Exeter Chiefs versus Racing 92 – who will win the European Champions Cup?
Matt Dawson, scrumhalf in England’s World Cup winning team in 2003, was always a chirpy fellow, never – one thought – afraid of any hulking Springbok forwards or of expressing an opinion. Still, when he says “it would be one of the greatest upsets in European history” if Exeter Chiefs don’t win the European Champions Cup today, he is certainly sticking his neck out.
Even if you insert the word “rugby” between “European” and “history”. He may well be right in thinking they will win, but I doubt if many would agree that they are “overwhelming favourites”, though the fact that the match is being played in England, at Bristol actually, may give them a certain edge.
That Exeter are mighty good is something no one of sense would deny. They are also remarkably consistent, if sometimes a bit predictable. But, being able to predict what they will do when their forwards have the ball near the opposition try-line doesn’t make is much easier to prevent them from scoring.
They are also, I would guess, many English fans’ second favourite club, because though their set-up is admirably professional, and they have a few high-cost incomers, they seem in most ways like an old-fashioned club, deeply rooted in their home territory. To be consummately professional without losing some of the character of the amateur game is quite an achievement. Moreover, they have never been a glamour club, but they are one which over the years climbed from the lower rungs of the ladder to the top.
They also get a sympathy vote from others who feel, as the club does itself, that they might have had a couple of English Premiership titles if their opponents, Saracens, hadn’t breached the salary cap. Then their head coach, Rob Baxter, is greatly respected and generally liked, a thoroughly good egg. No one would grudge him victory today, for this Chiefs team is very largely his creation; a blend of English players, many from the West Country, with a few carefully chosen recruits from further afield. Among them is the current Scotland captain Stuart Hogg and his former Glasgow team-mate Jonny Gray, one of the hardest working as well as most skilful locks in the World.
Exeter have had a tremendous pack for some years now. What had added to their game is the development of their fly-half Torquay-born Joe Simmonds, younger brother of the England flanker Sam. As well as being a splendidly reliable goal-kicker, Joe is imaginative, quick and nimble-footed. Still only twenty-three, with a birthday coming up in December, he is surely on the verge of an England cap. Indeed, from what I’ve seen, he is currently the best number 10 available to Eddie Jones. A qualification should however be added: it’s a lot easier and more pleasant playing behind the Exeter pack than behind the current Leicester one (as George Ford has to).
If Exeter Chiefs have the rugged virtues associated with the English West Country, Racing92 are classed as aristocrats, city slickers, Parisian dandies. The club has emerged from a couple of amalgamations, but it is also the direct lineal descendant of the famous Racing Club de France, whose players in the last days of amateurism were indeed dandies, coming on to the field for a French final wearing bowties. The “92” in the present name harks back to the very first French championship won by the Racing Club in 1892.
All this is a bit deceptive. Ugo Mola, who played full-back (as I remember) for France in their astonishing 43-31 victory against the All Blacks in the semi-final of the 1999 World Cup, and who is now Head Coach of Toulouse (beaten by Exeter two weeks ago in the Champions Cup semi), says that the style of the two teams has a great deal in common. Both have the ability to vary their game and both can play with patience. Perhaps, he thinks, the outcome will depend on Finn Russell’s ability to manoeuvre the play in such a way as to create space for the men outside him, especially Virimi Vakatawa at 13. Russell incidentally thinks Vakatawa the best centre in the world.
Russell himself has matured since he joined Racing. In his Glasgow days he sometimes played like a genius, occasionally like a daft laddie. The genius was always there. One Heineken Cup performance against Leicester prompted Austin Healey, Matt Dawson’s old rival for the number 9 England shirt, to declare himself a founder-member of the Finn Russell Appreciation Society. Now Finn has learned to ration his audacity. Like all the greatest fly-halves I have seen, from Jack Kyle to Daniel Carter, he now bides his time. The semi-final against Saracens, when his deft little chip found space, was gobbled up by Vakatawa, who passed back to him and sent Juan Imhoff over the line for the winning score, offering a perfect example of his acquired maturity. Asked by Midi-Olympique why he had waited till the seventy-fifth minute to try it, he said, “in this kind of match you get only one or two chances, so for seventy minutes we passed and passed, then when we decided to chip over the defensive line. Saracens were no longer looking out for it.” The move to France has been good for Russell as it was for Jonny Wilkinson and wasn’t for Johnny Sexton. He has taken to it like a duck to water and Paris has taken to him, Racing recently extending his contract by three years.
Finals are sometimes nervous, edgy occasions, both teams afraid of making mistakes. I have the feeling this one won’t be like that but will be a game to savour. Exeter Chiefs may be favourites, but “overwhelming” ones? Surely not.
As it happens four of today’s players are on the short list of five for the European Player of the Year, the winner to be announced in the evening. They are Exeter’s Hogg and Sam Simmonds, Racing’s Russell and Vakatawa. The fifth contestant is Semi Radradra, now with Bristol Bears, last season with Bordeaux-Begles. Four backs and one forward, piano-players preferred to piano shifters, though one should add that Vakatawa and Radradra give the impression of being able to shift a piano as easily as any forward.