Scrum of the Earth /

Brian Moore telling us how it is...?

Not for first time Brian Moore is talking completely out of his arse in his online telegraph column on Monday.

He argues that the Heineken Cup underwhelmed at the weekend with the English sides undeserved Heineken Cup success… and he even suggested feeling cheated of his right to watch thrilling rugby.

Since when did Brian try and promote an exciting brand of rugby. Definitely not when he was around. He came from the Dean Richards school of ruck & maul, so this weekend should’ve been his bread and butter.

OK so it wasn’t all running rugby from inside your own 22, but anyone who watched the Munster-Wasps tie, or the Bristol-Cardiff game, couldn’t feel cheated of drama or tension as if their lives depended on it.

Wasps have set the competition alight with a sizzling brand of rugby, more often than not starting and finishing with Danny Cipriani but the way Ronan O’Gara led his troops in steaming cold conditions and the composure his Munster side showed under the most characteristic of champion wind-ups from Dallaglio, Vickery & co, proved that their Irish province are the masters of their own destiny. You don’t make 9 consecutive quarter-finals without being a bit canny!

He says Leicester and Wasps didn’t deserve to qualify but he’s totally missed the boat. I agree it is a shock but if there was a proper seeding format in the first place, especially as they were last year’s finalists, they would’ve both breezed through qualification. The ERC got everything it wanted apart from a Scottish quarter-finalist.

Saracens and London Irish have been the stories of the competition thus far - both playing highly entertaining rugby illustrated by the thrashings dished out to Biarritz and Dragons respectively - but you could sense the Irish nerves and yearning for the bonus point in Italy and they got the job done… eventually!

Saracens topped the seeding for the quarter-finals and I’m sure a few people would strongly argue that their position as top boys is an ‘unheralded advancement.’ They play to their strengths and arguably have the best half-back pairing in Europe in Neil de Kock and Glen Jackson. The Fez heads sit fourth in the Guinness Premiership, an EDF semi-finalist and now a real chance of matching that in the Heineken Cup.

And on your comment about being a prelude to the Six Nations! 1. All the best Italians play in England or France 2. Since when have Leinster and Munster’s European success translated itself onto the national side 3. Stade Francais, Biarritz, Clermont, Wasps, Leicester and Leinster are all out and they will probably contribute at least 35% of the Six Nations playing staff and not to mention Edinburgh and Glasgow, who make up 90% of the Scotland side, who hold realistic hopes of winning the RBS 6 Nations, despite a poor Heineken Cup.

To read Brian’s one-sighted article click here