Leinster Rugby vs Bath Rugby
Heineken Champions Cup - Pool A
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Saturday, 11th December 2021, 15:15

TV: Live: BT Sports

It's time for the annual Christmas Cup game at the Aviva and the excitement is...well non-existent really.

In the old days, the Christmas game at the Aviva was traditionally the fourth game out of six pool matches and things were hotting up in terms of qualifying from the pool. In the new schedule/format however this is now the first game and there simply hasn't been any action to whet the appetite of the more casual rugby fan. This is reflected in ticket sales reportedly around the 30k mark, although admittedly the Covid situation won't have helped there either.

It also doesn't help that the new pool stage format is frankly terrible. Instead of being in a pool where everyone plays each other home and away, there are two large pools of twelve teams each. So Leinster will play Bath and Montpellier home and away but Bath and Montpellier won't play each other. They'll play other teams in their remaining pool matches.

To qualify for the knock-out stages you only need to finish in the top eight in each pool. Then it's a round of sixteen with two legged home and away fixtures, something that's been a wet dream for English clubs for years. This pool format had its first outing last year with the intention to have home and away quarter-finals. When the pool stages were cancelled after two rounds due to Covid, they took the positions after two games and had a knock-out round of sixteen teams (one-legged affairs mercifully). One of the teams who qualified for the last sixteen was Sale who didn't win a game and just needed a losing bonus point to qualify.

So realistically teams are going to need to work very hard NOT to be in the knock-out stages. Winning both your home games and getting a losing bonus point on the road should easily suffice. With all the drama about the undoubtedly unfortunate Munster having to scrape a team together to play Wasps on Sunday, the truth is even a heavy defeat is unlikely to affect their chances of making the knock-out stages. You'd fancy them to beat Wasps and Castres at home and get something from Castres away. So where once the pool stages featured many thrilling stories of last minute qualifications, now they're going to be a damp squib.

Leinster's opponents Bath were once the powerhouses of English club rugby in the eighties and early nineties. But when professionalism came they were soon playing second fiddle to first Leicester and Wasps and more recently Saracens and Exeter. When millionaire Bruce Craig took over as owner in 2010 he promised big things and they did make a Premiership final in 2015, but for the most part they've remained a fairly humdrum outfit finishing in and around sixth in the league.

This season has been particularly bad though as they've lost all their nine league games so far. They're rooted to the bottom of the table and are very fortunate that the Premiership Clubs used Covid as an excuse to finally get rid of relegation. They've called it a moratorium for now, but good luck getting that genie back into the bottle. Admittedly Bath do have a rather long injury list but coach Stuart Hooper had some good news this week with England internationals Ben Spencer and Josh McNally back in the match day squad. Spencer partners the fit again Orlando Bailey at halfback and there are a couple of famous surnames in the outside backs in Tom de Glanville and Max Ojomoh, the sons of Bath legends Phil and Steve. McNally partners skipper Charlie Ewels and Tom Ellis, Richard de Carpentier and Josh Bayliss make up the back row.

Leinster have had an outbreak of covid affecting three players and although they haven't announced the names you can probably guess from the team announced. There are four changes in the pack as Andrew Porter, Ronan Kelleher, Tadhg Furlong and Ross Molony come in to start in the tight five. Ross Byrne and Jamison Gibson-Park come in to start at half back and Ciaran Frawley starts at inside centre in the only change to the outside backs.

Leinster started slowly last week and Connacht would have fancied their chances after 30 minutes. But then Leinster went into another gear and just blew Connacht off the park. It's hard to see anything except another similar thrashing for Bath tomorrow.

by Jim O'Connor, © 2021-12-16