Let us be honest, the Champions Cup tie between Leicester and Clermont is in effect over. The Premiership leaders produced one of the more remarkable away performances in European rugby last week, thrashing the Top 14 side 29-10, scoring five tries to one and maintaining their supremacy despite playing with 14 men for the final 20 minutes.
Based on those events in the Auvergne, something spectacular and calamitous in equal measure would need to transpire at Welford Road on Saturday to prevent Leicester’s march into the next round. That is exactly what Clermont are banking on.
“We believe we can do it. Why not?” asks JJ Hanrahan, Clermont’s Irish utility back. “We know no one outside the group gives us a chance. But you know what, that’s liberating in a way. We just want to go out there and give it our all. We owe it to the fans to give a better account of ourselves.”
Their “below average” display, as Hanrahan describes it, stunned their usually boisterous home support at the Stade Marcel-Michelin. “Before the last 10 minutes, it was the best atmosphere I’ve seen since we beat Toulouse,” Hanrahan says, referencing a 16-13 win on New Year’s Day. “But that last 10 was chilling. You could see it hurt them. That’s affected us. We take ownership of that.”
Leicester’s triumph was the first time a Premiership team had beaten Clermont on their own patch since Sale’s 32-15 win in 2008. It was achieved through simple rugby perfectly executed. A well-drilled lineout, a brutally efficient driving maul, well-worked clearing kicks and an insatiable hunger around the breakdown strangled the home side into submission.
“They’re so clinical,” Hanrahan says. “They’re clearly coached very well. They’re so hard to play against. Even if we wanted to be more attacking, play more rugby, we couldn’t. We were not at our best but they put so much pressure on us. That’s not making excuses. We have to be better.”
Hanrahan would not divulge trade secrets but intimated that they will look to close down Leicester’s relieving kickers and force their heavy forwards into a more open game. “That’s easier said than done,” Hanrahan admits, not least because of the man pulling the strings for the Tigers.
George Ford is leaving for Sale at the end of the season but if this Leicester squad manage to win a trophy this year and if they go on to become a dynastic force under Steve Borthwick, they will for ever be imprinted by Ford’s legacy. Not that he is outwardly reflecting on that at this moment.
“We’re fully focused on the now,” he says, parroting Borthwick’s strict doctrine. “We are energised for this week. Steve is very explicit in what he says. We don’t look any further than what the challenge is ahead of us, that will always remain the same under Steve, that is the way good teams go about their business.”
Before Borthwick’s arrival in 2020, Leicester were an empire in ruin. The most successful club in the country, with 10 league titles, had finished 11th for two consecutive seasons. In his first year, Borthwick took them to sixth as well as to the Challenge Cup final. Now they are pushing for a rare continental and domestic double. What has changed?
“A lot of hard work, there is no secret formula, I wish I could tell you there was,” Ford says. “It is doing the basics brilliantly well, working hard day in, day out, week in, week out. I wish I could tell you it is something else but it is not.”
Ford, who has built a career on his consistency, defended those who prefer substance over style: “I think what’s gone out of the game, and is now a bit unfashionable, is if you do your job as a team of individuals unbelievably well and you dominate the game, it’s not exciting enough for people sometimes.
“We want to play the most efficient way. We want to build pressure, score points and stop the opposition from scoring points. For this group of players, we believe this way is the best way.”
Expect few alterations, then, from Leicester as they look to reach the last eight of Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since 2014. If Clermont and Hanrahan have any designs on a bewildering upset, they will need a dramatic change from last week.
