Saracens head for their great showdown

BRENDAN GALLAGHER LOOKS AT THE MAKE-UP OF THE EUROPEAN CUP QUARTER-FINALS

- BRENDAN GALLAGHER

AFTER five or more months on a starvation diet, all sorts of tasty rugby delicacies are being offered up at present. It’s almost too much for our stressed digestive systems especially as first we have to consume the leftovers from last season, sorry this season.

Some are more palatable than others. I have lost all appetite for the 2020 Six Nations, it now seems a bit of an irrelevance, an ill-starred tournament that should probably have been ended after Round 3 with a large asterisk indicating the unfortunate circumstances in the record books.

The Gallagher Premiership meanwhile is the English game’s bread and butter and although some of the games post-lockdown have been a little stodgy and half baked, others have risen splendidly to the occasion. The main thing, of course, is that Premiership rugby is back on the menu.

But the European Champions Cup? Now that is genuinely exciting and suddenly seems to be upon us after months of uncertainty although after everything that has happened nobody is counting their chickens.

It still seems probable that the matches in Dublin and Exeter will be behind closed doors but there is a chance of a ‘crowd’ for the two games in France where there is currently carte blanche for up to 5,000 fans. In addition, you can apply for special dispensation to the local prefecture to increase that and that’s exactly what Clermont have done for tonight’s T14 game with Toulouse when 10,000 will be allowed into Stade Michelin.