United Rugby Championship announced, beginning September 2021

They just haven't updated the schedule yet.

Premier say they have a live semi final at 7pm Saturday but there is no game at that time so it's obviously just a placeholder.

Be grand.

It's telling that there's no Scots or Welch named. Seriously damning view on their clubs. They will be in trouble for some time, they have vastly weaker schedules and still they have no standout players.

The whole structure is wrong, imo. The fairest way to run this league is for some type of draw. 4 pools of 4 who play each other 2 times and then play every other side once. It would mean that sides like Glasgow would have to earn their place in the qf's.

Yeah there was a list of ten players per position

It's all dreck! I'm delighted fir the south African players. They've enhanced the league already.

It's a farce anyway. That ten players can nominally be shortlisted based on stats alone seems overly engineered.

If Leinster annihilate the Bulls and then either Ulster/Stormers and still somehow have only one player in a 'dream team', it will just show up how its a stats based dream team rather than a "best" team. Same for Ulster who could win and end up with 2/15 players.

It's a nice shiny thing to have, but it doesn't really say much.

My sense is that the WRU are largely comprised of old boys from the club era. Probably nice people, good club men, but completely incompetent with respect to the demands of a modern union, identifying the need for and overseeing a complex system of collaborative youth development across the country and the associated channels up to the regional and national squads. Also, these lads may not be best suited for running what's essentially a multi-hundred-million-pound business, and the temptations that accompany that.

How easily the IRFU could have been the same (look at the FAI for example, we are not nationally immune from incompetence and corruption). And I wouldn't even call this a class thing either. I reckon in Ireland we were just lucky that a few key people were in the right place at the right time, much like how any company succeeds when so many others fail.

I think there's a genuine chance of an all-URC final in the ERC before we'll again see an all-Premiership final.

Its easy to say "pretty much everybody in Ireland identifies with their province" now, as a rugby fan, after 25 years of provincial rugby. But prior to that it very much was not a cultural thing.

People from Cork were from Cork. Not Munster. People from Wexford were from Wexford, not Leinster. Identification was on county lines (thanks in part to the GAA), not at all on provinces.

Clubs played far more regular games, and got much higher yearly attendances than provincial rugby. As did schools.

Provinces unquestionably weren't something that "pretty much everyone in Ireland identifie[d] with" before the 1990s. Back then nobody would say "I'm a Leinster fan" if asked what rugby team they identified with (if they even identified with a rugby team...), it would have been "I'm a Lansdowne fan".

IIRC the picture re interprovincial rugby before professional rugby was a mixed one re attendances in Ireland. I saw Ulster beat Leinster in front of c15,000 in the early 1970's and Ulster vs Munster got a decent crowd but Ulster vs Connacht seemed to attract far less. Unsure what it was like in other provinces pre professional rugby. The really big attendances outside international matches in the pre professional era were the provincial teams playing major touring sides. Ulster vs NZ in 1972 attracted over 20,000. The onset of floodlit rugby at Ravenhill saw pretty good crowds for midweek and some Friday matches in the 1980s and early 1990s.

IMHO the fact there was an interprovincial structure dating back into the 19th century and an interprovincial championship from just after the 2nd WW gave Ireland a big advantage over Wales in adapting to professionalism. Also I think soccer has become far more popular in Wales in recent years and e.g. Osprey's home ground is rarely full for a rugby game but often full for a soccer match.

Jeepers I've obviously touched a raw nerve...you've quoted that line in about 4 posts at this stage!

I remember watching Ulster play NZ in about 1989 in front of a packed put and raucous Ravenhill. Not sure what the capacity was, but whatever it was it was exceeded.

I also remember watching Ulster play Munster in the early 90s and there was a decent enough crowd there.

I'd say people definitely had an affinity with their province. Certainly growing up in the 80s and early 90s I always dreamt of playing for Ulster so it was definitely a thing in my head back then.