Pro 16

prawnsambo

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

If all ireland conferences would be unfair then what would you have in place?

Not sure why you're asking this since it's already been suggested on ths thread. Stick with two conference system and keep nations together so that you don't need cross-conference matches.

thomond2006

I wouldn't want to see more conferences. Look at the confusing, contrived mess Super Rugby became.

errlloyd

I don't mind the all Ireland conference from a Pro16 point of view. Yes the third best team in our conference will very probably be better than at least one of the qualifiers, but that might not be a bad thing. It'll make our interpros HUGELY important. For us the pro16 will be a race to be the best Irish team. The provinces are sort of in danger of losing their identity right now, that would reverse it.

I would have the Pro16 continue to get 7 European places. Top 2 from each of the European conferences, and the third team from the conference with the most combined points. For the time being that should safely mean that the third best Irish team misses the play offs, but still makes Europe.

Heymans

troyzer wrote: »

Do you reckon the US could ever be any good at rugby or could it only ever aspire to be an upper second tier country? It just seems that the best players will always go to the NFL. If you're a physical freak and would dominate as a forward, why wouldn't you get paid ten times more to do it for the Cowboys?

I can never see the sport fully reaching its potential in the US because of this.

The US has freaks of nature in all sports and the bar is very high to play professional sport there. There could be some cast outs from the NFL, Athletics and so forth who are more than capable of being TOP rugby players.

errlloyd

thomond2006 wrote: »

I wouldn't want to see more conferences. Look at the confusing, contrived mess Super Rugby became.

Super 18 was a mess. But it's not comparable. 4 conferences of 4 teams going straight to quarters is nice and clean. Even cleaner is the fact that 3 of the countries have 4 teams. The only awkward conference is the Scotland v Italy one. I can see the scots not loving it.

prawnsambo

errlloyd wrote: »

Super 18 was a mess. But it's not comparable. 4 conferences of 4 teams going straight to quarters is nice and clean. Even cleaner is the fact that 3 of the countries have 4 teams. The only awkward conference is the Scotland v Italy one. I can see the scots not loving it.

It's unnecessarily messy though. Placing for Europe would be a nightmare and potentially unfair. The more teams you have in a league, the more realstic the end result.

Podge_irl

prawnsambo wrote: »

It's unnecessarily messy though. Placing for Europe would be a nightmare and potentially unfair. The more teams you have in a league, the more realstic the end result.

Screw messy - it is absurdly unbalanced.

Tigerandahalf

As said before no need for separate conferences.
Have all the 16 teams in 1 league with everyone playing each other once = 15 games. Pool the Scots and Italians together to play extra derby games and Irish, Welsh and SA play their derbies - meaning an extra 3 games for everybody. 18 in total.

The Welsh, Irish and SAs get to keep their derbies while the Scots/Italians would be happy to row in as it means an easier chance to gain points.

The pro14 bosses though have talked of removing games from international windows. Is it 3 games that are played in international windows?

molloyjh

errlloyd wrote: »

I don't mind the all Ireland conference from a Pro16 point of view. Yes the third best team in our conference will very probably be better than at least one of the qualifiers, but that might not be a bad thing. It'll make our interpros HUGELY important. For us the pro16 will be a race to be the best Irish team. The provinces are sort of in danger of losing their identity right now, that would reverse it.

I would have the Pro16 continue to get 7 European places. Top 2 from each of the European conferences, and the third team from the conference with the most combined points. For the time being that should safely mean that the third best Irish team misses the play offs, but still makes Europe.

