United Rugby Championship announced, beginning September 2021

hahashake

Lost Ormond wrote: »

If the money is right for them they will.
London Irish and Newcastle played Sarries in premiership games in the US a few years ago as part of a deal to play some games there for $$$
So they definately would go to South Africa if money is right and these games would also be in same/similar time zone unlike games in the US which will be better for crowds at home as well

So then nothing is set in stone? Would anticipate a strong opposition to it.

Neil3030

If they're already talking about SA teams qualifying from next year onward, they've surely got commitment from French and English teams to travel there when appropriate.

hahashake

You would assume so. Unless SA has to compromise and play in a neutral venue.

Cookiemunster

In the article on the Munster site it says this.

Subject to the finalisation of contract terms with EPCR, South African teams will be eligible to qualify for the Heineken Champions Cup from the 2022/23 season if they have finished in the United Rugby Championship qualification places from the prior season.

I take that as meaning that all that's left to be done is for the i's to be dotted and the t's to be crossed. So where they play will be agreed well before they enter the competition.

thomond2006

I'd like to think SA in Europe is more or less a done deal given the promotion of it today within the announcement.

Red Silurian

Burkie1203 wrote: »

The back to back games didn't happen last season

Leinster were away to Monty and home to Northampton

Last season was thrown together because of the pandemic... In fairness it's going to be tough on any team that gets a South African side in their H-Cup group to come back a week later and play again just due to travel

Guy:Incognito

thomond2006 wrote: »

It's a straight league format for qualification into the playoffs..

Not quite though

"Q: HOW WILL THE FIXTURES WORK AND HOW MANY GAMES WILL MY TEAM PLAY?
Every team will play 18 games in the regular season comprising of:

6 Home AND away fixtures against their regional pool opponents
12 Home OR away fixtures against the other 12 teams in the league"

IMO leagues should be straight H & A against all the other opposition. Having an uneven number of games against different opposition skews it.

16 is too many for a full league of H&A so 2 8 team leagues playing 14 games each and the top 2 or 4 in each going to playoffs
OR cull it to a 10 team premier , find 4 more teams and have a 10 team championship with promotion and relegation.

touts

Neil3030 wrote: »

If they're already talking about SA teams qualifying from next year onward, they've surely got commitment from French and English teams to travel there when appropriate.

That"ll change if the South Africans start winning the thing. The French and English will throw a strop and look for the rules to be changed again.

Blut2

Great news overall I think. We already know all about the much needed revenue the SA teams are bringing to the league, but the now confirmed format (and Heineken Cup eligibility for the Saffers) should really make the league actually competitive too.

Its great seeing Irish teams win and all, but in the last couple of years the lack of competition has only gotten worse. Competitive SA teams will really raise the bar and keep it interesting. And hopefully drive the Irish teams to get more innovative, and benefit our national team too.

On a personal selfish level I'm also pretty excited by the prospect of following Leinster down South on a 2 game mini-tour of SA, since following the Lions this year obviously isn't happening. A 2 week jaunt to Durban and Cape Town, or Joburg/Pretoria, to escape the depths of the Irish winter to visit SA in their summer sounds just lovely.

Red Silurian

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

2 8 team leagues playing 14 games each and the top 2 or 4 in each going to playoffs

Not a bad format but you'd have to work it to keep the inter country games going

Guy:Incognito

Red Silurian wrote: »

Not a bad format but you'd have to work it to keep the inter country games going

But, what if we just .......................didnt, and stopped pandering to the derby stuff and just made it a league based on how good or bad teams are?

connemara man

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

But, what if we just .......................didnt, and stopped pandering to the derby stuff and just made it a league based on how good or bad teams are?

Not enough money in rugby for that

Red Silurian

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

But, what if we just .......................didnt, and stopped pandering to the derby stuff and just made it a league based on how good or bad teams are?

