Agen's embarrassing exit is no laughing matter

It is one thing after another in Europe at the moment. On the eve of today's disciplinary hearing into allegations of racist abuse and biting during last weekend's distinctly uncharitable contest between Castres and Munster, the directors of the Heineken Cup and Parker Pen Shield competitions declared their determination to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Ebbw Vale-Agen fixture, which the Welshmen won by the ridiculously wide margin of 59-10.

Although they have not said so in as many words, members of the European Rugby Cup board are wondering whether Agen threw the game. The crack French club pitched up at Eugene Cross Park with a full-strength side, knowing they could afford to lose by two clear tries and still qualify for the knock-out phase of the Shield. By half-time, they were 44-0 down; by the end, they had shipped nine tries and were out of the competition. When television footage showed one of the Agen backs appearing to laugh as he spurned the easiest of scoring opportunities by stopping dead with the line at his mercy and flicking the ball to an opponent, the conspiracy theorists were quick to point the finger.

Agen hardly helped themselves by publicly stating that the French Championship – their most obvious route into next season's élite Heineken tournament – was uppermost in their thoughts, with the Shield a poor second. Agen are set fair for a quarter-final place in their domestic competition, but they lost their last two home matches to the weather and are facing a fixture backlog. The ERC board has yet to fix a date for any hearing, but the Agen team manager, Claude Gabarret, will be among the officials called to account for their team's embarrassingly bad performance.

Two English teams, Newcastle and Sale, will join a pair of Italian clubs, Overmach Parma and L'Aquila, at a separate hearing following a series of fixture postponements almost three weeks ago. Tournament administrators want to establish what pitch protection measures had been put in place, and what contingency plans had been laid. Parma will also have to explain why they failed to show up for their rescheduled match with Pontypridd – a game the ERC board decided should be played at Gloucester, even though it was supposed to be a home fixture for the Italians.

Next season's Shield is likely to be played on a knock-out basis from the start, with home-and-away ties being decided on points aggregate. Those teams who fail to make it past the first round will probably take part in a "plate" competition. Competitors will therefore be guaranteed a minimum of four matches, while the potential for mis-matches will be reduced. This season, Saracens scored almost 450 points in a group containing the Romanian side Dinamo Bucharest and the weak Italians of Bologna. Gloucester averaged almost 60 points a game in their pool, London Irish almost 50 in theirs.

The Heinken Cup format has not been altered in any significant sense. The competition will continue to be threaded through the 10-month northern hemisphere campaign, and although next season's quarter-finals will be shifted to April, after the Six Nations' Championship, in an effort to generate greater momentum, the tinkerings do not address the increasingly urgent issue of a properly structured season in which the three major components – domestic championships, European competitions, internationals – can be blocked off.

With the Six Nations a little over a fortnight distant, injuries are kicking in with a vengeance. Christophe Dominici, the brilliant French threequarter, will miss the entire tournament with a shoulder injury, while the Irish hooker Keith Wood is struggling to make his country's opening fixture with Wales in Dublin on 3 February. Wood damaged a calf muscle during Harlequins' Powergen Cup victory at Sale before Christmas, and has been ruled out of the Londoners' quarter-final with Leicester this weekend. His clubmate, the England wing Dan Luger, will also miss the tie.

In France, the former Tricolore hooker Jean-Francois Tordo has resigned as coach of Bourgoin after a meeting with the club president, Pierre Martinet.