TV View: Bittersweet symphony as Champions Cup opens with three Irish wins

As Champions Cup opening weekends go, from an entirely parochial Irish point of view, that wasn’t too bad at all. “It’s a tsunami of glorious attacking quality,” said Mark Robson, and he was only talking about Connacht’s display against Saracens. Throw in Munster and Leinster’s meetings with Racing and Clermont and we had ourselves three Irish wins, 126 Irish points and 19 Irish tries. You’d take that.

Leinster were up first and even though they helped themselves to a handsome enough 48-23 bonus-point win away to Clermont, Stephen Ferris, back in the Premier Sports studio, only gave them an 8.5 mark out of 10 for their efforts. That was partly because he adjudged Clermont to be a bit rubbish, Rob Kearney not disagreeing, although he was reasonably complimentary about the man of the match, Sam Prendergast.