How do you figure that? Surely the best 3rd placed team would likely be from a conference with 1 or more also-rans, in this case probably Edinburgh, because they will play Zebre home and away which is far more of a sure thing than Ulster playing Connacht home and away. Even Cardiff/Ospreys playing Dragons home and away would be more of a sure thing. Meaning it would be hard for Ireland to get a 3rd team into the HEC.

errlloyd

molloyjh wrote: »

How do you figure that? Surely the best 3rd placed team would likely be from a conference with 1 or more also-rans, in this case probably Edinburgh, because they will play Zebre home and away which is far more of a sure thing than Ulster playing Connacht home and away. Even Cardiff/Ospreys playing Dragons home and away would be more of a sure thing. Meaning it would be hard for Ireland to get a 3rd team into the HEC.

I think I corrected for that by giving it to the team from the conference with the most combined points. So whichever conference (as a whole) has the best record against the other conferences.

The third team from the conference with the most combined points.

So basically whichever conference as a whole has the best record against the other 3. I think it adds a nice little incentive for the union backed teams to try and make all their teams as strong as possible.

troyzer

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Should and could is big difference. Get current italian sides to do better first before further diluting their player base. While all those countries providing teams would be nice but where does money come from and where's the return?

I dont think relegation is terrible or that its ruined the only major pro leagues that have it in place.
If all ireland conferences would be unfair then what would you have in place?

The TV money in the championship is so much less that it can end up bankrupting clubs who had signed expensive players similar to the way football works. The inevitable end result is that clubs throw money at players desperately hoping to stave off relegation which just turns into an arms race and inevitably impacts on the national team because clubs are reluctant to release them.

The Pro14 and Ireland are much, much better and we shouldn't seek to emulate the relegation model.

Dubinusa

Why not try to get London Scottish and London Irish into the pro 16 as well as the 2 saffer teams. Make it a pro18. Everyone plays each team once.
Top 8 get into a playoff. 1 v 8, 2v 7. 3v6, 4v5. The winners play the semifinals. Probably bring in some more revenue and make travel easier.

OldRio

Dubinusa wrote: »

Why not try to get London Scottish and London Irish into the pro 16 as well as the 2 saffer teams. Make it a pro18. Everyone plays each team once.
Top 8 get into a playoff. 1 v 8, 2v 7. 3v6, 4v5. The winners play the semifinals. Probably bring in some more revenue and make travel easier.

The RFU might have some thoughts on that.

Neil3030

Only six of your games would be in-conference, while the rest (12?) can be balanced out each year so that all teams have roughly the same difficulty schedule. So in all likelihood the Irish provinces would play teams like Scarlets and Glasgow less often in the regular season than Cheetahs would.

Then just rank all teams at the end, like they do in the NFL. This could mean all four, or indeed none, of the Irish provinces make the playoffs. Same goes for the other countries.

It's a pretty fair way to do it, imo.

Edit - actually your four conference winners would be guaranteed a place under NFL rules, but remaining places decided across all teams.

Podge_irl

Neil3030 wrote: »

Only six of your games would be in-conference, while the rest (12?) can be balanced out each year so that all teams have roughly the same difficulty schedule. So in all likelihood the Irish provinces would play teams like Scarlets and Glasgow less often in the regular season than Cheetahs would.

Then just rank all teams at the end, like they do in the NFL. This could mean all four, or indeed none, of the Irish provinces make the playoffs. Same goes for the other countries.

It's a pretty fair way to do it, imo.

Edit - actually your four conference winners would be guaranteed a place under NFL rules, but remaining places decided across all teams.

It works in the NFL because, generally speaking, there are no basement dwelling teams (everyone forget the Browns exist) and certainly no consistently terrible divisions because there is constant re-balancing. All 4 Irish teams in a division would be absurdly lopsidedly strong and would stay that way for the foreseeable.

Dog Botherer

Dubinusa wrote: »

Why not try to get London Scottish and London Irish into the pro 16 as well as the 2 saffer teams. Make it a pro18. Everyone plays each team once.
Top 8 get into a playoff. 1 v 8, 2v 7. 3v6, 4v5. The winners play the semifinals. Probably bring in some more revenue and make travel easier.

