With so many European games over the weekend falling victim to Covid-19 it felt almost counterintuitive to see one actually happening in the supposed badlands of Tier 4. Nor did this one-sided contest do much for Harlequins’ collective health, a comprehensive defeat effectively ending the hosts’ Champions Cup qualification hopes after just two weekends.
This was the heaviest home defeat Quins have ever suffered in this competition but it could easily have been worse. Racing 92 scored seven tries without having to stretch themselves massively and it was just as well Quins’ supporters were not allowed in to watch. Had they been, they would surely have been voicing their strong disapproval long before the end. “Today we were way off,” acknowledged Paul Gustard, the club’s head of rugby. “It was just a really, really poor performance.”
What an odd tournament it has been so far, a bizarre mix of high-scoring thrillers and complete mismatches interspersed with a load of ‘virtual’ results which are increasingly in danger of undermining the entire competition. Racing are in the same group as the defending champions Exeter, who defeated them in a memorable final only two months ago, but this result leaves the Chiefs with scant margin for error if they are to sneak into the top four qualifiers.
To award bonus-point victories to one team if their opponents are unable to fulfil the fixture is fine in theory but in the middle of a pandemic with infections soaring again right across Europe there is now a lottery feel in the air. Racing, though, will justifiably point out their title hopes last season were diminished by an untimely pre-final Covid outbreak of their own: what goes around comes around, particularly at the moment.
The good news is that watching Racing’s backs when they are in the mood is a reliably glorious antidote to the winter blues. Yes, Quins were a distant second but few can live with the Parisians when they are at full tilt and Finn Russell is gleefully whirling his baton. Any rugby player with little desire to be a part of the current Racing backline is sadly lacking in imagination and joie de vivre. If Russell or Simon Zebo do not skip past you, Teddy Thomas or Kurtley Beale probably already have.
Pat Lam enjoyed a happy return to the Sportsground as his Bristol side secured a bonus-point win against Connacht. An error-strewn first half ended 5-3 in Bristol’s favour, the former Leinster hooker Bryan Byrne crossing for a 34th-minute try before Jack Carty kicked a penalty.
Bundee Aki’s yellow card early on the resumption was punished with first Champions Cup tries for Ed Holmes after 47 minutes and Piers O’Conor three minutes later. Connacht clawed their way back with a Tiernan O’Halloran try and Carty’s second penalty, either side of Siale Piutau being sin-binned in the 66th minute.
However, the former Connacht head coach Lam watched Bristol close it out as Ioan Lloyd and John Porch exchanged tries before Callum Sheedy’s decisive penalty in the 77th minute. PA Media
The game had barely started before Quins were being made to look like multicoloured motorway bollards, Thomas swerving past the attempted tackle of Will Evans and leaving Mike Brown completely for dead en route to the line. It set the one-way tone, with Quins looking about as ready to make any real headway as a continental-bound lorry driver stuck on the M20.
In such circumstances there is no fly-half in the world better equipped to enjoy himself than Russell, the only question being which buttons he would choose to push. The visitors were 20-0 up inside 22 minutes but, after a slight second quarter lull, the rest was light blue and white carnage. Zebo combined nicely with his sharp wing Donovan Taofifénua to score his side’s third try just 39 minutes into the second half, the giant replacement prop Georges-Henri Colombe secured the bonus point score after 51 minutes and the Scott Steele being sent to the sin-bin just moments after coming on to the field summed up Quins’ day.
Alex Dombrandt never stopped trying and Joe Marchant did a number of good things but, while the loss of the luckless Nathan Earle with another lower leg injury did not help, there was never the remotest prospect of Quins delivering the sort of spectacular comeback achieved by Gloucester and Munster earlier in the weekend.
Another cute Russell chip delivered a deserving try for Taofifénua and there were further Racing scores for Teddy Baubigny and François Trinh-Duc, with Quins’ only points coming from a long-range attack finished by Steele. They might have had a second right at the end only for Dombrandt to be denied because Chris Ashton had illegally clobbered Thomas from behind a few seconds earlier.
The star of the match award, appropriately given the time of year, went to Wenceslas Lauret but collectively Racing look a team more than capable of going one better than last season. Seven of the top eight sides at the halfway stage of the group phase hail from either France or Ireland, with only Wasps flying the Premiership flag, and it may take a major Covid outbreak to prevent the Top 14 from dominating the quarter-final lineup. Never mind Brexit, the outlook for Britain’s oval-ball representatives in Europe has not looked this uncertain for a while.
