Premiership Rugby out of Heineken Cup?

Pudsy33 · 20-10-2013 05:33PM

dtpc191991 wrote: »

Gaurenteeing one team for each union is grossly unfair it will mean that in order for a celtic union to have two teams in the top level EC they will have to have two teams coming 2nd or 3rd which will hurt international rugby in the celtic nations. It should be the top 6 qualify and if you can't make it into the top 6 tough.

I actually agree here. If a team can't get into the top 6, they would be much better off competing in the second tier tournament.

irishbucsfan · 20-10-2013 05:36PM

Grandpa Hassan wrote: »

I thought that one of the issues that the French had was that there were too many games in their calendar. Hence the cut in HEC teams from 24 to 20. But 5 groups of 4 does not reduce the number of matches....the only difference is that 3 of 5 2nd placed teams go through to quarters rather than 2 of 6

Or was number of matches never part of the problem?

No that was never what they were trying to solve by reducing the number of teams in the HEC. Certain journalists just thought it was and reported it that way, without bothering to check. Hence the likes of Lenihan actually saying it just a few weeks ago on TV.

4 groups of 5 would mean 8 rounds of games in the groups stages. It would also mean a team would be without a game on certain weekends.

bilston · 20-10-2013 07:04PM

Sounds like a horrible format. No quarter finals and lots of dead rubbers. No thanks.

Actually it sounds completely bonkers so I'm not taking this seriously.

thomond2006 · 20-10-2013 07:15PM

No quarter finals makes no sense, they are an important revenue stream.

keps · 20-10-2013 07:18PM

The next day or 2 should be interesting and the way the ERC meeting of 23rd of October is 'treated' will tell a lot.

If it is announced as 'postponed' due to 'progress' being made in behind the scenes negotiations.. it may be slightly encouraging.

If it is called off - with no explanation - then I'd be getting worried.

Cookiemunster · 20-10-2013 08:32PM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

4 groups of 5 would mean 8 rounds of games in the groups stages. It would also mean a team would be without a game on certain weekends.

It would actually need 10 weeks for the group stages to be played as each team would have two free weeks. Definitely not a runner in that format.

Winters · 21-10-2013 12:10PM

A news article caught my eye during last week, Italy's Rugby League win over England in a pre World Cup friendly. Here I was wondering since when does Italy have any Rugby League players? A scroll through their World Cup squad and you notice that not only do none of their players play IN Italy, there may only be one or two players who are actually FROM Italy.

Okay, both Treviso and Zebre have not had a good start to their Heineken Cup campaigns this season but to say because they aren’t good enough they shouldn’t be in the Heineken I would see as counterproductive to the development of the sport in Italy. The same goes for any of the 6 Nations unions.

If the French league is allowed continue the way it has with unsustainable inflation of wages and no limit to home qualified players and the English league follows suit in order to keep up it will suck all the talent from the other nations and leave lessor teams with amateur domestic set ups and foreign based faux international teams. Long term but a viable worry. The continued development of the sport by its unions is paramount.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 12:18PM

Exactly how does losing every single game in the Heineken Cup develop the sport in Italy more than these teams playing games they can win in an improved Amlin?

Italian rugby is not being developed by the Heineken Cup, (where are Calvisano, Rovigo etc?). The Rabo has done far more for them than the Heineken Cup ever did. And these changes will be even more positive for Italian rugby, as they have targets added to their domestic season and they have a European tournament that they can compete in.

You make it sounds as if they're being kicked out of European rugby altogether.

thomond2006 · 21-10-2013 12:19PM

Winters wrote: »

If the French league is allowed continue the way it has with unsustainable inflation of wages and no limit to home qualified players and the English league follows suit in order to keep up it will suck all the talent from the other nations and leave lessor teams with amateur domestic set ups and foreign based faux international teams. Long term but a viable worry. The continued development of the sport by its unions is paramount.

