Muldoon not fazed by Heineken Cup draw
Date Published: 13-Jun-2012
“IT could have been worse,” was how Connacht stalwart John Muldoon summed up Tuesday’s draw for the 2013 Heineken Cup pools stages which saw the westerns pitted against Harlequins, Biarritz and Zebre Rugby in pool 3.
At one stage during the ‘live’ coverage of the draw, because they couldn’t be drawn against an Irish province, it looked like Connacht, a tier three club, were going to be drawn in pool 2 against Toulouse, Leicester Tigers and Treviso.
On paper at least, Connacht seem to have dodged the tougher of those two groups and privately the squad and management will fancy their chances of bettering their
inaugural season in the top European club competition when they won one from six outings.
But, although Connacht defeated Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins in their final pool match of the Heineken Cup last season at the Sportsground – a truly heroic effort by all, denying the English giants a spot in the quarter-finals – and even though Biarritz weren’t too hot in their domestic league last season, Muldoon was still cautious that they will pose a formidable challenge.
“I’d say Harlequins were probably hoping to get someone else, especially after last year when we beat them and denied them a quarter final. I suppose though they won’t take us for granted this year and they’ll be looking for some retribution for what happened so they will be really tough opponents again,” he said of the London based English Premiership champions.
Connacht has never played Biarritz before and Muldoon told Tribune Sport they will be another big crowd puller to the revamped Sportsground as well as giving the fans an opportunity to holiday in the South of France for the away leg.
“They are a really top side, they didn’t really perform in the Top 14 last season but they still won the Challenge Cup. Zebre are a bit of an unknown, they’ve come about after what happened to Aironi (disbanded) but there are a few players who have left Italy, which is unfortunate, but right now we don’t know what to expect.
“It is a difficult group but, yeah, it could have been worse. It will be a difficult challenge but the experience of Heineken Cup last season will give us more hope and more confidence,” he added.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.