Don’t think adding 4 rubbish teams is better than adding 2 rubbish teams, honestly.

snotboogie

Have Georgia or Romania applied to get a team into Pro Rugby? I'd much prefer them to two Curry Cup teams. Would these two non Super Rugby teams really add that much to the TV pot?


If we are talking about adding to the core countries, a fifth Irish team makes a lot more sense than a third Scottish or Italian *runs

thomond2006

Let's just round it up to a Pro25!

Neil3030

Podge_irl wrote: »

It works in the NFL because, generally speaking, there are no basement dwelling teams (everyone forget the Browns exist) and certainly no consistently terrible divisions because there is constant re-balancing. All 4 Irish teams in a division would be absurdly lopsidedly strong and would stay that way for the foreseeable.

NFC West was dire competition for years until the Cardinals, and 49ers got their acts together.

And you're bound to get that with this system in the Pro16. I don't see that being a huge problem tbh. Imagine a scenario where they add Griquas and Pumas, and make 4 divisions:

Ire - Leinster, Munster, Connacht, Ulster
SA - Cheetahs, Kings, Griquas, Pumas
Wales - Scarlets, Blues, Ospreys, Dragons
Scottalian - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Zebre, Treviso

In all likelihood you have a scenario where Leinster, Scarlets, Glasgow and Cheetahs top their groups. Then you'd have Munster most likely in 5th, and one of Ulster, Connacht, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Ospreys taking 6th; i.e., pretty much identical to the way it is now. Given that the regular season would be shortened to 18 games, you could even stretch the playoff places out to 8, and have quarters, semi and final. And still there wouldn't be a sniff of any of the basement dwellers in the playoffs. The key is in a balancing the difficulty of each team's schedule. Scarlets and Glasgow should have less games against Griquas and Pumas, for example.

Tigerandahalf

snotboogie wrote: »

Have Georgia or Romania applied to get a team into Pro Rugby? I'd much prefer them to two Curry Cup teams. Would these two non Super Rugby teams really add that much to the TV pot?


If we are talking about adding to the core countries, a fifth Irish team makes a lot more sense than a third Scottish or Italian *runs

Adding SA teams has already been factored into the tv deal so it is probably only a matter of time before teams enter. The Pumas and Griquas were given franchise licencing status by the SA union, presumably so they are ready to enter at short notice.
The only fly in the ointment has been the mentioning of the Sharks (who are currently licensed to play Super rugby) entering into the pro14. Does that mean they get replaced by the Pumas or Griquas or what we don't know yet.

I can't see how all these SA teams can be sustained between North and South especially if it is at a pro level.

Reading some of the SA media attendances are falling as people prefer to watch the game at home, match prices are too dear or they don't feel it is safe to go to games at certain times in some areas. The size of the stadiums kills the atmosphere too I guess.

Jump_In_Jack

Neil3030 wrote: »

NFC West was dire competition for years until the Cardinals, and 49ers got their acts together.

And you're bound to get that with this system in the Pro16. I don't see that being a huge problem tbh. Imagine a scenario where they add Griquas and Pumas, and make 4 divisions:

Ire - Leinster, Munster, Connacht, Ulster
SA - Cheetahs, Kings, Griquas, Pumas
Wales - Scarlets, Blues, Ospreys, Dragons
Scottalian - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Zebre, Treviso

In all likelihood you have a scenario where Leinster, Scarlets, Glasgow and Cheetahs top their groups. Then you'd have Munster most likely in 5th, and one of Ulster, Connacht, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Ospreys taking 6th; i.e., pretty much identical to the way it is now. Given that the regular season would be shortened to 18 games, you could even stretch the playoff places out to 8, and have quarters, semi and final. And still there wouldn't be a sniff of any of the basement dwellers in the playoffs. The key is in a balancing the difficulty of each team's schedule. Scarlets and Glasgow should have less games against Griquas and Pumas, for example.

