show me a greater moment in sport and I simply won’t believe you.
So commanding were Toulouse in the first fixture that the scoreboard read 08-16 until a steward arrived to hold a 1 in front of the two-digit offering. “We are devastated by the result — we came here positively but were amazed by the pace and power we met,” Leigh Jones, the Vale head coach, said. There were reports that some Welsh players — Ebbw Vale also had Kuli Faletau, the Tongan father of Taulupe, at lock — had a surreptitious cigarette next to the team bus on arrival (which, observing cliché, should have had an equalising effect).
It was the latest in a succession of Welsh shambles. Cardiff and Swansea were undertaking a rebel season of friendlies against English clubs, amid talk of a British league. The national side had recently lost 60-26 at Twickenham, 51-0 at Wembley against France and 96-13 against the Springboks at Loftus Versfeld. After Ebbw Vale lost 61-28 at home to Ulster, Jones said the nation would need to focus its European efforts on three or four provinces, rather than a scattering of clubs.
To a cold Eugene Cross Park, then. “I can remember Mark Jones telling the Toulouse players to remember to bring their wellies with them when they came to Eugene Cross Park because it wasn’t going to be anything like it was in the south of France,” Jason Strange, the full back who moved to fly half for the return fixture, remembered years later.
These were interesting times for referees. Chuck Muir required a police escort at Swansea in 1995 before Castres players smashed the windows of the referee’s room in dismay at his performance. The official in Ebbw Vale was Eddie Murray, a Scotsman with Five Nations experience. A year earlier Murray had overseen the Battle of Brive: a 32-31 defeat for Pontypridd memorable not only for the violence on the field but also in the city that night. Thirteen days later the sides met again at Sardis Road for a 29-29 draw and then had a third encounter in the quarter-final play-offs, with Brive winning at home 25-20.
“It’s still on YouTube because my son takes great delight in showing my grandchildren me standing around looking at 20 guys fighting with each other,” Murray tells The Times. “I’d completely forgotten about the Ebbw Vale game until you mentioned it.”
The Toulousain view was that Murray had whistled them off the park with “anti-French bias”, materialising in a penalty count of 33 against the visiting team. Murray’s counter is that, frustrated by their nominally inferior opposition, Toulouse lost all air of discipline. Emptying their bench of internationals in the final quarter could not change a thing.
“They were a bit upset because they came over thinking it was going to be an easy runout for them and they didn’t like it when it wasn’t,” Andrew Metcalfe, the Ebbw Vale prop, said at the time. “All the French sides are the same when things go against them, they just lose it.”
A late try for Toulouse, after a beautiful flowing move, was ruled out because a touch judge had seen one of the artisans throw a few punches once he had passed the ball. Cyril Vancheri was the only man sent off, for stamping, another decision the Toulousains didn’t like (they reckoned Fabien Pelous’s head had just been trodden on, too).
“Near the end, there was an incident which all three of us missed,” Murray says. “We were staying in Newport, along with three French referees, who were over doing one of the other games. When we got back to the hotel, they said we’ve just received a phone call from French TV — watch BBC Wales or something at 10pm. They’d picked up some guy karate-kicking, running, jumping and launching foot-first into a ruck, or a maul it probably was, which we hadn’t seen, but they’d seen it. And they couldn’t believe this guy was doing it.
“Obviously, I hadn’t got the points across that I wanted to the players, so they weren’t listening. Sometimes you got games where the red smoke just comes down over their eyes.
“We weren’t prepared to take any of the shit that sometimes was coming our way when you come up against players who want to use violence. And the annoying thing was, they didn’t need to. They were a bloody good side.”
The chaos did not stop at the final whistle. Police were needed to restore order — one officer’s helmet was knocked off, to great shock — and Toulouse claimed stones were thrown at them as they left the field. Murray tried to coordinate a swift departure with his touch judges but Franck Tournaire, the Toulouse prop, managed to approach one of them, Ken McCartney, for an exchange of views. There was a contretemps with supporters in the clubhouse and the visiting team did not attend the post-match function.
As a result of the defeat, Ulster — and not Toulouse — topped the pool. After a suitably lopsided pair of fixtures — Toulouse won 39-3 in France, Ulster won 29-24 at Ravenhill — they were drawn together again in the quarter-finals. Ulster won 15-13 and finished as champions of Europe.
Alas, Ulster will not host Toulouse this season. How to restore the home-and-away nature of Europe? Perhaps there is something in this: a 32-team knockout competition, in which the first two rounds are both over two legs, followed by standalone quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. It would not have saved Ebbw Vale’s qualification hopes, given the aggregate defeat was 119-35, but they had their shot at revenge — and boy did they take it.
. We also learned that only 1 game from 12 was close enough to get a losing BP and only 3 games finished within even two scores - even more shockingly, it turns out that all three of those games were ones where both teams played their first XV or something close to it 
. We have learned so many important new things from this first round where 8/12 games saw the away side effectively conceding the loss at the team selection stage. What a marketable and high-level competition we have here that has certainly not been run into the ground since the English clubs staged their coup! 
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