It is time to readjust now that the wonderfully watchable autumn series is over. I include the Springboks in the category. It has never been my impression that English victory comes with arrogance, but I have been conscious of a certain self-righteousness in the bulldog when it comes to foul play. All that stuff about the lads being on the receiving end - please. And all that guff about 'Thank goodness Paddy O'Brien was in charge...'.
For starters, Paddy O'Brien has wrecked more than his fair share of Tests. And if you want an example, how about France-Fiji in the last World Cup? Fiji, as was oft said in Suva at the time, were robbed. And as for Paddy's latest performance at Twickenham, any ref who issues a final warning in the opening quarter is almost inevitably going to send someone off for something less than life-threatening. Jannes Labuschagne deserved a yellow at most for his late challenge on Jonny Wilkinson.
There's more. England, the victims? Spare me. England stood ramrod firm and never lost their discipline? Yeah, right. They're better at winding up naïve opponents. That's all. Better at not getting caught. Nothing wrong in that. Far from it. But spare us the sanctimony.
Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. As I was trying to say, it's time to readjust and turn the gaze back to Europe. But it's not easy. Every time I try to think how appetising the next tranche of the Heineken Cup is, what with its back-to-back home-and-away confrontations between the same clubs, the more I keep thinking of Neil Back on his bike.
I know I should be concentrating on, say, Gloucester at home to Perpignan on Sunday, followed the weekend after by their trip to the Catalans' stronghold, the Stade Aimé Giral, a sort of Kingsholm in Languedoc, but I keep seeing instead the Leicester flanker.
Back, as is his wont, went to the gym with the sweat of last Saturday's exertions scarcely dry on his brow. And there he was, whirring away on his exercise machine, when suddenly his face puffed up and he discovered that he has a fractured cheekbone. As diagnostic methods go, it's pretty radical. Just imagine if he had a serious injury. Pedal, pedal, pedal. 'Worr, got a bit of a headache.' 'Keep going, Backie, push it.' Whir, whir, whir. Boom. Backie's head explodes. 'Wow, doc, that bruise might have been a hairline crack to the skull, after all.' 'Yep, looks as if Dallaglio's back in again.'
There is a relevance somewhere. Not only is Back going to miss Leicester's home and away games with Béziers - just up the road from Perpignan - but so is Lewis Moody. The other flanker of Leicester and England hurt his shoulder, an injury diagnosed no doubt on the same Raleigh Cat-scan 800S, and it appears the Tigers' injury crisis is not growing any less acute.
Béziers went bust last summer and had to offload a heap of players. And, anyway, they were hardly the side that used to terrorise opponents on the shores of the Mediterranean in the 1970s. Now that was a team worthy of a Paddy O'Brien caution. But the current Béziers side still represent a tricky little test for a side who for all their recent and unrelenting success have flickered at best this season.
Having said that, if Leicester win away, they will certainly win at home - notwithstanding yesterday's defeat at home to Northampton. And they'll stroll through to the quarter-finals with a home draw. And that puts them back in the all-too-familiar position of being the side everyone else wants to avoid.
The team promoted right here as the one most likely to snatch the title from Leicester are Leinster. They, too, have French opponents: Montferrand, more mountain than Med. Fearsome at home, but rocky on the road, as was shown in their bizarre defeat by Bristol. They squandered so many chances that it almost carried echoes of Agen's performance last year at Ebbw Vale in the Parker Pen. Agen admitted to having other priorities and to throwing the game, which cost them a fine and a place in the Heineken Cup this season. Montferrand will be keen to show that they are taking Europe's premier trophy seriously.
Leinster, though, remain my tip. As long as they can keep Brian O'Driscoll together in body and mind and keep their pack at full boil, they can combine invention with speed, muscle with what the English call discipline. They can put it about and they can run it about.
The side who have displayed the most dazzling form thus far, however, are Toulouse. They struggled at home to London Irish in the first round, but roasted Newport with contemptuous ease in Wales in round two. They sort of gave themselves a casual manicure while dancing rings. Flamenco with an emery board.
It may be difficult to do anything other than clack-clack and scrape in such a position, but the Toulousains will be trying to tell themselves not to take Edinburgh lightly. It is still possible that this might be the year of the Scottish break-out. The groups including both Edinburgh and Glasgow are still wide open. A place in the quarter-finals beckons for the first time.
Even the Welsh have managed that in the past, but Llanelli will need to do the double over Sale if they are to keep their proud Euro-run going. Sale, incidentally, are the surprise inclusion in the group of teams without a single point from their first two games. The others are Amatori and Calvisano - multiply named but singularly outclassed - Viadana, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport. The Italian and Welsh basement. Where they don't need an exercise bike to tell them that something needs fixing.
