Connacht Team Talk Thread VI - Some like it TOH

No that won't happen, (@[Deleted User] is totally correct), for example, if a team were to win the Challenge Cup, and their geographical Shield, and finishes in a high enough league position to qualify, (at the moment I believe Glasgow may achieve this by the way), all three of those achievements are just for that team, they do not transfer or confer any rights to another team to qualify. The only effect is that there would be extra places out of the 8 leftover to be given to teams by virtue of their league finishing position.

In other words there are a number of ways to qualify and teams can achieve more than one, and the only result from that is that there would be more places left to be decided by league position.

Say for example the first 4 teams are always the shield winners, we know those teams before the playoffs, they are locked in by that stage as HCC qualifiers.

After that there are only 4 more places left to be decided.

From that point on, the 4 highest placed league teams (that aren't shield winners) will also qualify except for the circumstances where a lower placed team wins the URC, HCC or CC to gain qualification.

e.g. (extrapolating from the current league standings) 4xSW (e.g. Leinster, Stormers, Glasgow, Cardiff), 1xURCW (e.g. Stormers), 1xHCCW (e.g. Leinster), 1xCCW (e.g. Glasgow), in this scenario all three champions would have won their geographical Shield, and also all three would have finished with a decent enough league position to expect to qualify that way as well (all are top 4 presently), so after taking those 4 teams that would have qualified out of the 8 places available, there would be 4 places leftover for the other teams, and which other 4 teams would qualify would be determined by their final league position (or final league standing to use the URC terminology). At present that's looking like Ulster, Munster, Bulls and Sharks. While Connacht are in 8th position presently, Cardiff would take the qualification position from Connacht by dint of winning the Welsh Shield (this system is up for review at the end of this season, however the only article I could find mentioned the word unanimous, so maybe all Unions would have to agree to change it, and Wales definitely wouldn't agree at the moment as they've benefitted now two years in a row).

(SW = Shield Winners, URCW = United Rugby Championship Winner, HCCW = Heineken Champions Cup Winner, CCW = Challenge Cup Winner)

Just to add an extreme example out of interest, in any given year, if two of the shield were particularly poor, let's say the Irish and South African shield are better than the other two and their 8 teams occupy the top 8 spots,

and let's say for example Glasgow were in the bottom half of the table below Edinburgh yet managed to win the Champions Cup, and Benetton were below Edinburgh also and managed to win the Challenge Cup, then there would be a situation where two shield winners plus the HCC and CC winners were all outside of the top 8, then lets' say Connacht were 8th in the league but won the URC and qualification. To add a twist, if the Shield winner of one of the two Irish or South African Shield were outside the top 3 then they would take the qualifying place from the 3rd ranked team. There could even be the case that the team that made the final would not qualify, if they weren't in the top 2. It is extremely unlikely though but an interesting musing.