This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with European tables, colours and pronunciations…

Rewarding mediocrity

Loose Pass got into a spot of bother with European Professional Club Rugby, the organisers of the Investec Champions Cup, last week. The plea in front of the beaks: “Wasn’t me m’lud, it was the sub what did it,” fell on sympathetic ears fortunately, as well as earning Loose Pass an invite to a briefing by the inimitable Tony Spreadbury regarding the new law tweaks that the weekend’s match commentators spent a significant amount of time elaborating on in-game.

The speeding up of set-pieces worked, as did the jeopardy for kickers who now have only 60 seconds to go through the elaborate physical and mental preparation routine before whacking a ball between some sticks, rather than the 90 they had hitherto. Scrum-halves had cleaner ball and we had plenty of stellar rugby as a result. And a couple of wayward line-out throws which would hitherto have caused a long – sorry, max 60-second – break in play were ignored to the detriment of nobody whatsoever.

A successful set of tweaks then, rather than the bit about the throws merely rewarding mediocrity which was the phrase used by that pesky sub that so raised the admins’ ire last week. Cap doffed in deference and gratitude both for the initiatives and for the opportunity to hear Spreaders talk shop again.

So, hoping for another invite, we’ll have another shot at winding up this week, as attention turns to the final weekend of the pool stages. There’s plenty to play for in terms of home team advantage for the round of 16, yet a not even vaguely inconceivable set of results could see three teams qualify for the round of 16 despite having won only one game out of their allotted four.

This can’t be right, can it? The pinnacle of European (and South African, obviously) competition and you can get through to the knockout stages with a 25 per cent win record?

Champions Cup Team of the Week: ‘Sensational’ half-backs rewarded while ‘massive’ Tadhg Beirne and ‘magnificent’ Leinster star also make cut

Loose Pass is not the only media outlet to have a gander at the tournament format even in advance and shake the mental index finger in disapproval, but despite the obvious quality of so many of the games and teams, this feels like a serious flaw in a tournament that is called the Champions Cup. We’ve every sympathy for the need to get bang for the buck in a calendar fuller than a despot’s wife’s shopping bag, but it would surely be preferable if teams that were actually winning a lot were to be the ones earning the chance to win it.

A colourful weekend

This was not prevalent everywhere, but the continued use of the European stage for teams to deck themselves in kit far, far removed from their usual hues also rankles a bit.

Loose Pass turned on Bath v Clermont and took a few seconds to wonder if I’d not stumbled on a rerun of a Racing 92 game, so similar were the Bath colours. Clermont did nothing to dispel that mistaken notion, eschewing their usual yellow (the local fans call them the Yellow Men for heaven’s sake) for a peculiar semi-camouflage baby-poo brown number.

Sale went for sunset orange for their day in the Cape Town sun. Munster, with literally tens of thousands of fans wearing red shirts and flags in a stadium largely painted red, opted for a sort of faded pink.

Leaving aside the belting business likely to be done down the line for the website Un Bon Maillot, it simply doesn’t seem to be something that is to anyone’s benefit? Or that has a reason?

Good moaning

Kudos to Luke Pearce, whose ongoing improvement in French did plenty to ensure that a game already played in boiling weather was well-understood by both teams in Durban on Saturday and didn’t overheat with frustration.

Less kudos, sadly to Joel Stransky’s torturous attempts to enunciate the Toulouse team’s names, which left you with the impression that the game was being commentated on by that buffoon policeman from ‘Allo ‘Allo.

A shame, for the commentary itself was informed and mostly drivel-free. But it is implicit in the commentator’s job to get these things right, not least out of respect to those French fans watching and to the players themselves.

READ MORE: Law discussion: Rare caveat exploited as ‘freakish’ Louis Bielle-Biarrey sets up France star against Exeter Chiefs

Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/loose-pass-champions-cups-serious-flaw-and-springboks-legends-torturous-attempts-on-the-mic