Guinness Pro12 2015/2016 Season thread

thomond2006

Bazzo wrote: »

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/italians-want-third-team-pro12-11329304

Not sure how I'd feel about having a third set of Italian whipping boys join the league.

The obvious reasons for not including a 3rd team aside, there simply isn't space in the calendar and the last thing the Pro12 needs are more matches with shadow squads.

bilston

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

irishbucsfan

bilston wrote: »

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

If the teams dropped from 22 games to 14 games a season you can kiss goodbye to trying to compete with the English/French (who play 22/24 games each) financially.

bilston

irishbucsfan wrote: »

bilston wrote: »

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

If the teams dropped from 22 games to 14 games a season you can kiss goodbye to trying to compete with the English/French (who play 22/24 games each) financially.

I realise that, earlier in the week I suggested getting in on the LV Cup (if it's still running) or having Inter Pros here in Ireland (up to other countries to do what they want) or just another Celtic Cup but those would be the games where you'd play your weakened teams.

sydthebeat

bilston wrote: »

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

2 leagues a la the current sxviii would be a better idea, with the interpros retained regardless of league to keep they number of games up...

connachta

Nobody would ever go to see your 2nd division

bilston

connachta wrote: »

Nobody would ever go to see your 2nd division

I disagree.

You never know you might have to to.get your fix of rugby :-)

Digifriendly

Financially how would some of the 2nd Division clubs cope with no high profile regular season games? Can't see many of Cardiff or Dragons fans being happy about this, even if it was only for 1 season before both possibly got promoted.

bilston

Digifriendly wrote: »

Financially how would some of the 2nd Division clubs cope with no high profile regular season games? Can't see many of Cardiff or Dragons fans being happy about this, even if it was only for 1 season before both possibly got promoted.

I don't think the fans of any team are happy when their team is relegated.

You could go for a conference system but then there would be fewer big games and that would be less appealing to TV IMO.

its_phil

bilston wrote: »

Digifriendly wrote: »

Financially how would some of the 2nd Division clubs cope with no high profile regular season games? Can't see many of Cardiff or Dragons fans being happy about this, even if it was only for 1 season before both possibly got promoted.

I don't think the fans of any team are happy when their team is relegated.

You could go for a conference system but then there would be fewer big games and that would be less appealing to TV IMO.

With a conference system you can create more big derby games

phog

bilston wrote: »

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

Can't see any top or mid table team agreeing to anything like that. Commercially Div 2 would nearly be worse than being out of the Champions Cup.

bilston

Peter Jackson in the Rugby Paper is reporting some pretty dramatic potential changes to the Pro 12 being looked at in the future with the addition of South African and North American teams. I'll believe it when I see it but clearly the powers that be are looking at ways of making the competition more attractive so that they can compete with the Premiership and Top 14.

Felix Jones is God

bilston wrote: »

Peter Jackson in the Rugby Paper is reporting some pretty dramatic potential changes to the Pro 12 being looked at in the future with the addition of South African and North American teams. I'll believe it when I see it but clearly the powers that be are looking at ways of making the competition more attractive so that they can compete with the Premiership and Top 14.

The Saffers were mentioned last year alright, closer in timezone to the NH teams than the rest of the SH teams seemed to be a big selling point

CatFromHue

I take it they're not Super Rugby SA teams as I think they're signed up to the new Super 18's for a few years.

Not sure how keen the other SANZAR nations would be with such a link up as I think SA is one of the bigger financial generators in the Super comp.

molloyjh

I'm not sure if expanding into other European countries would be a good idea. At least not yet. We already have in essence 4 separate markets that we are trying to sell to and the last thing we need is more dead rubber games with greater difficulty trying to market them over numerous markets. We need to increase the quality of the games we have and develop the brand. We can look to expand a bit more once we do that, but it's already viewed as a poor relation. Taking on Spanish or Georgian teams will only make that worse.