AFAIK they can't put in a French Qualified quota because of employment law, hence the JIFF rule. Same goes for the Premier League and the 'homegrown' rule as opposed to English or Welsh qualified.

former legend · 21-10-2013 12:23PM

Grandpa Hassan wrote: »

I thought that one of the issues that the French had was that there were too many games in their calendar. Hence the cut in HEC teams from 24 to 20. But 5 groups of 4 does not reduce the number of matches....the only difference is that 3 of 5 2nd placed teams go through to quarters rather than 2 of 6

Or was number of matches never part of the problem?

An absolute red herring. The problem is money, money and money.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 12:26PM

Reducing the number of teams in the H Cup is not directly about money. It's because there are not 44 teams available of the standard required to participate in the competitions, leading to games that are making a mockery of the Amlin.

I suppose it is about money indirectly, because an Amlin group stage consisting of teams capable of competing with each other will be worth more. And the 3rd tier compettion might evolve into something profitable as well I suppose. But the main reason behind the change is grounded in rugby reasons.

Winters · 21-10-2013 12:35PM

thomond2006 wrote: »

AFAIK they can't put in a French Qualified quota because of employment law, hence the JIFF rule. Same goes for the Premier League and the 'homegrown' rule as opposed to English or Welsh qualified.

Do you mean Premier League as in soccer? Or Premiership Rugby?

The ERC has a quota in their competition rules. The Japanese Top league has numerous privately owned teams and also operates a quota.

It may be true that the IRFU can implement a quota because it is both the union and the employer but has anyone brought the employment rights issue to court?

OldRio · 21-10-2013 12:39PM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Reducing the number of teams in the H Cup is not directly about money. It's because there are not 44 teams available of the standard required to participate in the competitions, leading to games that are making a mockery of the Amlin.

I suppose it is about money indirectly, because an Amlin group stage consisting of teams capable of competing with each other will be worth more. And the 3rd tier compettion might evolve into something profitable as well I suppose. But the main reason behind the change is grounded in rugby reasons.

I was listening to some of the Rugby on BBC5 Live. Even the English commentators who back the EPL now acknowledge that it is about power and money.
Yet some.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 12:42PM

Premiership Rugby can't impose a quota either. They get financial rewards for having players in the EPS, that's as far as they've gone so far (it may extend soon though, but they can't impose a limit). The IRFU can pretty easilly display how an Irish qualified player is greater value to them, it's tougher for private clubs.

I think Premiership soccer had to move away from the UK players thing as well and now use the "homegrown" concept.

It's not so bad. If properly enforced it will lead to similar results as the NIQ rules. My only problem is that it could lead to poaching of foreign school-leaving prospects.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 12:43PM

OldRio wrote: »

[/B]I was listening to some of the Rugby on BBC5 Live. Even the English commentators who back the EPL now acknowledge that it is about power and money.
Yet some.

I'm talking about reducing the competition to 20 teams. How is that about power and money? The more profitable option would be to leave it at 24 and increase Anglo-French participation.

thomond2006 · 21-10-2013 12:47PM

Winters wrote: »

Do you mean Premier League as in soccer? Or Premiership Rugby?

The ERC has a quota in their competition rules. The Japanese Top league has numerous privately owned teams and also operates a quota.

It may be true that the IRFU can implement a quota because it is both the union and the employer but has anyone brought the employment rights issue to court?

Premier League soccer I meant

ERC has a kolpak quota, as do all the rugby competitions within the EU. It won't be called Kolpak in the tournament regulations but that is what it is adhering to. Kolpak is an EU treaty with certain foreign countries. It's completely separate to any other quota introduced by an individual tournament.

The Top League in Japan can have quotas if Japanese employment law allows it, which it obviously does.

Nobody has brought it to court yet.

OldRio · 21-10-2013 12:48PM

If you do not think this is about power and money you are very naive.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 12:54PM

OldRio wrote: »

If you do not think this is about power and money you are very naive.

Once again, I am talking about just the reduction of the number of teams in the H Cup to 20.

