Heineken Cup: Do we have an unfair advantage?

04072511

04072511 wrote: »

The difference of opinion is coming from the fact that some are looking at this from the perspective of 6 countries each being allocated places, while some of us are looking at it from the point of view of 3 LEAGUES being allocated places. The Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italians agreed to join together to form a league so IMO they don't deserve to keep independant allocations. This just makes the Pro 12 a farce of a competition.

I've come up with a solution that still ensures representation of all 4 Pro 12 Nations, but at the same time rewards league position regardless of nationality:

Top Irish, Top Welsh, Top Scottish, Top Italian, then next best 3.

That keeps the league interesting going into the last few rounds, and also means that the Pro 12 teams actually have to go and do the business with regards HEC qualification, rather than just talk about how they would qualify anyway, and field weakened teams at the same time.

how about we do it
Top Irish, Top French, Top Scottish, Top English, Top Welsh, Top Italian, Top Romanian, Top Georgian, Top Russian.

And then we give the remainder of places to the countries of the 11 most recent winners?

smurphy29

DeDoc wrote: »

People quoting the example of Edinburgh this season - well what about Saints making the semis a few years back while getting themselves relegated in domestic fare? It might be more pertinent to have a closer look at Edinburghs results. Their winning margins in their group were 1, 1, -17, 7, 3 and 23 (against a LI team who were already gone). They could just as easily have been going into that game 0/5 rather than 4/5. They rode their luck to get their (and more power to them) and caught Toulouse on the hop. It doesn't mean they blew off the league to concentrate on the cup - I think it rather means that they just aren't very good and were in a very weak pool.

If you look at their league results - they got 4 Losing bonus points and a draw

Their average per game results were 20.6 points and 1.9 tries scored and 26.7 points and 2.9 tries conceded.

In the HEC, the results were 24.3 points and 2.4 tries scored and 21.8 points and 1.6 tries conceded.

If you have a look at the euro-rankings here (not perfect, but not bad)

http://www.eurorugby.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Rugger&file=latest

you'll see that Embra are ranked a lowly 24th. Their opponents were 17th, 23rd and 32nd. The average ranking of Rabo teams is 54.7, for the Aviva it is 52.2 and 56.4 for the T14. If you take the average strength of Embras opponents in the Rabo it is 55.4, while in the HEC it was 55.5 if you take all their games and 48.0 if you just take their pool games.

I'd argue that in fact their HEC performances were perfectly consistent with their Rabo form - they just got lucky to be in a very weak group where they just finished on the right side of a few results.

This is a weak argument. For a start, Edinburgh did throw the league, plain as day. For sure their HEC draw wasn't that tough, but six wins out of 8 compared with 5 from 22 in the league... pull the other one, it's got bells.

As for Northampton, this is a non-argument at best, and an own-goal at worst. Northampton did not qualify for the following year's competition, based on their lowly league placing!! Nobody is saying you have to concentrate on this or that, just saying that you should have to qualify based on your league position.

smurphy29

DeDoc wrote: »

And you swallowed it hook line and sinker. :eek:

The FFR were good neighbours to Italy and Romania in particular, during the end of the amateur era and into the early pro era. The French and English CLUBS (and that is what we're talking about here) have done what exactly?
The third tier competition they are proposing is a nonsense, a non-starter, and only they to disguise some of their more unpalatable demands with some sugar. There is already a Spanish side in the challenge cup. When would this tournament run? Who would fund the (pretty large) costs involved in shifting teams those distances. How would the likes of the Georgians and Russians play home games during the December/January period when the Amlin group stages happen? Would it even be safe to let players at that level play the likes of Wasps, Stade Francais etc

Plenty of logistical concerns for sure and I've no idea if it's viable or not - but they wouldn't be playing Stade, Wasps etc. They're talking about a third competition, not bringing these guys into the Amlin.

French clubs have employed umpteen Romanians, Italians and Georgians down the years. Now I'm sure they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but it still happens.

smurphy29

JustinDee wrote: »

What fiasco?? There was an huge buzz in Edinburgh before that semi-final. It was absolutely vital. The team earned also as well as being crucial big-game experience for the players not inducted to that level or higher.

Again, think less of the team disgruntled for losing but more of the effects on the game in region concerned. If the competition didn't have integrity, there would be no surprise results and an obvious few would walk it to semi-final stage.

I have no problem with that, I was delighted to see Edinburgh doing well and getting a huge crowd out.

