By BrianC
January 18 2006

After the rigors of last weekends tour to Parma we now have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and get ready for our final pool fixture against Pau at the Madejski.

Given that we have won all our pool games thus far, picking up a healthy collection of bonus points along the way, we will unquestionably win this pool and, given that Gloucester play Bayonne in the next round, will almost certainly have a home quarter final. The only thing left to be decided is what position we will end in relative to the other qualifiers and who will we entertain at the Madejski in early April.

The ERC site gives all the details. As things stand the qualifiers (points) [try difference], starting with the leaders of the five pools, are…

Gloucester (24) [+40]
Newcastle (24) [+34]
London Irish (22) [+13]
Bayonne (20) [+21]
Northampton (20) [+13]
Worcester (19) [+10]
Connacht (18) [+11]
Brive (17) [+11]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bristol (16) [+7]

Narbonne on 13 points have an outside chance of making the fray but realistically this is unlikely.

Statistically we could end up in any position from first to sixth. A win against Pau, however narrow, will mean that we end up in one of the top three slots regardless of what happens elsewhere so that has to be our target. Of the teams above us Newcastle have a tough away fixture in Brive and Gloucester, whilst at home, will have their work cut out for them against Bayonne. My guess however is that Gloucester, with home advantage, will beat Bayonne but Newcastle may well trip up away at Brive. A home win for us therefore will put us second

As with last week I have little doubt that we will rest key players for this game in an effort to get as many people fit as possible for the upcoming premiership games. Even given that I would expect us to win this one. Pau are out of this competition and they know it not least because of our 13 - 20 victory over them in October. They went down to Parma as 20 – 11 before Christmas but had a healthy 36 – 12 win over Agen last week. What I don’t know, but suspect, is that both those teams were playing with weakened sides.

A home quarter final is ours for the taking. What we must guard against, perhaps something we were guilty of in Parma, is complacency. There is a fair chance that, should we win, we’ll end up playing Connacht in the quarter final. Last season we blew the opportunity to play them in the ECC. I trust, and believe, that this London Irish side are made of better stuff.