European Club Rugby : Exiles Our Big Threat

Agen will need their forwards to produce if they are to defeat London Irish

Exiles Our Big Threat - Stoltz

6 December 2005, 10:03 am

Something is going to have to give when Agen and London Irish collide in Round 3 of the European Challenge Cup at the Madejski Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Both are two from two and their back-to-back contests in Rounds 3 and 4 should go a fair way to determining the Pool 2 winners and one of the five automatic quarter-final qualifiers.

Both clubs have beaten Pau and Rugby Parma in the opening rounds.

“We were absolutely devastated to lose our place in the Heineken Cup on the last day of the season last year,” said Agen centre Conrad Stoltz.

“That is why the European Challenge Cup is so important to us. We’ve been struggling in the French championship over the last few years and the European tournaments have become increasingly important for us.

“We have had a lot of rebuilding to do since the end of last season. We lost a lot of players and we have several new people who have joined us, particularly overseas players, and it’s taking them a while to settle in.

“I don’t know a great deal about London Irish, although we did watch their game against Newcastle on French TV last week and they seem to be really on form. They look to be a very physical side, especially in the forwards.

“I think they will put a lot of points on Pau when they play in Reading and they are clearly our biggest rivals in the pool.

“But we are certainly not targeting the home game more than the away one. In order for us to really contend for this tournament we need to get home advantage in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, which means finishing well in the Pool stages.

“We have the players to win this tournament, although we are not yet quite where we would hope to be as a team. We are thinking of getting to the final stages of the European Challenge Cup first and of the Top 14 second.

“We know there is a place in the Heineken Cup at stake and we are going to go all out to get our hands on it.

“We’ve done pretty well in the tournament so far. Winning two out of two is obviously great – but we were disappointed not to get the bonus point against Pau.

“We came into the season with several injuries and we’ve got these guys coming back into the team now so our squad is getting progressively stronger.

“We were disappointed with our performance against Pau. They had a lot of injuries for their Challenge Cup game against us and we were unable to come away with the bonus point. They have had a really poor start to the domestic season and we should have used the home advantage more to give us a really solid footing in the Pool.

“We were so much more pleased with our performance against Parma. It’s the expectation that you’ll win home and away against the Italian teams and sometimes that extra pressure can cause problems but we dealt with it really well.

“At the moment we have a pretty full squad apart from the loss of Matthieu Lievremont which has been devastating for us. He is a star player and an excellent captain and it makes things hard for us not having him on the pitch.

“In his absence the captaincy has been rotating and I’ve been acting as captain for the European games because of the language barrier and that’s been really good. There’s not too much pressure on me and I really enjoy leading the guys.”