Ulster and Ireland centre Stuart McCloskey feels that the gulf in budgets and the new format of the Investec Champions Cup doesn’t mean the competition is contested on a level playing field.
Toulouse, with a budget of over £30 million, put Ulster to the sword last Saturday night scoring seven tries at Kingspan Stadium to leave Dan McFarland’s side needing to beat Harlequins away on Saturday to make the last 16.
Ulster, in their last annual report, recorded loses of £900,000 and are looking for a new sponsor as after it was announced on Wednesday their association with Kingspan will come to an end in June 2025.
“It’s the same as football, you tend to find that the people with more money win more things,” reasoned McCloskey.
“There’s not much you can do about it, that’s professional sport, isn’t it?”
“You just try to turn up with a good attitude and hopefully catch them (Toulouse) on the bounce.
“Just look at the odds, if we play Toulouse 10 times, we maybe win two of those and that’s just the facts of it isn’t it?”
“But hopefully with a good attitude and a good start to a game and there at the weekend I still thought we had an opportunity to win, and I think that comes down to how determined the squad is and there are a lot of young guys there as well.”
McCloskey wants the tournament to return to its old format of pools of four where Ulster played the other three teams home and away.
This season the pools contain six teams and teams don’t face sides from their own domestic competition.
Cardiff are in Ulster’s pool and have lost to Harlequins, Bath and Toulouse with the opposition getting a maximum five match points in each game.
“We chatted about it, a few of the lads, about the whole pool situation and in my opinion, it could get sorted again as it’s lost that … people don’t quite understand it, I understand it just about and I play the games every week that could do with a good sorting.
“I still think when you come out here on a Saturday night, there was a really good atmosphere and there’s definitely something different to a league game.”
“When it comes down to the big games and playing them out there, it has that star power, or however you want to say it, but I don’t enjoy the way the pool stages are at the minute, and I probably speak for most of the professional rugby players.”
“I heard it comes down to the last 16 gets more television rights than the two other pool games. It probably needs sorted out in some way, I don’t make these decisions.”
McCloskey is charged with stopping Quins backline. If he and his Ulster colleagues slip to a defeat with no match points, the winner of the Racing 92 against Cardiff game will leapfrog them in the pool and demote Dan McFarland’s side to the Challenge Cup.
“You’re probably mainly thinking about Marcus Smith and Andre Esterhuizen but they’ve got Tyrone Green who has been good for them as well at full back,” McCloskey added.
“I think Quins are a team who turn up every year and there’ll be some new guy playing on the wing or at 13, someone who’s lightning and come from Cardiff University or something and come from nowhere and is playing well for Quins and especially in the backline.
“I don’t want to be playing with a purple ball (in Challenge Cup) in four or five weeks when we go into the last 16 so I’d much prefer to be playing Champions Cup last 16 against a big team and in a big fixture.”