Premiership Rugby out of Heineken Cup?

CatFromHue

Winters wrote: »

Here is what the English clubs are looking for:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/9298558/English-Premiership-clubs-open-rift-with-Celtic-nations-over-Heineken-Cup-qualification.html

At the moment only 2/6 second place teams qualify for the QF's. Under this set up of five pools of four 3/5 second teams would qualify. The pool stages would become less competitive if you ask me.

Four pools of five could be interesting but the pool stage would take up an extra two weekends then which there isn't room to accommodate at the moment.

sydthebeat

The English and French clubs will propose that six sides each from the Top 14, the Premiership and the Pro 12 qualify for the Heineken Cup, with the remaining two spots being filled by the country that provides the winners of the Heineken and Amlin Cups.

bye bye Italian involvement...

CatFromHue

sydthebeat wrote: »

bye bye Italian involvement...

The Italian teams, presuming they don't get into the top 6 in the Rabo, would be catered for in the Amlin which wasn't around when the HEC was first introduced. They'd still be getting European action and against some big names too. Wasps, Perpignan, Toulon, and Stade Francais were all in the Amlin this year.

sydthebeat

and would that have to be accepted by the italian rfu?

Winters

While their proposal would take away some of the competitiveness from the H Cup group stages, it would certainly make the Amlin a bit more interesting.

I think that the Amlin might be a good solution for the two Italian clubs for their development. Well Zebre definitely.

thomond2006

sydthebeat wrote: »

bye bye Italian involvement...

Biarritz and Serge will fight this to the death! :pac:

CatFromHue

Treviso home attendance this season HEC
Ospreys - 4500
Biarritz - 4000
Saracens - 4500
(figures from Wiki so take from that what you want)
Avg HEC home attendance - 4333
Avg Rabo home attendance - 3900 (from Rabo website)

10/11 season
Leicester - 5800
Lanelli 3800
Perpignan - 4000
(figures from Wiki so take from that what you want)
Avg HEC home attendance - 4533
Avg Rabo home attendance - 4420 (from Rabo website)

There isn't a huge increase in home attendance for Treviso because of the HEC, well not yet anyway. I think it may be benefical for them to compete in the Amlin were they have a chance of actually winning a few games as opposed to their current record of 1 win and 1 draw in 12 games.

You never know they may turn around and sacrifice the Amlin in favour of the Rabo :pac:

ray jay

How much money would the Italian teams lose by moving to the Amlin?

Clue: a lot.

irishbucsfan

ray jay wrote: »

How much money would the Italian teams lose by moving to the Amlin?

Clue: a lot.

How much then?

OldRio

Winters wrote: »

Here is what the English clubs are looking for:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/9298558/English-Premiership-clubs-open-rift-with-Celtic-nations-over-Heineken-Cup-qualification.html



All of Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connacht would make a loss if it weren't for the IRFU.

But we are debating the problems in English Rugby not Irish.

freyners

pajunior wrote: »

Possibly but for most teams it has to do with beating the pro12 teams.
Harlequins lost to Connacht partly because Connacht were able to rest players for that game while Harlequins were not.
Similarly the second worst team in the pro12 beat the best team in France because of the same reason.

Some would argue that the English/French teams should be building bigger squads to deal with the two competitions. Personally I disagree, Edinburgh should not be in the HC next year.

Connacht played toulouse the week before with their best available 15 so that is complete nonsense

Winters

But we are debating the problems in English Rugby not Irish.

Are we not debating the decision by Premiership Rugby Limited to leave the Paris Accord?

Always good preparation to try to understand the other side and how the other side will argue their points.

Chucky the tree

I like the changes, hopefully they are made. Not sure how the groups would because less competitive either. If anything I think they would be more competitive and more teams would still be in with a chance of qualifying towards the latter stages of the group. This year the teams would be

Pro12:
Leinster, Munster, Ospreys, Glasgow, Scarlets, Ulster.

Top 14:
Toulouse, Clermont, Toulon, Castres, Montpellier, Racing Metro

Aviva
Harlequins, Leicister, Sarcens, Saints, Sale, Exeter.

HEC cup winners : Cardiff(Leinster already in so I'd guess the extra place would go to the next highest finisher in the Pro12.)

