The Good:

Connacht

The Westerners take their second scalp in the competition and this time nobody could blame the result on gales, monsoons or fairy rings. But the best part of it is Mike McCarthy’s insistence that their win over Biarritz counts for nought unless they follow it up with more. An Irish public is getting much joy from a fourth outfit competing in the Heineken Cup, just as much as it must be driving the English and France rugby establishments crazy.

Ulster

Based on their form in both competitions this season the lads from Ravenhill will take some beating. Bossing the Northampton scrum takes a serious performance and, after what must have been a hugely disappointing Autumn series when he played not a single minute, Tom Court must have been a very happy camper on the flight home to Belfast. Johann Muller being ruled out for another eight weeks with a fractured arm is the only drawback from a performance that has put them in a strong position to secure a home quarter-final. Now they just need to ensure that Ravenhill will satisfy the ERC’s criteria in time to host such a game…

Irish Rugby

Players who had been discarded in some way by Declan Kidney roared back for their provinces in this past weekend’s crunch European encounters, with Andrew Trimble, Kevin McLoughlin and the aforementioned Tom Court top of the list. This sort of intense competition at provincial and international level is nothing but good for the health of Irish rugby.

Stade Marcel-Michelin

With its 18,030 capacity spread over three tiers that rise seemingly vertically into the Clermont-Ferrand sky, this little cauldron of a stadium is how all smaller capacity stadia should be designed. With its obvious prioritisation being the creation of an intense, intimidating atmosphere, it’s the very antithesis of the Aviva and its silly North Stand.

The Bad:

It’s Too Early For A Card

A scything Ian Madigan opens up the Clermont defence after an inside pass from Jamie Heaslip; a few plays later Leinster are surging towards the tryline only for former All Black wing Sitiveni Sivivatu to go both off his feet and use his hands to steal the ball, illegally but successfully stopping the attack. It was outrageously cynical and a stone cold yellow; that Sivivatu stayed on the paddock might well be because it was still within in the first ten minutes of the match. Too often in rugby incidents of foul play are treated lightly if it’s early in the game; from Rob Kearney’s near-decapitation in Rome to Schalk Burger’s gouging of Luke Fitzgerald in South Africa, an offence is an offence no matter what time the clock might show.

Saracens

The lads who put New Zealand to the sword looked a feeble bunch in Thomond. Of course, Munster didn’t have to deal with a nasty bout of Norovirus (that’s the winter vomiting bug, to you and me) during the week so perhaps playing against a fully fit team came as a bit of a shock.

The Darts of Mr. Richardt Strauss

Oh dear. Having come on for Sean Cronin, his understudy for Ireland’s autumn internationals, Richardt Strauss proceeded to have a serious dose of the yips, throwing away two Leinster lineouts in the Clermont twenty-two late in the game and butchering a couple more. Scrummaging aside it was a less than auspicious cameo for the newest Ireland hooker and, with their trouble scoring tries in the Heineken Cup this season, it’s one that Leinster might yet live to regret.

The Ugly:

Tip Tackle Trouble

A man down for the majority of their home match against Montepellier, Cardiff fought bravely on only to lose out on a losing bonus point with the last play of the game. The Welsh cause had not been helped by the first half red card picked up, stupidly, by their scrum half Lloyd Williams for a tip tackle on his opposite number Benoit Paillaugue. Incredibly, the Sky team covering the game insisted that it had been a “harsh” decision even when viewing replays that showed Paillaugue being tipped onto his head; this view was then reiterated afterwards. Sky’s coverage of the Heineken Cup has often been better than their colleagues covering soccer’s Premier League at treating the audience like adults and calling it like it is. Not in this instance.

Pascal Gauzere

The Thomond Park crowd blamed Gauzere, the greenhorn replacement for the originally-named Roman Poite, for the penalty-fest that was Saturday’s 6pm match. There were 28 penalties, 18 against Munster, and the Munster faithful blamed him loudly. But it might not have been quite as the crowd thought. Gauzere had established himself early in the contest as a man who wasn’t in control of the game and both teams, like a class of schoolboys with a lax teacher, took advantage, constantly lying over the ball and finding new and imaginative directions from which to enter the breakdown area for the rest of the evening. Gauzere then compounded this by getting several decisions blatantly wrong, for both teams, which fanned the flames of a naturally partisan crowd. The bottom line? The roots of the derision were not in the decisions themselves but rather in his loss of control. Pascal Gauzere’s performance would have been booed equally loudly in Watford.

Shane Jennings

Shane Jennings: photo from Sportsfile

This article was published at Balls.ie: http://www.balls.ie/football/rugby-nerds-look-back-on-a-phenomenal-weekend-of-rugby/