I like your idea of balancing out the difficulty of each team’s schedule.
Could that be developed a little to see how it might work in practice?
So let’s take it that we have 4 conferences as described above,
How does a difficulty level get applied to each team?
Say we take the finishing positions from last season of the combined league and add the two new South African teams as the weakest in a Pro16,
And as postulated above that we’ll focus on the teams in 2nd and 3rd place in each conference to try to balance up the difficulty schedule so as to get the better teams into the final 8 for knockouts.
The teams could be divided up as follows:

Difficulty rating = 8
Leinster/Scarlets

Difficulty rating = 7
Glasgow/Munster

Difficulty rating = 6
Edinburgh/Cheetahs

Difficulty rating = 5
Ulster/Blues

Difficulty rating = 4
Benetton/Ospreys

Difficulty rating = 3
Connacht/Zebre

Difficulty rating = 2
Dragons/Kings

Difficulty rating = 1
Pumas/Griquas

Take for example after the in-conference fixtures are played,
Taking South Africa as the weakest conference and Ireland as the strongest conference:
The Kings should be 2nd place in that conference (Difficulty Rating of 2) and would have played Cheetahs twice (Difficulty Rating of 6) and Pumas and Griquas twice each (Difficulty Rating of 1).

Whereas Ulster should be 3rd place (Difficulty Rating of 5) and would have played Leinster (Difficulty Rating of 8) twice, Munster (Difficulty Rating of 7) twice, and Connacht (Difficulty Rating of 3) twice.

To balance up the difficulty schedule between those two teams, Ulster would have to play one of the Pumas or Griquas twice and not play Cheetahs at all, and similarly play Dragons twice and not play Scarlets at all.

I can’t work out how you would continue with that approach as it seems like a very difficult thing to get right, and would mean that some teams don’t get to play each other.

I think that wouldn’t work.

Perhaps a better system would be to take the top two teams from each conference and allow a qualifier round between the team finishing 2nd in the weakest conference to playoff against the team finishing 3rd in the strongest conference.

Neil3030

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

I like your idea of balancing out the difficulty of each team’s schedule.
Could that be developed a little to see how it might work in practice?
So let’s take it that we have 4 conferences as described above,
How does a difficulty level get applied to each team?
Say we take the finishing positions from last season of the combined league and add the two new South African teams as the weakest in a Pro16,
And as postulated above that we’ll focus on the teams in 2nd and 3rd place in each conference to try to balance up the difficulty schedule so as to get the better teams into the final 8 for knockouts.
The teams could be divided up as follows:

Difficulty rating = 8
Leinster/Scarlets

Difficulty rating = 7
Glasgow/Munster

Difficulty rating = 6
Edinburgh/Cheetahs

Difficulty rating = 5
Ulster/Blues

Difficulty rating = 4
Benetton/Ospreys

Difficulty rating = 3
Connacht/Zebre

Difficulty rating = 2
Dragons/Kings

Difficulty rating = 1
Pumas/Griquas

Take for example after the in-conference fixtures are played,
Taking South Africa as the weakest conference and Ireland as the strongest conference:
The Kings should be 2nd place in that conference (Difficulty Rating of 2) and would have played Cheetahs twice (Difficulty Rating of 6) and Pumas and Griquas twice each (Difficulty Rating of 1).

Whereas Ulster should be 3rd place (Difficulty Rating of 5) and would have played Leinster (Difficulty Rating of 8) twice, Munster (Difficulty Rating of 7) twice, and Connacht (Difficulty Rating of 3) twice.

To balance up the difficulty schedule between those two teams, Ulster would have to play one of the Pumas or Griquas twice and not play Cheetahs at all, and similarly play Dragons twice and not play Scarlets at all.

I can’t work out how you would continue with that approach as it seems like a very difficult thing to get right, and would mean that some teams don’t get to play each other.

I think that wouldn’t work.

Perhaps a better system would be to take the top two teams from each conference and allow a qualifier round between the team finishing 2nd in the weakest conference to playoff against the team finishing 3rd in the strongest conference.