Amlin: Biaritz.


Seedings wise it would be close to this

Tier 1: Leinster Rugby, Toulouse, Biarritz Olympique, Munster Rugby, Cardiff

Tier 2: ASM Clermont Auvergne, Ulster Rugby, Leicester Tigers, Harlequins, Saints

Tier 3. Ospreys, Scarlets, Saracens, Toulon, Glasgow

Tier 4: Castres, Racing, Montepllier, Exeter, Sale


Personnally I think 5 groups of 4 and 3 second placed from that list of teams would make a much better competition then the current one. Not to mention the extra bonus of improving the competitiveness of Rabo12 which is really needed.

twinytwo

at the end of the day it comes down to greed....

A very very poor munster team went over to northampton and hockied them back to the stone age.

Leinster would piss alll over the premiership

Personally england should try win it first before they start making demands.. they go on about relegation in the premiership but at the end of the day none of the big teams would ever be in danger of relegation anyway.

they should try fixing their own clubs before "fixing" the hc

sydthebeat

Chucky the tree wrote: »

...
HEC cup winners : Cardiff(Leinster already in so I'd guess the extra place would go to the next highest finisher in the Pro12.)
.....

is it not the country of the previous HC winners who fills the extra place, in this case it would be connacht.

OldRio

Winters wrote: »

Are we not debating the decision by Premiership Rugby Limited to leave the Paris Accord?


Always good preparation to try to understand the other side and how the other side will argue their points.

Yes agreed see my previous posts.
This is about cash.

ScareGilly

What about having:
Best placed Irish team
Best placed Italian team
Best placed Scottish team
Best placed Welsh team
Top 6 English teams
Top 6 French teams
And the next 4 top finishers from the Pro12?

I'll use this year's Rabo table as an example;
Top Irish team - Leinster
Top Italian team - Treviso
Top Scottish team - Glasgow
Top Welsh team - Ospreys
Next 4 best finishers - Munster, Scarlets, Ulster and Cardiff
Would leave 4 groups of 5?

Podge_irl

I imagine it will end up something like that qualification wise.

4 groups of 5 won't work though - its another two weekend of games. Exactly the opposite of what the French want.

24 teams

Best placed team from each Union - 6 (18 left)
6 more from France (12)
6 more from England (6)
4 more from Rabo (2)
Previous winner (1) ( or if already qualified, extra space to their league
Amlin winner (0) ( or if already qualified, extra space to their league


sorted

Tox56

Deleted User wrote: »

24 teams

Best placed team from each Union - 6 (18 left)
6 more from France (12)
6 more from England (6)
4 more from Rabo (2)
Previous winner (1) ( or if already qualified, extra space to their league
Amlin winner (0) ( or if already qualified, extra space to their league


sorted

Exactly what I would like to see.

I don't see the need for over complicating and it's hardly going to be a disaster for the Rabo, we would still have at least 1 Italian team and the lower teams would be more competitive for a HEC spot, and hopefully no more teams will forfeit the league if they progress in the HEC.

irishbucsfan

Jazlynn Nutritious Bellboy wrote: »

24 teams

Best placed team from each Union - 6 (18 left)
6 more from France (12)
6 more from England (6)
4 more from Rabo (2)
Previous winner (1) ( or if already qualified, extra space to their league
Amlin winner (0) ( or if already qualified, extra space to their league


sorted

Which is exactly what I've been repeatedly calling for!

Can I ask, why do they want 20 teams exactly? I don't quite get the benefit

mar-z

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Which is exactly what I've been repeatedly calling for!

Can I ask, why do they want 20 teams exactly? I don't quite get the benefit

Might be a result of noises from France that they want a cut in numbers and the rumours of a subsequent expanding of T14.

So if that's the English proposal then they keep the French onside while having a larger share of HC money from having a higher proportion of teams in the comp. Otherwise I'm not sure of the benifit to the English clubs.

irishbucsfan

The part I don't understand is how does fewer teams, but the same number of game weeks, help them to expand the T14?

mar-z

irishbucsfan wrote: »

The part I don't understand is how does fewer teams, but the same number of game weeks, help them to expand the T14?