How many of them will be back for the next ah-sure-who-cares-let's-lose-by-50 league game, though?

DeDoc

lets be clear here - are you implying that Embra set out from day 1 to disregard the league and focus efforts on the HEC. If you are, I think you're off your rocker.

If you're implying that the HEC had greater focus for them when they had a chance to qualify for a first ever home QF and they couldn't win the league, then ok - I agree. But that is no different than a host of teams from all countries have done and continue to do.

My point is that to compare Embras final league position and their final cup position doesn't tell you that they ignored one in favour of the other, any more than it did for Northampton. They had a **** pool and they're a **** team, just marginally less **** in comparison to their pool than with the league. As I've mentioned above 4 of their wins were by a single score, and 2 by a single point - so they could quite conceivably have been 0/6 in the pool stages with very little difference in performance level.

And why should teams have to qualify on their league position. If England decided to reduce the premiership to 8 teams, would we (or should we) argue for them to have less teams in Europe? EVERY single one of the 6N has changed their domestic structure since the inception of the HEC. We (in the Rabo) have just decided to structure our domestic rugby as we see fit for qualification to the HEC and to fit a combined league (the Rabo). England and France have no more business telling us how we should run our domestic rugby than we do telling them.

As it happens, I would like to see some changes to the Rabo in terms of qualification, to make the final league stages more exciting for all teams, but that should be a matter for the Rabo unions and not the Anglo/French club owners. However if I was involved in Italian or Scottish rugby I'd be asking why on earth I should give up what I have.

DeDoc

smurphy29 wrote: »

Plenty of logistical concerns for sure and I've no idea if it's viable or not - but they wouldn't be playing Stade, Wasps etc. They're talking about a third competition, not bringing these guys into the Amlin.

French clubs have employed umpteen Romanians, Italians and Georgians down the years. Now I'm sure they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but it still happens.

maybe you should read it more carefully. They are proposing the third team competition as a feeder into the Amlin. And the French clubs employing the players doesn't exactly do a whole lot for the domestic games of those countries.

smurphy29

DeDoc wrote: »

lets be clear here - are you implying that Embra set out from day 1 to disregard the league and focus efforts on the HEC. If you are, I think you're off your rocker.

If you're implying that the HEC had greater focus for them when they had a chance to qualify for a first ever home QF and they couldn't win the league, then ok - I agree. But that is no different than a host of teams from all countries have done and continue to do.

My point is that to compare Embras final league position and their final cup position doesn't tell you that they ignored one in favour of the other, any more than it did for Northampton. They had a **** pool and they're a **** team, just marginally less **** in comparison to their pool than with the league. As I've mentioned above 4 of their wins were by a single score, and 2 by a single point - so they could quite conceivably have been 0/6 in the pool stages with very little difference in performance level.

And why should teams have to qualify on their league position. If England decided to reduce the premiership to 8 teams, would we (or should we) argue for them to have less teams in Europe? EVERY single one of the 6N has changed their domestic structure since the inception of the HEC. We (in the Rabo) have just decided to structure our domestic rugby as we see fit for qualification to the HEC and to fit a combined league (the Rabo). England and France have no more business telling us how we should run our domestic rugby than we do telling them.

As it happens, I would like to see some changes to the Rabo in terms of qualification, to make the final league stages more exciting for all teams, but that should be a matter for the Rabo unions and not the Anglo/French club owners. However if I was involved in Italian or Scottish rugby I'd be asking why on earth I should give up what I have.

There's a lot of ifs and buts in this response. Fact is they got to the semi-finals of the HEC and finished second from bottom in the league.

Secondly, England and France are not 'telling us how to run our domestic game', merley challenging how its teams should qualify for the European Cup, in which they also take part. It's not a matter solely for the Rabo unions, that's just nonsense.

smurphy29

DeDoc wrote: »

However if I was involved in Italian or Scottish rugby I'd be asking why on earth I should give up what I have.

Exactly! Why you would give up automatic qualification for the only teams that compete - a huge advantage over the English and French sides! Why wouldn't you fight to keep it!?!?

Quin_Dub

No one has mentioned yet the main reason why the French want to reduce the Heineken cup to 20 teams...

They have a proposal to expand their league to 16 teams as they believe they can make more money on local TV rights by having more derby games..

So they want to cut the teams in the HEC to free up the extra week-ends to accommodate the extra Top16(!!) league games.

