Smith faces biggest challenge of stellar career against Biarritz

Northampton's Kiwi coach gears up for Heineken Cup tie while the future looks bleak for Europe's excellent secondary event

Tri-Nations deciders and Super 12 finals, Ranfurly Shields and National Provincial Championships, a stint in the blast-furnace atmosphere of a World Cup... Wayne Smith has experienced all this and more in a decade of tactical plotting and strategic planning. And what does he consider to be the biggest challenge of his coaching career? This afternoon's Heineken Cup game at Franklin's Gardens, interestingly enough: Northampton, without Andrew Blowers and Budge Pountney, against Biarritz, who count Betsen and Bernat-Salles and Brusque and Lievremont in their ranks.

You can see his point, even though a European club match rarely carries the overwhelming clout of an All Black Test. Smith, who played for and coached New Zealand, is now so wrapped up in Northampton that he can barely imagine what life might be like outside of the East Midlands, and his desire for silverware burns like a bushfire.

If his side beat the French champions today, they will have an even-money shot at topping this season's pool of death and earning themselves a home tie in the last eight. Defeat will leave them in serious danger of elimination.

If ever a coach needed the services of the most destructively complementary pair of flankers in England, it is now. And Smith has neither, thanks to the mid-season injury syndrome. Grant Seely, a nearly man for longer than he would care to remember, and Mark Soden, a youngster of rich promise but a youngster all the same, have been asked to fill the vacancies on the sides of the scrum, and while Smith has faith in both, he recognises the precariousness of his position.

"I don't think I've faced a bigger challenge as a coach," he said this week. "We know how dangerous this lot are from our first meeting" – Northampton lost 23-20 in Basque country a little under three months ago – "and it is backs to the wall time because of the injuries. The young players have been stepping up and showing a lot of heart, but we're asking a lot of our squad."

Three senior members of that squad are back in harness after a spell among the crocks – the wing Ben Cohen, the scrum-half Matthew Dawson and the No 8 Mark Connors – and they will wield plenty of influence. "A lot depends on Dawson and Cohen," agreed Patrice Lagisquet, the Biarritz coach. "Northampton are not the same without those two. Without them, they play to around 60 per cent of their potential; with a full team, I admire their completeness. Dawson, in particular, is a key element. Without him, they lack speed."

The same point could be made about Leicester and Austin Healey, who has tipped the scales marginally in favour of the Tigers in each of the last two Heineken finals. But there will be no Healey in Italy today for the game with Calvisano, and no Sam Vesty either. In fact, Leicester are completely strung out in the outside-half position, and may well ask Rod Kafer, the former Wallaby centre, to do a turn there. For all that, it is inconceivable that they will slip up in front of two Signores and a dog at Centro Sportivo San Michele. A quarter-final occasion at Welford Road beckons.

Gloucester, very much in the thick of an epic struggle with Munster and Perpignan, also face Italian opposition in the shape of Viadana, who are a whole lot worse than Calvisano and can expect the mother of all thumpings at Kingsholm. James Simpson-Daniel, England's latest Flash Harry, is likely to play some part after a bout of glandular fever – "It may not have been as bad a case as it could have been, but he was pretty poorly," said his coach, Nigel Melville – and if he looks anything like the part, he can expect to start against France in the Six Nations opener on 15 February.

Phil Christophers, who filled in for Simpson-Daniel against the Springboks in November, is still suffering from a rib injury and misses Bristol's hazardous trip to Montferrand tomorrow. Defeat would leave the West Countrymen short of a passport into the knock-out stage, allowing them to "concentrate on the Premiership", as the cliché goes.