ERC rankings 2011-2012 + HEC Qualifiers

ormond lad

Well thats another season over, now the long wait to the pool draws in July

Tier 1
Toulouse
Leinster
Munster
Cardiff
Biarritz
Northampton

Tier 2
Leicester
Clermont
Ospreys
Bath
Harlequins
Ulster

Tier 3
London Irish
Saracens
Gloucester
Glasgow
Scarlets
Edinburgh

Tier 4
Treviso
Castres
Connacht
Aironi
Montpellier
Racing Metro

From a munster perspective
Best Case:
Ospreys,Glasgow, montpelier
Worse Case:
Leicester,Scarlets,Racing Metro

CIARAN_BOYLE

ormond lad wrote: »

From a munster perspective
Best Case:
Ospreys,Glasgow, montpelier
Worse Case:
Leicester,Scarlets,Racing Metro

Each group needs an English team and a French team so your best case isn't possible

RMD

Wouldn't mind getting Clermont again, always a tough but good game and their supporters are serious craic. I'd honestly prefer to have an interesting group like this year rather than a potentially easy group.

CatFromHue

leinsters or munsters easiest possible group would be:

bath, glasgow, montpellier / castres

hardest possible group:

clermont, saracens, racing metro:eek:

ulsters easiest possible:

cardiff, bath, castres/montpellier

hardest possible:

toulouse, saracens, racing metro

funky penguin

For Connacht....it's going to be tough. They're going to have Toulouse, Biarritz or Clermont in their group, then one of the English teams.

Is there a rule about more than one Irish province in a group?

Hope their first season of top flight club rugby goes well!

funky penguin

CatFromHue wrote: »

leinsters or munsters easiest possible group would be:

bath, glasgow, montpellier / castres

hardest possible group:

clermont, saracens, racing metro:eek:

Just thinking.....can this happen? Now that there are only 6 French teams, don't they need one per group?

EDIT: I thin it'll be the English that will have two teams in one group. Correct me if I'm wrong, not sure about this!

ormond lad

funky penguin wrote: »

For Connacht....it's going to be tough. They're going to have Toulouse, Biarritz or Clermont in their group, then one of the English teams.

Is there a rule about more than one Irish province in a group?

Hope their first season of top flight club rugby goes well!

funky penguin wrote: »

Just thinking.....can this happen? Now that there are only 6 French teams, don't they need one per group?

Yes, 1 french club per group, england will have 7 teams in next years HEC so obviously 2 will be in the same group.

CatFromHue

ormond lad wrote: »

Yes, 1 french club per group, england will have 7 teams in next years HEC so obviously 2 will be in the same group.

it gets kinda confusing.

there is only 1 french team in tier 2, none in tier 3, and 3 in tier 4!

there is also no english team in tier 4.

it seems like the erc have two conflicting set of rules for choosing the pools; 1 by country, and the other by a tier system!

CIARAN_BOYLE

funky penguin wrote: »

Just thinking.....can this happen? Now that there are only 6 French teams, don't they need one per group?

EDIT: I thin it'll be the English that will have two teams in one group. Correct me if I'm wrong, not sure about this!

Yeah English teams will be two in one group

Clermont Biarritz and Toulouse will get two Italian teams and Connacht in their group since its one french team per group

Its the lowest seeded English team that will be in a group with two English teams so Gloucester will be facing another English team

Its impossible for Ulster to get Cardiff and an Italian team since Cardiff and Ulster blocks off the three French teams that aren't top seeds

CatFromHue wrote: »

it gets kinda confusing.

there is only 1 french team in tier 2, none in tier 3, and 3 in tier 4!

there is also no english team in tier 4.

it seems like the erc have two conflicting set of rules for choosing the pools; 1 by country, and the other by a tier system!

While there is two rules they don't in any way conflict with each other, there doesn't need to be an English/French tier in each tier for any reason

pajunior

CatFromHue wrote: »

hardest possible group:

clermont, saracens, racing metro:eek:

Sure Leinter do that as their early season warm up before the real competition begins :rolleyes:

lologram

RMD wrote: »

Wouldn't mind getting Clermont again, always a tough but good game and their supporters are serious craic. I'd honestly prefer to have an interesting group like this year rather than a potentially easy group.

I was thinking the same myself. Leinster were better served by having a tough group than, say, Toulouse's pool of Wasps, Glasgow and Dragons. Wouldn't say no to a slightly easier pool though. Just not too easy.

RMD

lologram wrote: »

I was thinking the same myself. Leinster were better served by having a tough group than, say, Toulouse's pool of Wasps, Glasgow and Dragons. Wouldn't say no to a slightly easier pool though. Just not too easy.

Yes, I think the tough pool really set us up for the knockout stages. If you look at the pool we had, Clermont and Racing Metro both finished in the top 4 of the Top 14 while the Saracens finished 2nd in the Aviva Premiership. Not only did these games set us up for the knockout stages, but they provided some excellent games as well. Knowing we had beaten some of the best teams in Europe really helped when it came to the Knockouts, instead of mediocre teams like Glasgow, the Scarlets and Wasps.

A group with 3 teams on-par with Saracens and Racing would be nice, Clermont are just that bit better which makes them a worry.

bleg

4 provincial matches a weekend to watch next season...

PhatPiggins

Toulouse will get Quins/Glasgow/Arinoi

BoarHunter

Draw is on June 7th and Finale will be played in Twickers

Mr.Applepie

BoarHunter wrote: »

Draw is on June 7th and Finale will be played in Twickers

Is it too early to predict that the order of teams that will get a home SF will be English/ML/French..... purely by chance of course;)

mahoo

CatFromHue wrote: »

hardest possible group:

clermont, saracens, racing metro:eek:

the group we qualified easily from this year ;-)... agree with other comments above that a tough group served us well. a lot of the belief that got us through the latter games was built on the performances in the group stage. . if we hadn't had those games under our belt i think we might not have got past toulouse. composure was amazing in that game

tolosenc

Aironi, Embra and Quins/Bath would be handy.

totallegend

tolosenc wrote: »

Aironi, Embra and Quins/Bath would be handy.

It would, but every pool has to have a French team.