Best and worst: Who lit up the first European Champions Cup – and who fell flat?

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Best try

There were some beauties. Bath’s attacking work in Toulouse during the pool stage bordered on the heavenly, while Christian Wade’s tripping of the light fantastic against Leinster in Dublin made everyone bar the England selectors sit up and take notice of the vertically challenged Wasps wing. But given the importance of the occasion – not to mention its timing in the context of a tourniquet-tight contest – Drew Mitchell’s individual effort for Toulon in the final on Saturday must surely take the chocolate biscuit.

Finest kick

Step forward Marcelo Bosch, the man saddled with the task of keeping Saracens in the tournament during a fraught quarter-final meeting with Racing Métro in Paris. The Argentine centre is a long-range marksman of repute, but it is one thing knocking them over from 60 metres in training and quite another nailing a 48-metre shot into a strong wind with the match deep in overtime. Bosch played down his starring role – like many of his fellow Pumas, he is interested only in the collective – but no one took the argument seriously. Here was a modest man with nothing to be modest about.

Bravest fight against the odds

Both Bath and Wasps made losing starts to the tournament, yet found the wherewithal to qualify for the knockout stage by producing courageous performances on the road. On balance, though, the gong goes to Maro Itoje of Saracens, the World Cup-winning captain of England’s Under-20s team last summer. Thrown into the starting back row on semi-final day against Clermont, the youngster not only squared up physically to a formidable opposition pack but also rose to the emotional challenge of playing controlled, intelligent rugby in the most intimidating of environments. A future national captain? For sure.

Sorriest capitulation

Northampton, times two. The English champions were beaten far too easily by Racing Métro at Franklin’s Gardens in the final round of group matches, having started the weekend as clear favourites to secure a home quarter-final. Sent away to Clermont as a result of rolling over and playing dead against the Parisians, they then compounded the crime by failing to show up at all. Tom Wood, their England flanker, admitted as much afterwards and took some fearful abuse on social media for his trouble. Which is what you get for being honest in this day and age.

Performance of performances

George Ford, the England outside-half, against Leinster in Dublin on quarter-final day? Brock James, another No 10, for Clermont against Northampton the same weekend? These were decent efforts by anyone’s standards, but Billy Vunipola left the whole of European rugby in his wake by ripping up Munster with his unique brand of heavyweight virtuosity as the pool stage resumed in January. The Saracens No 8 announced that day that he was fit and ready for an international recall, and his subsequent Six Nations displays for England bore him out.