HEC : Pool 1 predictions

Be careful how you chose best runner-up

More to come :

reminder of pools

Pool 1 Munster Edinburgh Saracens Racing Metro
Pool 2 Toulouse Leicester Ospreys Treviso
Pool 3 Biarritz Harlequins Connacht Zebra
Pool 4 Northampton Ulster Glasgow Castres
Pool 5 Leinster Clermont Scarlets Exeter
Pool 6 Cardiff Toulon Sale Montpellier

Saracens talking about moving their home game against Munster to Boston! Munster open to the idea.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/munster-agreeable-to-sarries-us-trip-197228.html

Sounds like a typical Sarries move, wonder how their season ticket holders will react to that?

Perhaps Munster should appoint a better PR guy as that interview really didn't flatter the province. It basically came across as him saying Munster would take no risks but try and get hold of some of the possible financial windfall should Sarries gamble work. Which is sensible but sounded greedy. Now that is pretty much what any sustainable team would try and do but surely there's ways to make you look better than that.

Sarries need to be careful, they need those home games and if they can rattle the Munster confidence early on then the recent loss of some big Munster names could undermine their efforts as they may lack leadership.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Sounds like a typical Sarries move, wonder how their season ticket holders will react to that?

Perhaps Munster should appoint a better PR guy as that interview really didn't flatter the province. It basically came across as him saying Munster would take no risks but try and get hold of some of the possible financial windfall should Sarries gamble work. Which is sensible but sounded greedy. Now that is pretty much what any sustainable team would try and do but surely there's ways to make you look better than that.

Sarries need to be careful, they need those home games and if they can rattle the Munster confidence early on then the recent loss of some big Munster names could undermine their efforts as they may lack leadership.

Yeah it did sound greedy. The people running Munster are known to not be very good in the PR department.

Boston is the most Irish of any American city so you'd imagine there'll be a lot more Munster fans there.

Ospreys:

4 losses 2 draws with Treviso.

That's the only foregone conclusion.

Sam a trip to USA sounds good. As long as Sarries win.

If the new stadium was ready for the HC it would be played there. It isn't so why not play in USA? I know there's the whole home advantage thing and season tickets etc but having no home for half the year is inevitable anyway. Plus Sarries like playing away.

Just curious to know why so many votes for Edinburgh as group winners. Can anyone explain their reasoning?

I don't think Edinburgh will do as well this season, Munster and Saracens on form will love it if they try to run all over the place as they'll just pressure pressure pressure them in to mistakes.

It'll be between Mun and Sar to top the pool and i'm backing Saracens as long as they have the players to play plan A or a plan B this time round.

Interesting idea about Boston, Quins have done similar things and tbh they seemed alright, not sure if they really helped that much sales wise but for team morale at least it must be a cool experience.

Edinburgh are the interesting package in this group, or chicken according to Google Translate.

Last year Bradley played kids against L I away and won, then mostly reverted to the more experienced guys who did very well. With the increase in depth this year I think they could go well, or if the first couple of games don't go their way could switch off and target the Rabo.

As an Edinburgh fan I expect both, but not sure, one or the other would be fine.