If you wanted a simpler way to do it, you could basically mirror the NFL system with a couple of tweaks:

- Each team plays the three other teams in their group home and away. 6 games. Let's call these "derby games".
- Each team plays each team from another group, home and away, i.e., 8 games (and this rotates each year). (6+8 = 12). Let's call these "full group" games.
- Each team plays each team from another group once each, i.e., 2 home, 2 away (and again this rotates each year). (12+4 = 16). Let's call these "half group" games.
- Each team plays home and away against the team in the remaining group that finished in their position last year, 1st v 1st, 2nd v 2nd, etc. (16+2 = 18). Let's call these "matched games".

Might need a little more tweaking, but a pretty straight forward model to begin with anyway...

Jump_In_Jack

Neil3030 wrote: »

If you wanted a simpler way to do it, you could basically mirror the NFL system with a couple of tweaks:

- Each team plays the three other teams in their group home and away. 6 games. Let's call these "derby games".
- Each team plays each team from another group, home and away, i.e., 8 games (and this rotates each year). (6+8 = 12). Let's call these "full group" games.
- Each team plays each team from another group once each, i.e., 2 home, 2 away (and again this rotates each year). (12+4 = 16). Let's call these "half group" games.
- Each team plays home and away against the team in the remaining group that finished in their position last year, 1st v 1st, 2nd v 2nd, etc. (16+2 = 18). Let's call these "matched games".

Might need a little more tweaking, but a pretty straight forward model to begin with anyway...

The key there is that the matched games would allow the stronger conference’s third placed team to pick up points while the weaker conference’s second placed team would lose points and that would be enough to account for a group such as South Africa where the second placed team would have benefitted by having two weak teams in its conference.

The main issue with that is that teams won’t play 3 teams in the league part of the season, which may not be so bad, lots of teams in it and it would rotate each season anyway so every three seasons it would balance out in terms of number of games against inter-conference teams.

Another issue is that the season that Ireland would be matched against Wales for matched games would be a disadvantageous season for both of them while allowing the other two conferences a chance to benefit.

Although if Benetton and Zebre continue to improve it may actually mean there would be 3 conferences that would be close and one poor conference in the South African conference, and the advantage of playing against them would rotate every 3 years.

It’s a good idea to be fair but I think it might be better to play every team once, and to play your own conference teams a second time, and make a combined league table where top 8 go through to seeded knockouts,
and if the 3rd placed team in the conference with the highest combined points total doesn’t already qualify,
allow use their head to head match against the second placed team in the conference with the lowest combined points in the league as the decider,
or if possible play a playoff after the league if have the opportunity for another round before knockouts.

Or another idea would be that the home and sway matches in-conference would be taken as one match,
So if you aggregate the scores from the two matches and count the tries,
The winning team is the team with the overall higher points from the two matches,
If the winning team wins by more than 14 points overall then no losing bonus to the losing team,
And if either team scores 10 tries between the two matches they get a try bonus point.
That would mean that all teams should have the exact same chances and the combined table should be totally accurate.
The only issue would be the possibly tiny advantage of playing home against a poor team or away against a good team instead of the other way around by luck of the draw.

Neil3030

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

The key there is that the matched games would allow the stronger conference’s third placed team to pick up points while the weaker conference’s second placed team would lose points and that would be enough to account for a group such as South Africa where the second placed team would have benefitted by having two weak teams in its conference.

The main issue with that is that teams won’t play 3 teams in the league part of the season, which may not be so bad, lots of teams in it and it would rotate each season anyway so every three seasons it would balance out in terms of number of games against inter-conference teams.

Another issue is that the season that Ireland would be matched against Wales for matched games would be a disadvantageous season for both of them while allowing the other two conferences a chance to benefit.