How about a conference system that might look like this (based on this seasons final standings):

Conference 1|Conference 2
Leinster|Connacht
Glasgow|Ulster
Scarlets|Munster
Cardiff|Ospreys
Edinburgh|Dragons
Zebre|Treviso
3rd Italian|3rd Scottish

Home and away legs in each conference meaning 12 games there. Then play-offs between the teams at each position to define the full table. So say both conferences finish in the above order, then Leinster would play Connacht and the winner would come 1st, with the loser coming 2nd etc. With European qualification and next seasons conference on the line based on the full table standings these games should all be competitive.

We could then go into QFs and SFs before the final. So again based on this seasons standings:

|Home|Away
QF 1|Leinster|Ospreys
QF 2|Connacht|Cardiff
QF 3|Glasgow|Munster
QF 4|Ulster|Scarlets
||
SF 1| Winner QF 1|Winner QF 4
SF 2| Winner QF 2|Winner QF 3
||
Final|Winner SF 1|Winner SF 2

That's 13 games in the regular season with another 3 knock-out rounds. There are currently 16 games + 2 knock-outs outside of the international windows so this doesn't overly affect that time period if we were to run the Celtic League outside of those periods.

The only question then is what to do within the international windows. Maybe having local derby games in those periods would help? Or even a cup/plate competition of some description? So each conference has 7 teams. If they play each other once (3 times in Nov and 3 times in Feb) with home advantage rotating each season. Then each team plays their equivalent in the other conference for a cup, plate etc like in Sevens? It would essentially be an A competition within the international windows but gives the smaller teams a greater shot at being competitive and winning some form of silverware.

So that would be 13 games in the regular league season with another 7 games during the international window. That leaves us on 20 games. With 3 knock-out rounds after that covering 8 of the 14 teams then we have a season that has 23 games which is only 1 less than what we have now.

thomond2006

You would need to have inter-conference matches during the regular season IMO. It would get very boring to play the same teams each year. I'm not a fan of a 3rd Italian team tbh. 3rd Scottish team perhaps but would it have enough fan support to sustain it?

molloyjh

thomond2006 wrote: »

You would need to have inter-conference matches during the regular season IMO. It would get very boring to play the same teams each year. I'm not a fan of a 3rd Italian team tbh.

The conferences would change each year depending on final table standings. So ultimately your conferences would be:

Conference 1|Conference 2
1st Place|2nd Place
3rd Place|4th Place
5th Place|6th Place
7th Place|8th Place
9th Place|10th Place
11th Place|12th Place
13th Place|14th Place

We need an additional 2 teams to make this work I think and no matter who we get they are going to be weak teams to start with. We need to make our peace with that. But by giving them things to fight for through-out the season, e.g. European qualification and that plate final thing, that should help increase their competitiveness over time. And don't forget there aren't enough places in the Challenge Cup for all of these either so there could be some form of meritocratic thing for that as well that could create some more competition. All of this feeds into the brand and selling the competition. The regular league season is full of international players and there's always something to fight for.

irishbucsfan

The only way a 3rd Italian team works is if it's followed very swiftly by the closure of one of the existing teams.

This is quite unrelated to the current news but Treviso were never supposed to be in the league in the first place, if anyone remembers. It was decided that a team in Rome (called the centurions or praetorians or something like that I think) was a far better idea until a board consisting of a large proportion of Treviso representatives decided to overrule that decision and put Treviso forward quite late in the day.

Winters

Im not advocating kicking them out but if the FIR decided they want to concentrate on a domestic league instead, and I was the Pro12, i wouldn't stand in their way of leaving.

Keeping the Pro# down to the three countries of Ireland, England and Wales would concentrate the games.

I would also love to see the Intropro title celebrated with a trophy. The Judgement Day should also have a trophy of some sort.

Let's celebrate the fact the league is across different countries rather than cursing it.

phog

Tovey is staying with Edinburgh

Simon Thomas ‏@simonrug 1h1 hour ago
Jason Tovey has been handed a two-year deal by Edinburgh.

bilston

thomond2006 wrote: »

You would need to have inter-conference matches during the regular season IMO. It would get very boring to play the same teams each year. I'm not a fan of a 3rd Italian team tbh. 3rd Scottish team perhaps but would it have enough fan support to sustain it?