The Premiership just want more money, because as other posters have pointed out the majority of Premiership clubs are losing money hand over fist...and the current equal distribution of funds doesn't work for them...

So it's got nothing to do with equality or fairness , it's about specific local agendas.

I don't think we should reduce the number of team , 24 is the right number for me.

However I do think that the Rabo would benefit from having some kind of qualification in place.. It would keep the league competitive through to the end of the season for all teams...

My view (similar to what others have said) would be 7 teams each from France and England , with 8 from Rabo league - 4 allocated to the top team from each member country with the other 4 based on league standing. The remaining 2 places going to the HEC and Amlin winners.

alias no.9

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Cardiff, Edinburgh, Munster, Leinster and Ulster were in the quarter finals this year?

Seriously, Cardiff and Edinburgh qualified from the same group, which featured a mediocre Aviva Premership team and a French team that lost all of their home games and saw their domestic form decline significantly this season too. It was a freak of a group for two teams to even make the knockouts from, never mind the two that did. Racing could have won it comfortably, leaving two few points for the rest to scrap for to come close to knockout qualification. Both London Irish and Racing Metro should have been laughing with that group, avoiding Leinster, Toulouse, Munster, Biarritz and Leicester from Tier 1 of the draw where they got Cardiff and getting Edinburgh from Tier 3 where only Glasgow might have seemed an easier draw. That they did nothing with that good fortune is their own doing.

conf101

CatFromHue wrote: »

For maths reasons.

I want to make the Rabo more competitive and reducing the qualification places from 10 to 8 doesn't do enough but reducing it to 7 does.

You need 24 teams to make up the HEC.

3 x 7 = 21
Plus the previous seasons Amlin finalists and the HEC winner or team from the HEC winners league/country.

Out of curiosity, why would you give the Amlin runner up a HEC spot the following year and not the HEC runner up?

irishbucsfan

alias no.9 wrote: »

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Cardiff, Edinburgh, Munster, Leinster and Ulster were in the quarter finals this year?

Seriously, Cardiff and Edinburgh qualified from the same group, which featured a mediocre Aviva Premership team and a French team that lost all of their home games and saw their domestic form decline significantly this season too. It was a freak of a group for two teams to even make the knockouts from, never mind the two that did. Racing could have won it comfortably, leaving two few points for the rest to scrap for to come close to knockout qualification. Both London Irish and Racing Metro should have been laughing with that group, avoiding Leinster, Toulouse, Munster, Biarritz and Leicester from Tier 1 of the draw where they got Cardiff and getting Edinburgh from Tier 3 where only Glasgow might have seemed an easier draw. That they did nothing with that good fortune is their own doing.

Absolutely it was an odd group but I think the fact two of the teams had a competitive home competition added to that, at least to some small extent.

smurphy29

Quin_Dub wrote: »

No one has mentioned yet the main reason why the French want to reduce the Heineken cup to 20 teams...

They have a proposal to expand their league to 16 teams as they believe they can make more money on local TV rights by having more derby games..

So they want to cut the teams in the HEC to free up the extra week-ends to accommodate the extra Top16(!!) league games.

The Premiership just want more money, because as other posters have pointed out the majority of Premiership clubs are losing money hand over fist...and the current equal distribution of funds doesn't work for them...

So it's got nothing to do with equality or fairness , it's about specific local agendas.

I don't think we should reduce the number of team , 24 is the right number for me.

However I do think that the Rabo would benefit from having some kind of qualification in place.. It would keep the league competitive through to the end of the season for all teams...

My view (similar to what others have said) would be 7 teams each from France and England , with 8 from Rabo league - 4 allocated to the top team from each member country with the other 4 based on league standing. The remaining 2 places going to the HEC and Amlin winners.

Yes indeed, and this part of the French proposal I have no truck with whatsoever. I don't even see how the 20 team competition will reduce a round of games? Surely you still have groups of four and quarter-finals.

Winters

Quin_Dub wrote: »

My view (similar to what others have said) would be 7 teams each from France and England , with 8 from Rabo league - 4 allocated to the top team from each member country with the other 4 based on league standing. The remaining 2 places going to the HEC and Amlin winners.

I love the idea of the two cup winners gaining an extra place for their union and think that aspect should stay.

CatFromHue

conf101 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, why would you give the Amlin runner up a HEC spot the following year and not the HEC runner up?

