Pau Preview - Return to the Sex Shop

By BrianC
October 19 2005

This weekend sees the first round of the European Challenge Cup in its new pool based format. Our opponents are the team that knocked us out of the tournament last year, Pau.

Our games against them last season coincided with the start of our near disastrous drop in form last December. First we traveled to France where we went down 25 - 19. Many of the traveling faithful felt we would overturn this lead when we played the return fixture the following week. It was not to be, whilst we won the match itself 19 - 16 we failed to get the seven point lead we required. The semi-final with Connacht which had beckoned was not to be, we were out of the tournament. Pau made it through to the final where they lost to Sale.

In their domestic league the start of this season has not been a good one for our opponents. They have thus far played nine games and have won only two along with a single bonus point. They are currently bottom of the French Top 14 with nine points and a shocking -139 points difference. It should however not go unsaid that they have won their last two home games. For what it is worth the European rankings currently place Pau 33rd (out of 44) and London Irish 29th.

The Pau squad appears to mainly comprise home based players, there is also a fair sprinkling of Argentinians. Amongst the few other nationalities, one name on the squad that will be familiar to many us is Samoan Ace Tiatai, late of Harlequins.

I don't think there will be a lot to this game. Looking at recent form I would say that this London Irish side is better than the one we had last December and the Pau one looks a tad weaker. Given that I'm inclined to think we'll shade this.