Although if Benetton and Zebre continue to improve it may actually mean there would be 3 conferences that would be close and one poor conference in the South African conference, and the advantage of playing against them would rotate every 3 years.

It’s a good idea to be fair but I think it might be better to play every team once, and to play your own conference teams a second time, and make a combined league table where top 8 go through to seeded knockouts,
and if the 3rd placed team in the conference with the highest combined points total doesn’t already qualify,
allow use their head to head match against the second placed team in the conference with the lowest combined points in the league as the decider,
or if possible play a playoff after the league if have the opportunity for another round before knockouts.

Or another idea would be that the home and sway matches in-conference would be taken as one match,
So if you aggregate the scores from the two matches and count the tries,
The winning team is the team with the overall higher points from the two matches,
If the winning team wins by more than 14 points overall then no losing bonus to the losing team,
And if either team scores 10 tries between the two matches they get a try bonus point.
That would mean that all teams should have the exact same chances and the combined table should be totally accurate.
The only issue would be the possibly tiny advantage of playing home against a poor team or away against a good team instead of the other way around by luck of the draw.

Yeah there's a few ways to do it alright, and the question is where the sacrifice is made - you can't have a tournament structure with 16 teams, that preserves the derbies, makes schedules for all teams of even difficulty, keeps logistical costs to a minimum, keeps the total number of games below ~20, and (probably most importantly) keeps it simple so fans aren't turned off by a complicated system. It'll be interesting to see what they eventually come up with.

Dave_The_Sheep

What problem is this going to solve?

troyzer

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

What problem is this going to solve?

Keeping it competitive while also having a sensible number of games while also getting two games in your derby.

It's very difficult to do.

The NFL model won't work because the draft system ensures that no team or division can stay dominant unless they're ridiculously well managed and coached like the Patriots.

In the case of the Pro14, the Irish and Welsh teams are the only ones that are dominant and full strength all the time.

Tigerandahalf

I don't see why ye are coming up with these difficulty ratings and matching this and that. It is over complicating things and would be a huge turn off.

Derby games even between the weaker conferences are hard to call. Granted you might say the Cheetahs or Glasgow would have a greater advanatage in playing in weaker conferences and playing extra games but there is no guarantee that they will easily win those games. Many of the teams tend to rest their frontline players for these games anyways.

If you have 1 single league table the top 6/8 will still be the best teams and anyway their ranking for the Euro competitions is mostly only determined by the playoffs.

As the SA teams still don't qualify for Europe the advantage the Cheetahs might have doesn't really matter anyway.

awec

TBH the best thing to do is scrap any notion of expansion at this time. The current South African teams should be given a number of seasons to prove that SA has enough players to field competitive teams in both the Pro14 and Super Rugby.

The jury is still out. The Kings were probably the worst team to ever play in our league.

The European headache needs to be worked out. No decent player is going to want to play for any South African pro 14 side so long as they don’t play in Europe.

thomond2006

awec wrote: »

TBH the best thing to do is scrap any notion of expansion at this time. The current South African teams should be given a number of seasons to prove that SA has enough players to field competitive teams in both the Pro14 and Super Rugby.

The jury is still out. The Kings were probably the worst team to ever play in our league.

The European headache needs to be worked out. No decent player is going to want to play for any South African pro 14 side so long as they don’t play in Europe.

The jury may be still out on the teams but it's bringing in significant cash.

The European headache is going to be near impossible to work out. The order of matches in the pool stages would have to change. I don't see how a home and away format over two weeks can work. The travel costs would be enormous.

awec

thomond2006 wrote: »

The jury may be still out on the teams but it's bringing in significant cash.

The European headache is going to be near impossible to work out. The order of matches in the pool stages would have to change. I don't see how a home and away format over two weeks can work. The travel costs would be enormous.

It’s bringing in the cash now, but longer term the standard will need to improve.

If they never play in Europe they’ll never keep any decent players and they’ll just end up as basement fodder every year. TV money will nosedive as a result.