TV rights and ticket sales, nobody will care about beating the Italians

Guy:Incognito

connemara man wrote: »

Not enough money in rugby for that

Red Silurian wrote: »

TV rights and ticket sales, nobody will care about beating the Italians

The format changes, adding the SA teams etc are done with a view to growing the league (making more money). At some point it needs to be a proper merit based competition . Otherwise, why bother? They may as well just dump any teams that dont bring big crowds, close it off and just let the 4 Irish teams play each other a few times, then pick 3 or 4 games against other teams that bring the crowds.

Personally, I'd lean towards the last format in my first post, a 2 division format with promotion and relegation.

Red Silurian

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

The format changes, adding the SA teams etc are done with a view to growing the league (making more money). At some point it needs to be a proper merit based competition . Otherwise, why bother? They may as well just dump any teams that dont bring big crowds, close it off and just let the 4 Irish teams play each other a few times, then pick 3 or 4 games against other teams that bring the crowds.

Personally, I'd lean towards the last format in my first post, a 2 division format with promotion and relegation.

The biggest competitions in the world don't have promotion or relegation, you look at the NBA, NFL, MLB etc etc

Plus the countries involved in Super Rugby, for all it's faults, has produced all but one world cup winner since it's inception,

Promotion and relegation simply don't work

Guy:Incognito

Red Silurian wrote: »

The biggest competitions in the world don't have promotion or relegation, you look at the NBA, NFL, MLB etc etc

Plus the countries involved in Super Rugby, for all it's faults, has produced all but one world cup winner since it's inception,

Promotion and relegation simply don't work

The only reason promotion and relegation enters it is because of the amount of teams now involved.
IMO the best and fairest system is a league where everyone plays everyone else home and away. This stuff of play x number of teams home and away and play y teams once either home or away doesnt produce a fair league.

We're at the point where theres too many teams for a 1 league , everyone plays everyone H&A, so the only fair option , imo, is to go like England and have 2 divisions. Add 4 more teams and have 2 10 team leagues, 1 up and a playoff between 2nd bottom and 2nd place in the lower league.

Podge_irl

The RFU Championship has multiple semi-pro teams and most of their teams wouldn't even be eligible to be promoted. There is no money in it and the only real interest is how easily the relegated Premiership team will win except for the years where a sugar daddy has pumped money into a different team.

No one in Celtic Rugby is going to accept a two division league. It is a complete non-starter.

Red Silurian

A better idea than promotion/relegation is to have separate tournaments, divide the league into the original 10 Celtic nations and 10 others encompassing the Italians, saffers and anybody else that wants to join them

We can meet teams from the other league in the champions or challenge cup

Not saying it's a good idea, but it's a better one than the promotion/relegation idea

guapos

As bad as the Welsh teams are (and desperately want to be play with their English friends) two divisions would just make the gulf bigger

Podge_irl

Red Silurian wrote: »

A better idea than promotion/relegation is to have separate tournaments, divide the league into the original 10 Celtic nations and 10 others encompassing the Italians, saffers and anybody else that wants to join them

We can meet teams from the other league in the champions or challenge cup

Not saying it's a good idea, but it's a better one than the promotion/relegation idea

The South African teams didn't join to play Benneton, Zebre and some assortment of Georgian/Romanian/whatever teams.

thomond2006

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

But, what if we just .......................didnt, and stopped pandering to the derby stuff and just made it a league based on how good or bad teams are?

You would be burning a huge amount of revenue. It's not pandering, it's common sense. There are many people who will have little to no interest in the league but attend the derbies every season.

Podge_irl

thomond2006 wrote: »

You would be burning a huge amount of revenue. It's not pandering, it's common sense. There are many people who will have little to no interest in the league but attend the derbies every season.

Also, the Scots/Italians grouping aside, it just kind of makes sense. Home and Away against everyone is simply not an option so you have to split into groups/conferences somehow. At least there is a logic to this that people can easily understand.

Lost Ormond

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

The format changes, adding the SA teams etc are done with a view to growing the league (making more money). At some point it needs to be a proper merit based competition . Otherwise, why bother? They may as well just dump any teams that dont bring big crowds, close it off and just let the 4 Irish teams play each other a few times, then pick 3 or 4 games against other teams that bring the crowds.