DeDoc · 21-10-2013 02:40PM

The reduction to 20 teams is about getting 'equal representation from each league'. Win that argument and then you argue (they already are!) for equal money for each league. Then you argue that your 6 are worth more than their 6, because of bigger markets etc

4 groups of 5 is not workable, as you'd need 12 weeks set aside for the games (and that is going straight to semi-finals), as opposed to the 9 at present. If there is 20 teams, and I'd be very surprised if there aren't (if we get any kind of agreement), it'll be 4 groups of 5.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 02:46PM

DeDoc wrote: »

The reduction to 20 teams is about getting 'equal representation from each league'.

Nope, it's not. It never was.

DeDoc · 21-10-2013 03:18PM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Nope, it's not. It never was.

Unless you're privy to the PRL meetings, then its just speculation on both our parts.

FWIW, I'd actually have some sympathy with England and France re the Amlin. It's always going to be (by far) the lesser tournament, but it would be better if there were a few competitive teams in it from the other 6N sides. When Scotland and Italy made their changes to focus resources on 2 teams, I think the Amlin places should have been more of the discussion - the nations have some responsibility towards that tournament too. The current Italian situation (which I think is probably the best medium term situation for them in terms of their playing strength) means that their Amlin sides are easy beats. I'm not that convinced that the Romanians, Spanish and Portugese sides who feature benefit that much either - but that is just guesswork on my part to be fair.

The complex numbers and organisation makes the composition of both tournaments difficult. You have to (IMO) ideally have a good spread of representation of countries in both tournaments. However, reducing the number of sides in the main tournament reduces the number of games and the diversity, and I'm not sure you gain enough in the Amlin to justify it

A 20 team tournament would be 6 less games. If we took the top 6 model (as proposed by PRL) then you're looking at the comparative value of the likes of Dragons-Grenoble over Worcester-Bucuresti. Better (in the sense of attractive to TV), but hardly enough to be worth it I'd have thought.

I wonder if there'd be any legs in a better European ranking system, and let that determine some of the qualifying places - e.g. keep a 24 team HEC with 1 guaranteed spot for each country, plus (slots for the country of the) winners of both tournaments the previous year, with the remaining 16 being the top ranked sides, subject to at least 3 from each league.
If you used the rankings here:
http://www.eurorugby.com/index.php

You'd get Leinster, Glasgow, Scarlets, Treviso, Tigers and Castres as the automatic 6, plus Ulster (thanks to Leinster) and Toulon as winners. 3 from each league would be Ospreys, Munster and Connacht from the Rabo, Sarries, Quins and Saints from the Aviva and Clermont, Toulon and Toulouse from the T14. If you add the next 7 ranked teams you'd get Racing, Montpellier and Exeter, Perpignan, Bayonne, Stade Francais and Gloucester.

That'd be 10 French, 6 English, 4 Irish, 1 Italian, 1 Scottish and 2 Welsh - which is probably a fair enough reflection of the strengths of the various countries domestic teams at present

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 03:24PM

It's absolutely not the reason. If it was the reason then they would accept the one-third share in a 24 team competition, which would be worth more money to them. But they're adamant on there being a reduction of 4 teams to the structure.

There aren't 44 teams good enough to support the ECC and HEC every year. Not even the Italian sides are good enough.

They'll be far better off in the 3rd tier and the two teams that qualify from that will at least be tested before being put up against the big sides.

Grandpa Hassan · 21-10-2013 08:00PM

I've come to realise over the last couple of days what a big deal this new competition is to BT Sport. They have f-all else to show. They have broadcast some incredible amount of rubbish over the weekend with no rugby to show.

DeDoc · 21-10-2013 08:03PM

irishbucsfan wrote: »

It's absolutely not the reason.

That is speculation on your part (as the above is speculation on mine) - neither of us know.

I think you're probably right that there aren't 44 good enough teams for both. Ironically, IMO, the dropping of 3 HEC runners-up into the Amlin is actually bad in some respects - it creates more interest in the knock-out stages from the fans of the 'big' teams who've dropped - but increasingly, the winners are going to come from those (initially) HEC teams. The T14 doesn't have enough sides with squads big enough to compete there and in Europe - there are maybe 6 or 7 who can do that at a push. The English are better equipped, but realistically only maybe 1 or 2 sides in a season would be good enough to even realistically challenge one of the HEC runner up sides.

