Heineken Cup Betting Preview: Toulouse and Tigers for the semi-finals?

Heineken Cup / Geoffrey Riddle / 09 April 2009 / Leave a Comment

Geoffrey Riddle looks forward to watching a glittering array of attacking talent at the Millennium Stadium and one of the greatest contests in club rugby at the Walkers Stadium.

The purists will be purring at the thought of Cardiff taking on Toulouse at the Millennium stadium this Saturday in the first of this weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-finals. Both teams have a reputation for throwing the ball around and running into space, and a glittering array of attacking talent will be on show.

As far as the match result is concerned, I can't really work it out. Betfair punters go [1.84] Toulouse and [2.32] Cardiff. The French Top 14 leaders are in sparkling form and come into this game having spanked Brive 42-10 away at the Stade Amédée Domenech last weekend. Prior to that, they beat Stade Francias 15-11 at Le Stadium, and did so with old warhorse Yannick Jauzion playing at fly-half and Freddie Michalak at scrum-half. It shows the sheer strength in depth that coach Guy Noves has at his disposal, because against Brive, the half-back pairing was Byron Kelleher and David Skrela.

So basically those two results have come away from Toulouse's natural home of Stade Ernest Wallon, giving the impression that being on the road poses no real problem for them right now. Toulouse, of course, memorably lost last year's final to Munster in Cardiff, but personally, I don't think that will be problem for those who want to back Les Toulousains to scalp the Blues.

What I imagine to be the crux of this game though, is the fact that since Cardiff beat Calvisano 62-20 on January 23, the Blues have played just four games. That's four games in 11 weeks, which means that even if you hadn't seen them play recently, you would have thought they would be seriously under-cooked for a contest of this magnitude. But TV rugby fans have had an opportunity to see Cardiff play. They were stodgy when they beat Northampton 11-5 in the silly EDF Cup, and despite some nice runs from Leigh Halfpenny, Tom James and Shanklin, the Blues made some naïve errors at times. My spies in Edinburgh tell me that although it was a foggy night up in Scotland last Friday, Cardiff were pretty awful there too, losing 16-3 to Edinburgh. If you look at the team-sheet, Dai Young fielded an under-strength side there as well. The pack were a powder-puff bunch in comparison to the usual starting eight, although the likes of Jamie Roberts, Ben Blair and Halfpenny at least got a run-out in the back line.

Both sides therefore lack continuity in personnel and in combinations, and the unders in the Total Points market looks a massive runner. Neither team will want to get into a cut-throat points-fest due to their respective under-preparation, and Heineken Cup knock-out matches over the years average around the 42-point mark anyway.

Last year three out of the four quarter-finals finished with low points make-ups, and Toulouse's 41-17 home win over Cardiff came in markedly different circumstances to this confrontation. Toulouse also have the best defence in the Top 14, to boot.

For sheer tribalism, Leicester v Bath is one of the great contests in club rugby, and what the fixture has gained in bums on seats by being at the Walkers Stadium, it has lost a smidgen of its intensity by it not taking place at Welford Road.

Still, England's two greatest club sides go head-to-head and Bath have already got one over on their old enemy by the simple fact that Butch James survived Tuesday's citing commission for an alleged stamping on Riki Flutey, while Leicester's go-to prop, Julian White, didn't for his punch on England team-mate Andrew Sheridan.

White's absence will be the only blot on what is beginning to look like a wonderful spring for Richard Cockerill's Tigers. They have lost just one game in their last seven - 14-10 away at in-form Newcastle - and they scored a hatful of points against Sale with White off the pitch last weekend.

In contrast to Cardiff's dearth of recent match practice, Bath have been full-steam ahead, and the three games in nine days that they have played looks to have taken a lot out of the West Country boys. Those fixtures were against Sale, Wasps and Harlequins, and anyone who heard Bath coach Steve Meehan speak after the 19-3 home defeat to Quins on Saturday will understand how crestfallen the Aussie was. He knows his squad are tired and that is not what you want against the Tigers in such an important clash. I think Leicester are probably value at anything over [1.5].