Can anyone stop Toulouse or Bordeaux-Bègles in the Champions Cup?
Toulouse and Bordeaux-Bègles are being treated as the overwhelming favourites to win the European Champions Cup as the competition opens in October, with bookmakers quoting both sides at 13-5 each.
The article argues a seventh consecutive French winner appears likely and says the current structure and regulations make it increasingly hard for non-Top 14 sides to prevail; it warns that a 24-team competition already looks reduced to a handful of genuine contenders before a ball is kicked. Organisers have moved the opening weekend forward to October to chase better weather and greater visibility than the post-international December period, but a single early round wedged between busy domestic league fixtures risks producing little momentum.
There are even whispers that Gloucester will field a rotated Cherry and White team against the two-time defending champions, Bordeaux, on the opening night at Kingsholm, a move the piece says would undermine the spectacle; the article recalls Gloucester’s 26-17 win in Bordeaux less than four years ago as evidence of the upset potential that may now be diluted. It suggests a low-key Kingsholm opening would leave the organisers disappointed after deliberately shifting the calendar.
The column defends the entertainment value of modern attacking rugby while noting critics who dismiss high-scoring contests as “basketball” and recalls older reactions to the offload from tight forwards that once prompted talk of expulsion from the “front row union”. It credits improved skill levels, bigger and more mobile outside players, changes to aerial contest laws and stricter tackle-height enforcement with creating more broken-field rugby and wider scoring opportunities.
A broader concern outlined is predictability: the piece singles out the close-range rolling maul as a repetitive scoring pattern that reduces jeopardy when one pack is clearly superior, and it proposes a specific change — awarding the defensive side the throw-in when opponents kick directly to the corner — to force tactical variation. The author also notes discussion around reducing the Champions Cup to 16 teams as a means of cutting routine outcomes, while acknowledging such a change would concentrate power further.
Competition mechanics also feature: the amended try bonus-point system, modelled on the Top 14, now requires teams to score three tries more than their opponents, a rule the article warns will make it harder for less-stacked squads to collect extra points and slip into the last 16. It identifies Pau, second behind Toulouse after six rounds of the Top 14, and Leinster — whose pursuit of a fifth title is compared to Munster’s long search for their first Heineken Cup crown — as possible outsiders.
On the English contingent, the piece argues only two of the eight entrants — Bath at home to Montpellier and Northampton at home to Cardiff — will start as favourites to win their opening matches, while Sale at home to Glasgow Warriors and Saracens away at Connacht are expected to face stern tests; Exeter in Toulouse and Bristol at Stormers are also highlighted as challenging ties, with Bristol’s Argentina lock Pedro Rubiolo described as a rising force. The column questions how many teams possess the squad depth to sustain the discipline and aerial hunting required to stay competitive against the Top 14 heavyweights.
The article concludes by forecasting a Toulouse v Bordeaux final in Lyon on 22 May and says that, unless sides find ways to halt those two clubs at source, the tournament risks repeating the familiar French-dominated script.