That'll just intensify IMO in the next few years - about the only disruption will be if some new megabucks sugar-daddy decides to try and buy success and kicks off in the Amlin - even then, they're probably only going to be there for a year.

Lets take that 20 team format and apply it to this years event, based on 6+6+6 + two cup winners. You'd be dropping Cardiff, Edinburgh and the two Italian sides. None are going to win the Amlin. Sure the Amlin would probably be more competitive, but I'm not sure it would be much more attractive to the casual viewer. Likewise I'm not sure the average HEC game would be that much more attractive. Is Toulon vs Connacht much more attractive to a casual English punter than Toulouse vs Zebre? Marginally maybe.
Is the combined product worth 6 fewer games?

As for the 3rd tier - it just won't work (IMO). There'll be virtually no interest in it from the general rugby public. I'm as much a rugby anorak as the next guy - but watching Portugese amateurs play against Georgian amateurs isn't going to make me want to watch. It'll have to be heavily subsidised just to cover basic costs, and even more so to develop the rugby players and teams there. I'd love to believe that'll happen, but whatever (small) possibility there is of it happening in a union-run game, there is next to nil chance of it happening if the clubs are in charge

.ak · 21-10-2013 08:04PM

Anyone else thinking the ERC delaying talks until the end of october was a bit of a master stroke? Surely after 2 rounds of quality rugby and plenty of permutations ahead their stock is rising.

DeDoc · 21-10-2013 08:07PM

Maybe my bias is showing, but I doubt that was a factor in their decision. That is a high stakes game, which runs the risk of running out of time. If they simply wanted to cash in on public goodwill and enthusiasm then the knockout rounds of 2012/13 was the time to do it - they could have gone to press (PRL style) moaning about the intransigence of the others.
I think its far more likely that they were leaving a gap to have time for lots of shuttle diplomacy.

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 08:32PM

If the only motive behind the reduction of the H Cup to 20 teams was money then it makes absolutely no sense. If all they wanted was money then they'd look for a 24 team tournament (which is worth more money) and equal participation in that.

The truth is that there are not 44 teams capable of playing in the top 2 tiers. It's painfully obvious to anyone who pays attention to the Amlin. The 3 tier competition idea is far better for European rugby.

DeDoc · 21-10-2013 08:46PM

I don't believe it is all about money. I believe it is about control.

In any case, even on the point of money - if they get enough people to agree to the 'it is 3 leagues' line, then they are getting 33% of the pie rather than the current 24%. They can afford for the total pie be significantly smaller and they're still better off.

I agree about the 44 teams, and I can accept that the reduction to 20 teams is at least partly reflecting that concern. I just don't think that a 20 team HEC and 20 team Amlin and some new 3rd tier is better than what we have. If they cared that much (about the virtues of a 20 team variant) why was there no proposal (or even reluctant acceptance) of a 8,5,5 split rather than 10/6/6 as exists at present?
Or a 24 team HEC and 16 teams in the Amlin?

I notice also that they've been very quiet about the 3rd tier recently - who'd play in that?

irishbucsfan · 21-10-2013 08:51PM

Yes, but we were just discussing the reduction of the number of teams. The fact they don't want the competition to be dictated by the Celtic Unions is seperate to that.

The point is the idea behind the reduction is based on rugby reasons, not the French wanting less games as the Irish journalists have just about realised after about 18 months of writing (not sure if Lenihan has got there yet).

The 3rd tier hasn't really been discussed lately because it can't be organised until they know who is playing in the tiers above it. But the idea which had most traction is a shortened competition played before the start of the Amlin with 2 finalists qualifying.

CatFromHue · 21-10-2013 09:03PM

.ak wrote: »

Anyone else thinking the ERC delaying talks until the end of october was a bit of a master stroke? Surely after 2 rounds of quality rugby and plenty of permutations ahead their stock is rising.

The Amlin isn't working though.

Premiership Rugby out of Heineken Cup?

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