This season’s Heineken Champions Cup makes even the enlarged Eurovision Song Contest feel like a parochial concept. This weekend alone there are opening‑round games in such wildly disparate locations as Pretoria, Durban, Brentford and Le Havre, involving almost absurd contrasts in temperature and altitude. It’s “Europe”, captain, but not as we know it.
Talk about refreshing the parts other years have never reached. This weekend Harlequins will be beside the Indian Ocean, coping with humidity and 30-degree heat. Next week they will be back beside the River Crane in Twickenham freezing their Yuletide nuts off. People talk about the brave new world of a world club championship but in many ways it is here already.
