Replacement for British and Irish Cup

The Lost Sheep

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

The new Irish/Welsh competition will be played across seven weeks “with the aim of mimicking the intensity required and week-to-week competition that PRO14 gives our players.”

“It’s a development competition,” continued Nucifora, “but hopefully the fact that we’ll be doing it over seven consecutive weeks gives us a lot more replication of what the players, coaches, support staff and match officials will receive when they get promoted up into a proper league.”

Nucifora also confirmed that he and head of domestic rugby, Scott Walker, will soon meet with the top 20 club teams in the country to discuss “how we can further align Irish rugby by trying to get maximum benefit out of club competitions for the development of our players.”

While Nucifora declined to confirm the expected changes to the structure of the Ulster Bank League the season after next, he underlined the IRFU’s ambition to have the new A team competition and the UBL “run seamlessly into each other; allowing for the best players not playing Pro14 week-to-week to be available to play club rugby.”


What are peoples thoughts on this?
Will we see AIL start later due to this competition being played at the start of the season? I hope not. provinces need A games so keeping a competition against non irish sides is good. Good that there will be much less chance of clashes of club and a level games.

Podge_irl

Surely Sep/Oct is when the academy players are most likely to be getting first team rugby?

errlloyd

Leinster A players are usually busy being Leinster players in September! With internationals rested, the next tier playing Pro14, our A team is gonna be fairly scratch.

I guess the flip side is that it gives lads a real chance to stake a place early in the season, and that might not be a bad thing. It does butcher the first few rounds of the AIL, but they should have more continuity from that point forwards which is nice.

thomond2006

The B&I schedule did make sense for the provinces as the first team would play in Europe with a decent number of players made available to the B&I team to play alongside the youngsters.

Leinster will surely be calling up many AIL players to fill spots as they will be down maybe 15 players at the start of the season?

Squidgy Black

Is this the U23 competition that was previously mentioned I wonder? Will we have the same age restrictions? If so that could be an interesting one for outliers like Mick Kearney and other lads who are past that age bracket but aren't playing senior rugby. Could see a lot more time for players like these in the AIL if that's the case.

The Lost Sheep

Podge_irl wrote: »

Surely Sep/Oct is when the academy players are most likely to be getting first team rugby?

Yes and no. But this could be as much for fringe players who wont be playing pro14 and dont need to play AIL.

errlloyd wrote: »

Leinster A players are usually busy being Leinster players in September! With internationals rested, the next tier playing Pro14, our A team is gonna be fairly scratch.

I guess the flip side is that it gives lads a real chance to stake a place early in the season, and that might not be a bad thing. It does butcher the first few rounds of the AIL, but they should have more continuity from that point forwards which is nice.

Yes in some cases but there's still plenty in all provinces who cant make the pro14 side and playing a provincial team is better for them than playing AIL.

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Is this the U23 competition that was previously mentioned I wonder? Will we have the same age restrictions? If so that could be an interesting one for outliers like Mick Kearney and other lads who are past that age bracket but aren't playing senior rugby. Could see a lot more time for players like these in the AIL if that's the case.

No mention of it. And wasnt u23 only simply a rumour so this is just the replacement.

Squidgy Black

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

No mention of it. And wasnt u23 only simply a rumour so this is just the replacement.

Believe the Welsh introduced Regional teams at U23 as an level for pro rugby between the Pro14 and the Welsh Premiership so the idea was that it'd be these teams playing as part of the replacement.

stellenbosch

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

New A competition with the four Welsh sides to be played over seven consecutive weekends in September/October.

Mentioned about halfway down this article.

http://www.the42.ie/david-nucifora-prov ... =shortlink

The new Irish/Welsh competition will be played across seven weeks “with the aim of mimicking the intensity required and week-to-week competition that PRO14 gives our players.”

“It’s a development competition,” continued Nucifora, “but hopefully the fact that we’ll be doing it over seven consecutive weeks gives us a lot more replication of what the players, coaches, support staff and match officials will receive when they get promoted up into a proper league.”

Nucifora also confirmed that he and head of domestic rugby, Scott Walker, will soon meet with the top 20 club teams in the country to discuss “how we can further align Irish rugby by trying to get maximum benefit out of club competitions for the development of our players.”

While Nucifora declined to confirm the expected changes to the structure of the Ulster Bank League the season after next, he underlined the IRFU’s ambition to have the new A team competition and the UBL “run seamlessly into each other; allowing for the best players not playing Pro14 week-to-week to be available to play club rugby.”


What are peoples thoughts on this?
Will we see AIL start later due to this competition being played at the start of the season? I hope not. provinces need A games so keeping a competition against non irish sides is good. Good that there will be much less chance of clashes of club and a level games.

Rumours are this A league starts weekend of 8th september and runs for 7 weekends to 20 0ctober with EPCR weekends 1 and 2 on 13/20 0ctober and UBL 1A starts 6 october

The Lost Sheep

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Believe the Welsh introduced Regional teams at U23 as an level for pro rugby between the Pro14 and the Welsh Premiership so the idea was that it'd be these teams playing as part of the replacement.

Yes but no reason we wont be playing older guys in this and wont be a strict under 23 sides.

stellenbosch wrote: »

Rumours are this A league starts weekend of 8th september and runs for 7 weekends to 20 0ctober with EPCR weekends 1 and 2 on 13/20 0ctober and UBL 1A starts 6 october

Yeah. Going back to AIL starting a few weeks later is possibly good thing rather than the early september starts of the past few seasons. Gives league bit more space for promotion if not in early september

ArmchairQB

In all honesty it wont make much difference especilally in Leinster where cover will be required during November internationals as well and then following the return to play protocols for the internationals AIL off during christmas and the 6 nations camps over xmas and up to end of March. PR to apease clubs but no change really and pretty sure there will be very little difference thanthe last few seasons