Aironi bucked the trend with victory over Biarritz
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Gerry Thornley crunches some numbers following another hard-fought round of Heineken Cup action in The Irish Times.
"As Heineken Cup weekends go, that was quite unusual. Although eight of the dozen games were won by the home side, most unusually in all bar two of the games (Biarritz’s stunning defeat to Aironi and Perpignan’s five-point win against Leicester) anyone backing the away side on the handicap betting with the bookies would have come out on top.
"Toulouse were the biggest winners of the weekend when beating Glasgow in Firhill on Friday night, and this set a trend as Racing Metro and Toulon defied their odds as six-point underdogs to actually win away to Saracens and London Irish. Apart from Glasgow, the only sides who didn’t obtain losing bonus points were Treviso and Cardiff, who lost by eight points at the Scarlets and Northampton. All other nine losers extracted bonus points, which was a record for the competition and confirms the impression that this is the most competitive Heineken Cup ever.
"Consider the previous record was set in the first round of this season’s competition when seven of the dozen games ended within the seven-point margin needed for a losing bonus point. In the previous 42 Pool rounds over the last seven seasons the most losing bonus points secured in a round were six on four occasions (round two 09/10; rounds four and six 08/09; round three 04/05)."
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