Champions Cup and Challenge Cup facing fixture congestion after Paris attacks

'You could see our guys, pre-game, were a little bit out of it, not quite their normal selves'

(Getty Images)

The organisers of the European Champions Cup and Challenge Cup competitions, European Professional Club Rugby, hope to announce new dates in the next few days for the five matches in France postponed over the weekend in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks.

All concerned are likely to want to avoid playing in a midweek slot that creates problems with players’ recovery times as well as for supporters and broadcasters. But with every weekend filled in the fixture schedule from now until the European knockout stage in April, it would need the 10 clubs affected to rearrange a domestic league match. The European pool games are due to be completed in January.

EPCR decided on Saturday morning to postpone four matches in the Champions Cup – Oyonnax v Ulster, Racing 92 v Glasgow Warriors, Bordeaux-Bègles v Clermont Auvergne and Toulon v Bath – plus Pau v Castres in the Challenge Cup. But the three matches involving French clubs playing away from home went ahead, and Toulouse’s players admitted to being distracted as they lost 32-7 at Saracens, having trailed 27-0 at half-time.

Chris Wyles, the USA wing, scored a try in each half for Saracens, and their England loosehead prop Mako Vunipola collected his first in European competition. “Saracens were fantastic and they deserved the win – they played an exceptionally good, efficient game,” said Toby Flood, Toulouse’s England fly-half, who went off at half-time with an arm injury. “But you could see our guys, pre-game, were a little bit out of it, not quite their normal selves.

“From my understanding, luckily no one was touched by [the events on Friday] directly but everyone had friends or family or someone they knew in Paris. It was a tough 24 hours getting through to the match, and it will continue to be tough. It was a huge shock to the system.”

All 42 of the travelling Toulouse players and staff lined up on the pitch pre-match to sing the French national anthem, having agreed the gesture among themselves. Normally the anthems are reserved for international matches.

“The French guys said that if there was one person in the squad who didn’t feel comfortable doing it, then we wouldn’t do it at all,” said Flood. “All of us wanted to show a sign of solidarity – the Kiwis, the Samoans, everyone.

“I took 10 minutes out of my day to learn the words and I listened to it. I wouldn’t say I sang it perfectly but I know what it means now, I know what it stands for, and it was an important thing to do.

“It was a team thing, we wanted all the staff to be out there on the pitch, everyone involved in the club to be out there with us and sing it. I have been living in France for close to 18 months; you feel like things are getting under your skin in a nice way, and you are part of the culture.”

The Bath squad had flown to Toulon on Saturday morning and back to Bristol by mid-afternoon after receiving the news of the postponements on their arrival in France. Two supporters who had made their way to the Côte d’Azur wrote on the comeonmylovers website to express disappointment that the terrorists had “won” by forcing the sporting interruption.

The Glasgow Warriors squad had been through a team run in Paris on Friday afternoon, before the postponement of their Saturday match with Racing 92. A supporters’ Facebook group, The XVIth Warrior, reported blocking some members for making inflammatory comments related to the attacks.

A small group of Ulster supporters who had made it from Belfast to Oyonnax, near the French border with Switzerland, left a bilingual message on a club flag taped to the Charles-Mathon Stadium wall, inscribed: “Respect for Paris et tous les Français”.

Ulster’s team manager, Bryn Cunningham, summed up the general attitude, saying: “There are much more important things in the world than rugby. It has been a devastating series of events and our thoughts and prayers are with the French public and everyone who has been so tragically affected. You can certainly get an idea within this town of Oyonnax, just how devastated they are. It’s just a terrible, terrible time.”