A third Scottish team could work if it was privately funded and was given carte blanche to sign whoever they liked (ie no restrictions on NSQ players). The reason being they would have to hit the ground running. Where you base them would be important. The Borders region is Scottish rugby's heartland, but then for the sake of spreading the game going to Aberdeen or Dundee could work. But you wpuld need to examine the potential support levels. I only mention Dundee because of the University which I think has a decent rugby heritage. But I have no idea about the rest of the city. The fact they already have two pro football teams suggests an already crowded market.

Adbrowne

small article in the herald tonight about the pro12 semi finals and its mentionned that over 30000 tickets have been sold for the final

thomond2006

Puafisi has received a three week ban so he's done for the season.

Bazzo

thomond2006 wrote: »

Puafisi has received a three week ban so he's done for the season.

I was wondering if he was going to get cited. Did it just happen now? Very delayed isn't it?

b.gud

Bazzo wrote: »

I was wondering if he was going to get cited. Did it just happen now? Very delayed isn't it?

Red cards are automatic citations. I was actually just thinking similar today that we hadn't heard anything, maybe it's cos last week was an off week?

Bazzo

b.gud wrote: »

Red cards are automatic citations. I was actually just thinking similar today that we hadn't heard anything, maybe it's cos last week was an off week?

That makes sense. I was checking if he'd picked up a ban a few days ago and couldn't see anything. Must have been the off week.

Winters

Strangely the total Pro12 attendance for the semi final weekend of 26,900 was over 4,000 more than the Aviva Premiership total of 22,537.

irishbucsfan

Winters wrote: »

Strangely the total Pro12 attendance for the semi final weekend of 26,900 was over 4,000 more than the Aviva Premiership total of 22,537.

Not very strange. All 4 games were sold out, that's just the capacity of all the stadia involved. I'm sure Exeter and Connacht could both have doubled those figures, Leinster and Saracens probably could have as well.

thomond2006

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Not very strange. All 4 games were sold out, that's just the capacity of all the stadia involved. I'm sure Exeter and Connacht could both have doubled those figures, Leinster and Saracens probably could have as well.

Yeah.....no.

awec

You'd struggle to find 6 people who like Saracens, no way their numbers could double.

irishbucsfan

thomond2006 wrote: »

Yeah.....no.

I don't think they've even have a slight struggle to sell 20,000 for a home semi against Leicester

thomond2006

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I don't think they've even have a slight struggle to sell 20,000 for a home semi against Leicester

Sorry Mark, no.

Cookiemunster

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I don't think they've even have a slight struggle to sell 20,000 for a home semi against Leicester

They couldn't sell out their Champions Cup quarter final against Northampton. I'd love to know where you think they'd get another 10,000 supporters from.

irishbucsfan

Cookiemunster wrote: »

They couldn't sell out their Champions Cup quarter final against Northampton. I'd love to know where you think they'd get another 10,000 supporters from.

They had 80,000 at a home league game the weekend after that. So probably there.

Not to mention Leicester have a pretty well established fan base.

awec

irishbucsfan wrote: »

They had 80,000 at a home league game the weekend after that. So probably there.

Not to mention Leicester have a pretty well established fan base.

It wasn't 80000 Saracens fans.

irishbucsfan

awec wrote: »

It wasn't 80000 Saracens fans.

So? There wouldn't need to be 20,000 Saracens fans present for them to double their attendance last weekend either. And Leicester are far better supported than Quins.

former total

Whatever else you want to say about Saracens, their ability to draw a massive crowd for big games is not in question.

OldRio

Well when you are selling tickets for next to nothing, sure you will get a good crowd.

former total

former total wrote: »

Whatever else you want to say about Saracens, their ability to draw a massive crowd for big games is not in question.

That's exactly what is in question.

Winters

I would consider big games a domestic league quarter final (8,050), a semi final (16,820) and a European cup semi final (9,932) no?

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

They had 80,000 at a home league game the weekend after that. So probably there.

Ha! Generally Sarries are getting under 10k at home games. Twice this season though they have managed 80k+. Although rather coincidentally (or perhaps not coincidentally at all) both of those were against Quins.