Personally, I'd lean towards the last format in my first post, a 2 division format with promotion and relegation.

At what point do you do that?
A 2 division format with promotion and relegation will just kill a lot of teams off and wont work
you say dump teams that dont bring big crowds. what do you see as big and how is that going to help the sport anyway?

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

The only reason promotion and relegation enters it is because of the amount of teams now involved.
IMO the best and fairest system is a league where everyone plays everyone else home and away. This stuff of play x number of teams home and away and play y teams once either home or away doesnt produce a fair league.

We're at the point where theres too many teams for a 1 league , everyone plays everyone H&A, so the only fair option , imo, is to go like England and have 2 divisions. Add 4 more teams and have 2 10 team leagues, 1 up and a playoff between 2nd bottom and 2nd place in the lower league.

The best and fairest system isnt a league where everyone plays everyone else home and away. Look at NFL. We cant go and act like england with multiple divisions with promotion and relegation because we have far more stakeholders with a lot more at stake if promotion/relegation was in place.

Red Silurian wrote: »

A better idea than promotion/relegation is to have separate tournaments, divide the league into the original 10 Celtic nations and 10 others encompassing the Italians, saffers and anybody else that wants to join them

We can meet teams from the other league in the champions or challenge cup

Not saying it's a good idea, but it's a better one than the promotion/relegation idea

That would never be viable and isnt going to happen.

Burkie1203

Red Silurian wrote: »

Last season was thrown together because of the pandemic... In fairness it's going to be tough on any team that gets a South African side in their H-Cup group to come back a week later and play again just due to travel

The format is being retained though IIRC for 21/22 anyway and probably beyond then too

icdg

Gerry Thornley saying (and quoting Leinster’s Mick Dawson on it) the IRFU voted against the Heineken Cup qualification rules and wanted full meritocracy instead.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/pro14/no-room-for-a-level-playing-field-in-rebranded-rugby-championship-1.4594374?mode=amp

Cookiemunster

icdg wrote: »

Gerry Thornley saying (and quoting Leinster’s Mick Dawson on it) the IRFU voted against the Heineken Cup qualification rules and wanted full meritocracy instead.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/pro14/no-room-for-a-level-playing-field-in-rebranded-rugby-championship-1.4594374?mode=amp

Well we'll be back to full meritocracy in two years then when the IRFU again vote against these qualification rules.

phog

icdg wrote: »

Gerry Thornley saying (and quoting Leinster’s Mick Dawson on it) the IRFU voted against the Heineken Cup qualification rules and wanted full meritocracy instead.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/pro14/no-room-for-a-level-playing-field-in-rebranded-rugby-championship-1.4594374?mode=amp

This is hardly rocket science, the Irish have had 2+ teams in the H/Cup since god knows when now we're in a position in the current format to maybe only have one and at a max two. As soon as the IRFU can change that they will.

bilston

phog wrote: »

This is hardly rocket science, the Irish have had 2+ teams in the H/Cup since god knows when now we're in a position in the current format to maybe only have one and at a max two. As soon as the IRFU can change that they will.

Maybe I misundstand the European qualification process, but could Ireland not have all 4 teams qualifying?

Its the winners of the four leagues within league and then the final 4 spots are based on overall league position?

Whether its likely all 4 teams would qualify given the strength of the South Africans is another matter of course.

thomond2006

phog wrote: »

This is hardly rocket science, the Irish have had 2+ teams in the H/Cup since god knows when now we're in a position in the current format to maybe only have one and at a max two. As soon as the IRFU can change that they will.

If they couldn't prevent it this time, I'm not sure what would change in the interim.

Why do you say a max of two? Four is probably a stretch but three seems very doable.

sydthebeat

Four spots available between 12 teams.

You'd assume 3 boks, 3 Irish and maybe 1 Welsh or scallion team would be in the running for the wildcards.

Best time to meet the boks might be at the start of the competition if their national players are rested.