Rugby Comes Home for French As Cup Marks Its First 15

Five seasons ago, Toulouse became the first club to win the Heineken Cup three times. Two seasons ago they narrowly lost to Munster as they contested their fifth European final. Last season they, like the other French clubs, had a season to forget in Europe. When the 15th edition of the tournament begins this week, the French clubs are determined to dominate the competition once more.

They call Europe's premier club rugby tournament the H Cup in France because of government regulations on alcohol advertising and last season the letter could have stood for horrible. Only one French side, Toulouse again, made the quarter-finals, and then only just, but for only the second time in the competition's history, no side from the Top 14 made the last four.

The country that had provided more finalists than any other, and whose sides were unencumbered by a salary cap, had slipped to third behind Ireland and England. The postmortem began. Was the arduous nature of the French league, which started and ended in the summer, to blame?

Guy Novès, the veteran coach of Toulouse, had a theory. English sides had the advantage, he claimed, of speaking the same language as most of the referees in the tournament. "We have to adapt ourselves to the referee," he said. "When we played Munster in the 2008 final, the match was controlled by Nigel Owens who had already taken charge of four Munster games in that year's tournament. We have to have more luck there."

Language, though, should be less of an issue this season with a squad of English players having decamped to France. Moreover, the Anglos at Brive, Stade Français and Biarritz will see the Heineken Cup as a shop window. The English exodus to France will spice things up and can only make the competition stronger.

"The Heineken Cup is a massively important tournament for me," says James Haskell, the England back-rower, who was left out of the national elite squad last July after leaving Wasps for Stade Français. "Every week we play massive games in France: last week 46,000 watched us against Toulouse. But playing against English sides, against players I'm vying with for international selection, is very important to me.

"When I came here I'd been dropped by England, I'd missed out on the Lions tour and my Wasps place was rickety. The reason I came out here was that I wanted to let my rugby do the talking, which it is, not least because my French is pretty terrible. I'd be disappointed if I get to the end of the season without playing for England.

"There is more expansive rugby played in France than in England. I passed the ball more in the first few weeks of the campaign than I had all last season and that can only make me a better player. The senior players at Stade are only too aware that the club have never won the Heineken Cup and they want to put that right. It is the biggest prize in the European club game and we have the ability to get to the final."

The location of the final is another incentive for French sides because the Stade de France will host the showpiece next May. Stade's flamboyant owner, Max Guazzini, has said he dreams of his club lifting the trophy in their home city of Paris.

When it threatened to turn into a nightmare at the start of the season, when Stade were one off the bottom of the Top 14, Guazzini sacked the coaches and results have since picked up. Stade are still looking for their first away victory in the league, although they drew at Toulouse in the last round of matches, and the discrepancy in performances at home and on the road has long dogged French clubs in Europe. In the first eight rounds of this season's Top 14, the 55 matches have yielded 10 away successes, four on the opening weekend. In contrast, little more than 50% of the games in the Magners League so far have gone the way of the home side.

"There are no easy games in the French league," Steve Thompson, Brive's former England hooker, says. "The mentality of winning away is changing because of the influx of players from Britain and the southern hemisphere. The Top 14 is the hardest it has ever been and our aim at Brive is to make sure we qualify for next season's Heineken Cup."

Mirco Bergamasco, Stade's Italy three‑quarter, believes last season's failure, when France failed to provide a group winners despite having seven sides in the tournament, will not be repeated. "It was a strange time," he says. "I think it will be a one‑off because every French side strengthens in the off‑season and we all have strong squads. It will be different this time."

A feelgood factor seems to be returning to the French game for the first time since France hosted the 2007 World Cup and failed to make the final. Perpignan, who won last season's title, have made a strong start to the current campaign and head the table. Their record in Europe, although they made the 2003 final, is largely one of under achievement away from their Stade Aimé Giral fortress.

"The challenge for us is to make an impact in two competitions," Nicolas Mas, Perpignan's captain and a France prop, says. "It is something we have struggled to do up to now but we have a strong enough squad. We are in a very tough group with Munster and Northampton and as French champions we will be seen as a scalp. We have to be able to cope with the pressure that comes with that."

Brive, the 1997 winners, are back in the Heineken Cup for the first time since they lost the 1998 final to Bath. Their first match is against the Scarlets in Llanelli on Saturday, 12 years after an infamous match against another Welsh side, Pontypridd, in which tempers flared on and off the field.

Those were the days, as the game struggled to slip out of amateurism, when the Welsh and the French saw the game as a battle in the old-fashioned sense. French players, in particular, struggled to adapt to neutral referees, but, with indiscipline now a liability, French clubs have become cosmopolitan and the Heineken Cup has become the standard bearer for club rugby.