So did Sarries get those numbers or did Quins get those numbers? Given that Quins regularly sell out the Stoop despite their poor form I'm going to guess that the Quins fans had more to do with those numbers than the Sarries fans.

Sarries are arguably the strongest team in Europe at the moment. They are also the reigning AP champions this season as well. That they can't get 10k at a home game generally proves that they don't have much in the way of support. People get on bandwagons, yet even Saracens can't manage to get big numbers on theirs.

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

Ha! Generally Sarries are getting under 10k at home games. Twice this season though they have managed 80k+. Although rather coincidentally (or perhaps not coincidentally at all) both of those were against Quins.

So did Sarries get those numbers or did Quins get those numbers? Given that Quins regularly sell out the Stoop despite their poor form I'm going to guess that the Quins fans had more to do with those numbers than the Sarries fans.

Sarries are arguably the strongest team in Europe at the moment. They are also the reigning AP champions this season as well. That they can't get 10k at a home game generally proves that they don't have much in the way of support. People get on bandwagons, yet even Saracens can't manage to get big numbers on theirs.

Maybe it is Quins, however bizarre a claim that is. So what. Leicester have a far bigger following than Quins so there's your extra fans. I think people are completely missing the point in order to line up to take shots at Sarries.

ClanofLams

former total wrote: »

I can't understand the bitterness towards Saracens here. I just don't get it.

It may he related to them being a classless outfit as evidenced by examples such as them playing music over the tannoy to drown out visiting supporters and more generally, Nigel Wray.

OldRio

Winters wrote: »

I would consider big games a domestic league quarter final (8,050), a semi final (16,820) and a European cup semi final (9,932) no?

So much for their ability to draw large crowds at big games.

b.gud

Pro12 team of the season based on rugby.net stats

1. Rob Evans (Scarlets)
2. Tom McCartney (Connacht)
3. Finlay Bealham (Connacht)
4. Leone Nakarawa (Glasgow)
5. Aly Muldowney (Connacht)
6. Rhys Ruddock (Leinster)
7. James Davies (Scarlets)
8. Cornell Du Preez (Edinburgh)
9. Kieran Marmion (Connacht)
10. Paddy Jackson (Ulster)
11. Matt Healy (Connacht)
12. Ben Te'o (Leinster)
13. Bundee Aki (Connacht)
14. Craig Gilroy (Ulster)
15. Tiernan O'Halloran (Connacht)

16. Sean Cronin (Leinster)
17. Ricky Lutton (Ulster)
18. Tadgh Furlong (Leinster)
19. Franco van der Merw (Ulster)
20. Ellis Jenkins (Cardiff)
21. Ruan Pienaar (Ulster)
22. AJ MacGinty (Connacht)
23. Dan Evans* (Ospreys)

*I picked Evans for the 23 jersey as he was the back 3 player who had the highest score

irishbucsfan

James Davies is an openside, so ithat should be him and Ruddock right?

b.gud

irishbucsfan wrote: »

James Davies is an openside, so ithat should be him and Ruddock right?

Cheers missed that, will update it

Bazzo

Muldoon would be in there only he dropped off as a flanker because of the switch to 8. Buckley was the no 1 LH for a good while but I think he was overtaken after the injury.

Great season lads, it'll be remembered for a long time round these parts anyway!

irishbucsfan

Bazzo wrote: »

Muldoon would be in there only he dropped off as a flanker because of the switch to 8. Buckley was the no 1 LH for a good while but I think he was overtaken after the injury.

Great season lads, it'll be remembered for a long time round these parts anyway!

It's very much set in favour of people who have amassed a lot of gametime in the same position. So internationals or guys who play multiple positions probably not accurately represented. It's not a perfect season but it's still quite accurate IMO.

Bazzo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

It's very much set in favour of people who have amassed a lot of gametime in the same position. So internationals or guys who play multiple positions probably not accurately represented. It's not a perfect season but it's still quite accurate IMO.

Yeah, it's very geared toward the specific competion so as long as you know that looking at the stats it's fine. I think there's a similar one available for European competitions and maybe even internationals?