European bell tolls for stuck-in-rut English clubs

Rugby Union: Premiership clubs' short-termism signals end of dominant era but Gloucester show vision and secure draw with late conversion

Around 700 blue-chip executive types from the sponsorship and marketing arm of the Heineken Cup industry materialised at Welford Road six days ago for the Leicester-Munster quarter-final, which explains why many executive types from the Leicester club itself – not least Peter Tom, the chairman – found themselves watching the best game of the season on the telly, having decamped to a marquee erected outside the ground. It was a lavish marquee, to be sure, and the vol-au-vents were particularly fine, but however you try to dress it up, the Tigers hierarchy spent their big afternoon in a tent.

Tom did not enjoy the rugby nearly as much as he enjoyed the buffet: his beloved Heineken champions, the only side ever to defend a European title of any description successfully, were comprehensively dismantled by a younger, sharper, keener band of Irishmen under the flawless leadership of dear old Jim Williams, the venerable Australian flanker. It is safe to suggest that the suits in the stand did not enjoy it much, either – not once the full implications of the result began to dawn on them.

No English semi-finalist means no English interest worth talking about – and England is the biggest rugby market in Europe, by a distance. France, the next biggest, is fully represented in the latter stages through Toulouse and Perpignan, but the ban on alcohol advertising in that wonderfully contrary country is of precious little use to Heineken. Ireland, with Munster and Leinster in the last four, is alive with Euro-rugby fever, and massive travelling support will ensure sell-out audiences from here on in. But England is crucial to the sponsorship wallahs, concerned as they are with brand recognition and high-impact peripherals and all the rest of it. And England ain't there any more.

They may have to get used to it; in terms of European rugby, the yardstick against which the best teams must measure themselves, the English are on a downward spiral. The fact that this has been England's least successful season at the élite level, a campaign in which the Premiership has not produced a semi-finalist having never previously failing to register a presence in the final, is made more alarming still by indications that life is unlikely to get any easier.

The French contingent will be more powerful next term, for the simple reason that they will be in a position to play their strongest hand. Two of the three or four outstanding sides in the country, Agen and Stade Français, were not involved this time – the former were banned from European competition after throwing a Shield match in 2002, the latter got themselves in an unholy mess on the coaching front and failed to qualify – but can bank on making the draw for the 2003-04 tournament, as can Biarritz and Toulouse. Agen, armed with the likes of Gelez and Crenca, will be hot; Stade, coached and managed by the supremely capable Nick Mallett, will be hotter still.

With the Irish in their pomp and getting better – "Let's be frank about this, they have the structure of professional rugby absolutely right," said one senior member of the Twickenham coaching staff this week – and the Welsh preparing to maximise their chances by channelling their best talent into five regional teams, the demands of a competition following hard on the heels of the World Cup will be at the extreme end of severe.

As things stand, there is little to suggest that the Premiership clubs will prosper. Apart from anything else, the current is against them. In 1996-97, their first season in Europe, the English participants – Bath, Harlequins, Leicester and Wasps – won precisely 75 per cent of their pool matches, with only Wasps failing to reach the knock-out stage. Leicester went on to make the final.

The following season was even better: 19 out of 24 pool matches won, three of the four pools topped by English clubs, four quarter-final places filled and, ultimately, a European title for Bath.

Since when, nothing but slippage – slippage masked by the victories of Northampton in 2000 and Leicester in the two subsequent tournaments. The 75 per cent success rate is now down around 50 per cent, and the Premiership has not produced more than two quarter-finalists since Bath's year of years in 1998. This season's most consistent clubs, Gloucester and Sale, failed to survive the round-robin stage; Northampton were fortunate to do so, having lost in Belfast and Biarritz and been tested to the limit by the Frenchmen at Franklin's Gardens. Leicester, meanwhile, looked well past their sell-by date as they struggled, and failed, to subdue the Munster uprising.

A question, then: are England's élite clubs as good as they imagine themselves to be? Not according to some informed observers. One leading member of the England set-up said this week: "I think some of the Premiership coaches, or rather their approaches to coaching, are being found out at European level. We need more emphasis on back-line skills, not simply because the backs need to match some of the things the French are doing, but because we are repeatedly asking our forwards to play like backs in open field. Also, some of the French and Irish teams have advanced their kicking games to a point well beyond anything the majority of the English sides have shown this year."

Another influential figure expressed deeper, more startling concerns. "In terms of player development, you have to wonder whether the Premiership has outlived its usefulness. The prospect of relegation is so catastrophic that teams think about not losing before they think about winning. The Irish, who really have upped their act at European level, do not have those problems: they can approach the tournament in a much more positive manner, safe in the knowledge that they'll be there again the following year. They are fitter, too. Last weekend, Munster started at 100mph and finished at 110mph. Three years ago, they would have started at 100mph and ended at zero, completely knackered.

"There have been some exciting games in the Premiership this season, but very little in the way of freshness. I cannot remember seeing anything that made me sit up and take notice, that made me think: 'God, that's new'. We are frightened of our own shadows in club rugby; short-termism governs everything. If we had a European League rather than a Premiership, we might be better at reacting and adapting to innovative ideas. But we haven't, sadly, and we're in danger of getting stuck in a rut."

In the aftermath of defeat, the Leicester chief executive, Peter Wheeler, reached into his bag of excuses and pulled out some plums. He blamed the demands of England squad training in World Cup year; he blamed the £1.9m salary cap under which all Premiership teams supposedly operate (smirk, smirk); he blamed the instability caused by the regular loss of crucial personnel – the Johnsons, the Backs, the Rowntrees – to Test duty. These points can be knocked down, one by one.

French internationals play just as much domestic rugby as the English, are every bit as busy on the Test front and are equally committed to the national cause as the World Cup approaches. Toulouse are in the last four of the Heineken despite having eight of the current Tricolore squad on their books. And the salary cap argument? A non-starter. Several English clubs pay well over the odds for their players, and while it is true that their French rivals are free of any financial restrictions outside those dictated by the balance sheet, they do not all behave as though they have just broken the bank at Monte Carlo. Perpignan, for instance, have made the semi-finals with a group of workaday club professionals, underpinned by a couple of shrewdly identified imports.

English clubs will have their own imports next season – the end of a World Cup cycle generally sees dozens of southern hemisphere players heading north. But Leicester's demise and Gloucester's financial problems have left the Premiership without a standard-bearer capable of dominating a cross-border tournament. The first era of red rose hegemony is at an end.