With Northampton, London Irish, the hapless Bath now the formidable Leicester Tigers, for many years the English shining light in Europe, out of the reckoning, it is time we re-examined the merits of this league in relation to the RaboDirect Pro 12 and the Top 14.
Saracens and Harlequins, first and second domestically, are now the only English teams with a chance of progressing, with Harlequins doing so from second in their pool.
Is this down to the salary cap and therefore smaller or worse squads? Not really, when the evidence shows that Harlequins and Saracens are competing on two fronts. To blame the difference in chequebooks is to hide the real rugby reasons behind this decline.
I always preferred the Premiership. A child raised on Sky's groundbreaking coverage, I felt like I knew Miles Harrison and Graeme Simmons and Dewi Morris was just an awkward uncle who I wanted to go away. Their coverage, excellent though it was, gave the impression that the Premiership was better than the other leagues. Why wouldn't they show the other ones, I naively assumed?
To a certain extent I was right. It is a league made up of proper rugby clubs, with proper grounds and proper histories, not created in the 1990s by the governing bodies, like those in the Celtic nations. The fact that for me to watch the Celtic League would involve watching a struggling Edinburgh was undoubtedly a factor - had I been going along to Thomond Park regularly I doubt I would have felt such a pull down south.
The Celtic League was a false league, I would argue. Teams can afford to throw caution to the wind because there is no threat of relegation. No wonder they perform better in the Heineken Cup when their domestic matches can afford to be warm-ups for the bigger stage. I no longer believe this. Yes, the centrally-contracted nature of the Irish provinces means their player-welfare structures are far more advanced so top internationals can play less games, but the Celtic League is a serious title and Leinster, Munster and the Ospreys take it extremely seriously.
Does the supposed greater pressure of the Premiership lead to unimaginative, stodgy rugby? Are teams less risk-taking because of relegation? I doubt it. The English teams involved in the Heineken Cup are rarely worried about relegation at the same time. Instead, the unimaginative, stodgy rugby is a result of a lack of ambition and an inclination towards the the conservative.
Who are the most expansive and best-coached teams? Harlequins and Saracens. Harlequins play a very free-flowing, continuous game. They want pace to put teams on the back foot. Saracens have a similar ability as well as being structured in the extreme.
Sky's Dean Ryan highlighted a pyramid of skills or qualities that he believes make up success in Europe.
I would agree with the base and the top. What Ryan classes the foundation, the building blocks, are true for any rugby team. You won't have the ball without a good set-piece, you won't keep it without good contact skills and you won't be in the game without a solid defence. But Ryan gives too much credence to having good 'phase play' - a horrible phrase - and 'shape' - a slightly less horrible phrase. Organisation is surely just every player pulling in the same direction, like watching Toulouse. Execution and precision are far more important than 'phase play' and 'shape', and this is a fact that most English clubs should wake up to.
Leinster and Toulouse are leading the way in Europe with their execution, precision and willingness to have a go. They have the foundation and they have that x-factor that is not inhibited by some dogmatic 'shape'.
This is something Harlequins and Conor O'Shea have realised this season. The sooner the other English clubs catch up, the better for their league and their chances in the Heineken Cup, because the rest of Europe is passing them by.
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