European Champions Cup highlights the skills divide that exists between northern and southern hemispheres

Lack of creativity: There remains a skills divide between the two hemispheres Photo: GETTY IMAGES

What European Champions Cup shows is that the basic skills are not executed with anything like the consistency necessary to survive shift up to the highest level

After the heady heights of the autumn internationals it was back to the more prosaic battles of club rugby this weekend. Not quite, because European tournament rugby is not like the relatively commonplace fare of domestic league rugby, but still not the challenge of playing the world’s best from the other side of the globe.
What the Champions Cup and its junior counterpart, the Challenge Cup, show is that the basic skills are not executed with anything like the consistency necessary to survive the shift up to the highest level.
Some of this is explained by the fact that clubs require a little time to reintegrate their returning internationals; timing, angles and options need familiarity. Conditions over the weekend’s game were less than ideal with heavy pitches and inclement weather. While these negatives can be taken into account, they cannot be used as an excuse for the number of spilt balls from passes or in contact. They cannot account for the preponderance of ball that was kicked in the games and they cannot account for the retreat into attritional rugby………. see more at :- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/11278854/European-Champions-Cup-highlights-the-skills-divide-that-exists-between-northern-and-southern-hemispheres.html