To incentivise doing well in the Amlin.

JustinDee

smurphy29 wrote: »

I have no problem with that, I was delighted to see Edinburgh doing well and getting a huge crowd out.

How many of them will be back for the next ah-sure-who-cares-let's-lose-by-50 league game, though?

You can't think like that ie."What's the point in playing?" when you run a sport. You capitalise upon success. You don't crap on it.

Quin_Dub

Winters wrote: »

I love the idea of the two cup winners gaining an extra place for their union and think that aspect should stay.

I don't disagree - If you are the winner of either Cup , then you are not going to be consuming one of the regular places from your league...

It's a question to be answered for the Rabo league though - If they change the qualification criteria , would/should that "extra" place go to the next best placed team in the league or should it go to the next best team from the winners country?

DeDoc

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Absolutely it was an odd group but I think the fact two of the teams had a competitive home competition added to that, at least to some small extent.

So London Irish didn't give a fiddlers. Fat lot of good that did them in their domestic league.
Quins, Tigers, Sarries and Saints all gave Europe their best shot (and came up short) to my mind - didn't stop them grabbing the top 4 slots.
Standards have slipped in the Aviva while they've increased in the Rabo if you ask me.

DeDoc

smurphy29 wrote: »

There's a lot of ifs and buts in this response. Fact is they got to the semi-finals of the HEC and finished second from bottom in the league.

Secondly, England and France are not 'telling us how to run our domestic game', merley challenging how its teams should qualify for the European Cup, in which they also take part. It's not a matter solely for the Rabo unions, that's just nonsense.

There are lots of facts, but not all are relevant. As I've pointed out to you - the two are not inconsistent - Embra were in a **** group and could just as easily have finished bottom. Biarritz won the Amlin but were largely dreadful in their own league. Castres finished 4th in the league but bottom of their pool in Europe.

If France and England are telling us how our teams should qualify then they absolutely are telling us how to run our own league. Should we have any say in how the 6 English teams are selected? Or the 6 French?

rrpc

04072511 wrote: »

The difference of opinion is coming from the fact that some are looking at this from the perspective of 6 countries each being allocated places, while some of us are looking at it from the point of view of 3 LEAGUES being allocated places. The Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italians agreed to join together to form a league so IMO they don't deserve to keep independant allocations. This just makes the Pro 12 a farce of a competition.

What?

Are you serious? because we decided to form a league of four nations to improve competitiveness and give maningful game time, that should now be crapped on because somebody else thinks it's a farce?

Those of us who are looking at this in terms of 6 nations are doing so because that's what it is.

From the point of view of the ERC (that's the organisation tasked with the European cups) there are six nations involved and what they do to allocate their agreed places in the competitions is wholly up to them.

Not up to other clubs in other unions and certainly not up to people who's sole and only purpose is to line their pockets and who's own unions have had to impose strict salary caps and other mechanisms to prevent them from destroying the game for profit.

alias no.9

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Absolutely it was an odd group but I think the fact two of the teams had a competitive home competition added to that, at least to some small extent.

The Rabo is plenty competitive too and has matured into an excellent sporting product in its own right rather than the training exercise some people try to portray it as to prepare leagueless teams for HEC.
Time for the French and English to stop underestimating its perceived weaker teams. Cup Rugby is Cup Rugby, if you want to do well, you got to play the game.

irishbucsfan

alias no.9 wrote: »

The Rabo is plenty competitive too and has matured into an excellent sporting product in its own right rather than the training exercise some people try to portray it as to prepare leagueless teams for HEC.
Time for the French and English to stop underestimating its perceived weaker teams. Cup Rugby is Cup Rugby, if you want to do well, you got to play the game.

This is the side Ulster started against the European Champions in the Rabo this season....

Ulster: Nelson, Cochrane, Allen, Farrell, Gaston, McKinney, P Marshall, Black, Brady, Macklin, Barker, Stevenson, McComb, Birch, Diack, Joyce.

Hardly the worlds most competitive competition.

CIARAN_BOYLE

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Hardly the worlds most competitive competition.

4 days before playing Munster, you can't blame them scheduling should be looked at imo

irishbucsfan

Anyway the word over here is that the deadline for proposals is June 13th and both the FFR and RFU intend to make seperate proposals as the FFRs proposal is particularly mad (20 teams, quarter finals much earlier

alias no.9

irishbucsfan wrote: »

This is the side Ulster started against the European Champions in the Rabo this season....



