Champions Cup has a jeopardy problem: can anyone stop the Top 14 giants?

The world is currently awash with uncertainty but not, sadly, in the case of rugby’s Champions Cup. This season’s winners will be either Toulouse or Bordeaux-Bègles. Next question? Such is the French stranglehold on the tournament – six consecutive years and counting – that it grows ever harder, given the existing structure and regulations, to see anyone upsetting the increasingly lopsided odds.

Bookmakers are quoting the Top 14 powerhouses at 13-5 each for the title, with Leinster, Bath, Northampton and Montpellier just about visible in the distance behind them. There might be an argument for adding the Stormers and Glasgow to the chasing peloton but that’s about it. A 24-team competition reduced to a handful of serious contenders before a ball is kicked? It is not the greatest of portents.

There are even whispers out of Gloucester suggesting a rotated Cherry and White team will be sent out against the two-time defending champions, Bordeaux, on the opening night. Which really would tip a large bucket of cold water over an already lukewarm format. When you remember that Gloucester famously won 26-17 in Bordeaux less than four years ago, a low-key first Friday night at Kingsholm would be properly anti-climactic.

The organisers will be desperately hoping otherwise. Apart from anything else they have deliberately shifted the opening weekend forward to October, chasing better weather and greater visibility than in the post-international December gloom. The snag is that a single round generates little momentum, particularly when wedged between busy domestic league weekends.

Let’s try to locate some positives. Who would not want to watch Toulouse, Bordeaux or Northampton fizzing the ball around at the moment, regardless of their opponents? Those complaining about a surfeit of tries in the Prem and using the dismissive term “basketball” are not factoring in the skill levels required to tie defences in weekly knots. Time was when a single offload from a tight forward prompted talk of expulsion from the “front row union”. Now virtually everybody on the field can give and take a killer pass flat to the advantage line.

To some degree more teams are simply catching up with the way the best French and All Blacks sides have always sought to attack, ruthlessly targeting space and soft shoulders at pace and punishing the slightest defensive hesitation. Players out wide are bigger and better equipped to break tackles than ever before, while the laws relating to the aerial contest have created far more broken-field rugby. Add in stricter tackle height regulations and more regular yellow cards and there is greater scope even for sides lacking a Louis Bielle-Biarrey, an Antoine Dupont or a Tommy Freeman.

There is, however, an accompanying broader issue. Rugby is built upon jeopardy; the moment it starts to become predictable, either in terms of the result or the way in which the game is played, everybody loses. It is why the obsession with the increasing volume of tries is something of a red herring. It is the repetitive manner in which so many are being scored that is arguably the bigger turn-off.

Take the close-range rolling maul. Give away the softest of penalties on halfway and teams will invariably kick to the corner. More times than not, they duly come away with seven points. Dull and formulaic? Perhaps not in the last minute with the scores level. But if one pack is significantly stronger than the other it becomes as much fun as watching a bulldozer do battle with a blancmange.

So what to do? he time must be approaching when the defending side are awarded the throw-in when their opponents kick direct to the corner. That at least would force teams to think more and to contemplate other tactical avenues. The proposed reduction of the Champions Cup to 16 teams should also help reduce the number of routine outcomes, albeit while concentrating even more power in the hands of a decreasing few.

This time around, either way, it will be the same old story unless teams can somehow stop Toulouse and Bordeaux at source. No one is going to outflank them – if sides opt to play them at their own game they will still probably lose 70-40 – but teams who can retain their discipline, get ahead on the scoreboard and pick off the aerial crumbs will at least be in the game.

But how many, in reality, have the squad depth to do that for long enough? There is an argument that only two of the eight English entrants – Bath at home to Montpellier and Northampton at home to Cardiff – will be favourites to win their opening matches. Even Sale, at home to Glasgow Warriors, and Saracens, away at Connacht, may have to dig deep and the same is definitely true for Exeter in Toulouse and Bristol at Stormers, though the Bears’ Argentina lock Pedro Rubiolo is a rising force.

Complicating everyone’s task further is the amended try bonus point system which, à la Top 14, now requires teams to score three tries more than their opponents. It threatens to make it even harder for less-stacked squads to pick up priceless extra points and sneak into the last 16 by the back door.

If there is a left-field candidate it might conceivably be Pau, second behind Toulouse after six rounds of the Top 14. There or thereabouts will also be Leinster, whose long, winding crusade towards an elusive fifth star on their jerseys is starting to resemble Munster’s pursuit of their first Heineken Cup crown.

Brace yourselves, nevertheless, for a Toulouse v Bordeaux finale in Lyon on 22 May. By then, hopefully, we will finally have some genuine jeopardy.

Thanks to the many readers who sent messages following last week’s Breakdown column. It was lovely to hear your own memories of great sides down the years, well-known or otherwise. Two letters particularly stood out. The first came from Duncan Playford, who was keen to remind the world that Reigate Grammar School went unbeaten for 57 matches spanning four years between 1969 and 1972. He has even written a commemorative book on the subject entitled The Glory Years.

The Breakdown also received a splendid note from Justin Preston, who told the tale of what happened the week after Old Reigatians’ famous cup win over Saracens in 1987. This time they were facing familiar rivals Old Alleynians and, following a nasty injury to the OAs full-back, our correspondent was unexpectedly plucked from the crowd to make up the numbers:

Any more classic rugby tales involving the consumption of large bacon sandwiches are, clearly, most welcome.

Champions Cup and Challenge Cup games now involve some questionable kick-off times but it will be fascinating to see how many paying spectators attend this weekend’s first round of pool games. On Sunday, Exeter attracted a modest 7,071 fans for their league game against Newcastle at a half-empty Sandy Park while Saracens are also among those who have recently been selling reduced-price tickets. The rising cost of a day out at the rugby is clearly taking its toll in the UK, in contrast to France where Toulouse will be staging their home pool game against Exeter at the city’s bigger football stadium. These are clearly tough economic times for many, at precisely the moment that club rugby is trying to attract more floating voters.

16 May 1999 | Before Northampton broke the Prem scoring record with a 94–33 thrashing of Bristol at the end of last season (127 total points) and then posted the second-highest overall tally against Bath on Saturday (119), the benchmark belonged to May 1999 when Richmond dismantled Bedford 106–12 to set a record of 118 that lasted for more than a quarter of a century.

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