Huh Tbh I've just seen that said in different places and not thought about it much while nodding along. Now you say it I have no idea how that makes sense.

mfceiling

How about we just give the trophy to the frogs one year and to the Brits the next year.

This will save them from qualifying, fatigue, schedules, player welfare etc










And getting trounced by us every year...

Winters

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/18409108

Robson told BBC Northampton: "If you look at English and French sides, we've got strong Premiership competitions. "The RaboDirect Pro12 is arguably less strong and every club qualifies. That doesn't appear to be very fair."

I understand the qualifying argument but screw him for insulting the Pro12.

irishbucsfan

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Which is exactly what I've been repeatedly calling for!

Can I ask, why do they want 20 teams exactly? I don't quite get the benefit

But this isn't what the English and French have asked for.
It is an example of appeasement, where we would slightly move the qualification rules toward what has been asked for, but preserving the need to keep the competition European-wide.

All that the above does is remove 2 auto places ( again, Scottish and Italian) until either of them manage to produce a team that can win the Amlin or HEC to restore them to full complement. OR that they are able to produce two teams able to finish in the top 6 of the competition.

Which, lovely as it sounds, is miles off being a semi-regular occurrence.

That appeasement would actually make sweet **** all of a difference to any of the team's outlook on the league/HEC competitions as they would only be competing vs each other (Treviso only care about Zebre) etc, and you could easily see a scenario where, 15 points ahead of Glasgow at Christmas, with 2 HEC wins and a draw so far, Edinburgh send out "the boys" for the entire Christmas break with their must-win HEC game in the opening week of the new year.

All you do is introduce relativity adjustments within the league, head 2 head is all that matters for HEC qualification, and this can actually damage the league instead of making it competitive as shown above.

Basically, the problem is that the HEC is a Euro Competition, not a champions competition. We can't have it fighting two fronts.

It can't be a competition designed to showcase and spread the game if it applies merit-only qualification as it will develop as a contracting cup as we lose Italian and Scottish and AN Other (Russia / Portugal who knows in 15 years) participation and qualification.

The second problem is that the qualification metrics used because of the different leagues are always going to skew the situation. The only way to actually come around to the French/English demands is to delete the Rabo12 and have a Scottish league (between two teams), an Italian League (between 2 teams) etc... Which is beyond ridiculous.


The thing is, if it were a "champions of leagues" type competition, then yes, the way they've asked for it would make sense. But that's not what the HEC is supposed to be. It's not Pro12 vs T14 vs AP. It's England vs France vs Ireland vs Scotland vs Italy vs Wales representatives.

thomond2006

Winters wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/18409108



I understand the qualifying argument but screw him for insulting the Pro12.

Most Rabo teams have far more internationals than the AP sides, they have to rotate to prevent player burnout.

It's ignorant fools like this guy that can't see simple facts like that. The Pro12 final was far better than the AP final btw.

I can't see ERC caving in much to these whingers, but I accept there has to be change.

Winters

Winters wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/18409108

I wish the bbc/media would stop printing these lines until they've actually looked into them.

"players in the rabo play less" - like for like comparisons exist and don't agree with this statement. What's more, this is directly linked to below, and an obvious dearth of development in several squads in the AP.

"Teams are able to rotate" - That's like complaining about having substitutes. Squad development is part of the modern game. 15 players can't win a league. Note that rotation /squad development can reach a level where teams aren't significantly weakened by the "rotation" and would have no problem competing with some of the other teams in the league's first teams. This is true in every league, in every sport in the world.

"arguably less strong" - nice use of the word arguably, rendering the rest of the sentence simple conjecture. However, print this over and over again in the media and people forget what the first word means.

I got red in the face discussing how important it was to have more than 15 players available for Leinster, Munster and especially Ireland. I'm but a fan, how can the bigwigs not see how much easier their job would be if they had 2 candidates in every position?

JustinDee

thomond2006 wrote: »

Most Rabo teams have far more internationals than the AP sides, they have to rotate to prevent player burnout

Really, Alan?
How would the likes of Leicester, Sale or even Robson's own, Northampton compare with Scarlets, Edinburgh or Leinster, for example?
Don't even get me started on the French teams or Saracens . . .