Hardly the worlds most competitive competition.

Never said it was the worlds most competitive. You're being pretty selective in choosing the teamsheet from one of two league derbies played in five days in the middle of winter where the whole squad had to be utilised to not only to maximise the outcome but for basic player welfare. No doubt if I was petty enough I could find examples of similar in the AP or T14 where a team choses to concentrate their resources on the home game of two very close fixtures against top sides in their league. As it happens they got their obviously targeted outcome of one win.

irishbucsfan

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

4 days before playing Munster, you can't blame them scheduling should be looked at imo

They played Munsters second team 4 days later with about half their second team playing and 8 of those B&I guys came off the bench.

BoarHunter

Good topic. It reflects my opinion about the HCup. There is no way to deny that Leinster is a magnificient team and certainly up there with the TOP 2 in France. However it makes me thinking : how did they manage to build up that academy ? how did they build up this momentum ? where is the experience, funds, etc coming from ? The HCUP .... if you are qualified every year for certain it is a great relief.

How many campains did they play before success ? and every time with the garanty to try again the following year and build up some experience. When you work with security and consistancy it is always a good bonus.

The level of the PRO12 is somewhat weaker than the other leagues considering than most of the teams don't bother giving it a good go. Just compare game time between TOP14 players and others. A player like Mas is 12 matchs over Cian Healy for the season

Then if you have a closer look you can verify the decline of french success in the HCup since the creation of the TOP14 in 2005 giving way to the Celtic system to be well ahead in terms of preparation and freshness. When I hear about a TOP16 in the pipeline it is just scary !

The LNR are building something entertaining in the long term with most of the clubs having top of the range stadiums within a few season from now and suspens all the way through the last day. It is not really compatible with the format of the HCup.

To give a fair comparison today, I'm not sure if Munster would have qualified in the TOP6 of the French league this season .... or they wouldn't have gone out of their group in HCup ... it's one or the other really. ( i'm not gonna make friends on here by saying that :pac: ) I let you imagine the disaster in terms of finance for the club, the weaker attractivity for talents to join, etc,etc ....

So in conclusion ( and I can elborate on all the points above becasue there are a lot more reasons ) I think that yes there is an advantage for the celts in the HCup

BUT

I think the goal of the competition is not to crown the best team of the continent. As JustinDee said it is to promote the game. What was the level of the Celtic rugby before this ( league + international ) ?

In addition you have to admit that the level of the game is just miles ahead of any other club competition in some games. This is unvaluable and just for this the competition serves its purpose : Improving the level globaly across Europe.

I have chosen my league myself : Roll on this week end even though the HCup can be entertaining. I think the PRO12 teams are designed for it and will probably rule the Cup for years to come.

rrpc

irishbucsfan wrote: »

They played Munsters second team 4 days later with about half their second team playing and 8 of those B&I guys came off the bench.

This stuff is about as relevant to the discussion as what colour the away strip is.

We have yet to hear what the RFU will bring to the table at the behest of their clubs. What the FFR is bringing is frankly ludicrous and completely self serving. They've complained bitterly about the number of games they have to play in addition to European competition and now they want to reduce the European competition so that they can increase their domestic one :rolleyes:.

Somehwere in there, I'm sure there will be some convoluted (as only the French can create) reason as to why all this will be great for European rugby.

It's easy to see why the RFU have distanced themselves from that one. I suspect now that they are divided, it will be child's play to set them against each other .

Maybe we can get them to take the Romanians and Georgians in to make up the sixteen.

irishbucsfan

rrpc wrote: »

This stuff is about as relevant to the discussion as what colour the away strip is.

Perhaps, if you don't understand the discussion! The Leicester game was soon after those games. It's the whole argument.

marienbad

This is nothing to do do with fairness , it is just a power grab and any argument that bolsters that will be dragged into the mix .

The Anglo/French position (imho) is not as strong as it may have been in former years as the Heineken Cup has become such an institution and the Irish provinces - one could argue- along with Toulouse Leicester Wasps and just a few more - have made it so.

It is unthinkable and untenable that english rugby fans and to a lesser extent french fans and most importantly Sky would have the same interest in a competition that did not include the Irish sides.

Simply won't happen- we may tinker round the edges and possibly give up a spot or so , but the bandwagon is now vastly superior to the sum of its parts and Munster Leinster Ulster are intregal to that project .