Guinness Pro12 2015/2016 Season thread

Bazzo wrote: »

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/italians-want-third-team-pro12-11329304

Not sure how I'd feel about having a third set of Italian whipping boys join the league.

The obvious reasons for not including a 3rd team aside, there simply isn't space in the calendar and the last thing the Pro12 needs are more matches with shadow squads.

bilston wrote: »

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

If the teams dropped from 22 games to 14 games a season you can kiss goodbye to trying to compete with the English/French (who play 22/24 games each) financially.

connachta wrote: »

Nobody would ever go to see your 2nd division

I disagree.

You never know you might have to to.get your fix of rugby :-)

Digifriendly wrote: »

Financially how would some of the 2nd Division clubs cope with no high profile regular season games? Can't see many of Cardiff or Dragons fans being happy about this, even if it was only for 1 season before both possibly got promoted.

I don't think the fans of any team are happy when their team is relegated.

You could go for a conference system but then there would be fewer big games and that would be less appealing to TV IMO.

bilston wrote: »

I'm happy to see a third Italian team, particularly from Rome, however I'd want three other new teams (Scottish, Romanian, Georgian, Spanish whatever), and then the league divided into two divisions of 8 with promotion and relegation.

Div 1
Leinster
Connacht
Glasgow
Ulster
Scarlets
Munster
Edinburgh
Ospreys

Div 2
Cardiff
Dragons
Zebre
Treviso
3rd Italians
3rd Scottish
Romanians
Spanish/Georgians (by rights it should be a Georgian team but financial realities might make a Spanish team more realisitic in the short term)


Play home and away. 14 games with teams at full strength. Still have play offs. 1 up, 1 down with a play off between 2nd and 2nd bottom for a second promotion/relegation spot.

Can't see any top or mid table team agreeing to anything like that. Commercially Div 2 would nearly be worse than being out of the Champions Cup.

I'm not sure if expanding into other European countries would be a good idea. At least not yet. We already have in essence 4 separate markets that we are trying to sell to and the last thing we need is more dead rubber games with greater difficulty trying to market them over numerous markets. We need to increase the quality of the games we have and develop the brand. We can look to expand a bit more once we do that, but it's already viewed as a poor relation. Taking on Spanish or Georgian teams will only make that worse.

How about a conference system that might look like this (based on this seasons final standings):

Conference 1|Conference 2
Leinster|Connacht
Glasgow|Ulster
Scarlets|Munster
Cardiff|Ospreys
Edinburgh|Dragons
Zebre|Treviso
3rd Italian|3rd Scottish

Home and away legs in each conference meaning 12 games there. Then play-offs between the teams at each position to define the full table. So say both conferences finish in the above order, then Leinster would play Connacht and the winner would come 1st, with the loser coming 2nd etc. With European qualification and next seasons conference on the line based on the full table standings these games should all be competitive.

We could then go into QFs and SFs before the final. So again based on this seasons standings:

|Home|Away
QF 1|Leinster|Ospreys
QF 2|Connacht|Cardiff
QF 3|Glasgow|Munster
QF 4|Ulster|Scarlets
||
SF 1| Winner QF 1|Winner QF 4
SF 2| Winner QF 2|Winner QF 3
||
Final|Winner SF 1|Winner SF 2

That's 13 games in the regular season with another 3 knock-out rounds. There are currently 16 games + 2 knock-outs outside of the international windows so this doesn't overly affect that time period if we were to run the Celtic League outside of those periods.

The only question then is what to do within the international windows. Maybe having local derby games in those periods would help? Or even a cup/plate competition of some description? So each conference has 7 teams. If they play each other once (3 times in Nov and 3 times in Feb) with home advantage rotating each season. Then each team plays their equivalent in the other conference for a cup, plate etc like in Sevens? It would essentially be an A competition within the international windows but gives the smaller teams a greater shot at being competitive and winning some form of silverware.

So that would be 13 games in the regular league season with another 7 games during the international window. That leaves us on 20 games. With 3 knock-out rounds after that covering 8 of the 14 teams then we have a season that has 23 games which is only 1 less than what we have now.

thomond2006 wrote: »

You would need to have inter-conference matches during the regular season IMO. It would get very boring to play the same teams each year. I'm not a fan of a 3rd Italian team tbh.

The conferences would change each year depending on final table standings. So ultimately your conferences would be:

Conference 1|Conference 2
1st Place|2nd Place
3rd Place|4th Place
5th Place|6th Place
7th Place|8th Place
9th Place|10th Place
11th Place|12th Place
13th Place|14th Place

We need an additional 2 teams to make this work I think and no matter who we get they are going to be weak teams to start with. We need to make our peace with that. But by giving them things to fight for through-out the season, e.g. European qualification and that plate final thing, that should help increase their competitiveness over time. And don't forget there aren't enough places in the Challenge Cup for all of these either so there could be some form of meritocratic thing for that as well that could create some more competition. All of this feeds into the brand and selling the competition. The regular league season is full of international players and there's always something to fight for.

Im not advocating kicking them out but if the FIR decided they want to concentrate on a domestic league instead, and I was the Pro12, i wouldn't stand in their way of leaving.

Keeping the Pro# down to the three countries of Ireland, England and Wales would concentrate the games.

I would also love to see the Intropro title celebrated with a trophy. The Judgement Day should also have a trophy of some sort.

Let's celebrate the fact the league is across different countries rather than cursing it.

thomond2006 wrote: »

You would need to have inter-conference matches during the regular season IMO. It would get very boring to play the same teams each year. I'm not a fan of a 3rd Italian team tbh. 3rd Scottish team perhaps but would it have enough fan support to sustain it?

A third Scottish team could work if it was privately funded and was given carte blanche to sign whoever they liked (ie no restrictions on NSQ players). The reason being they would have to hit the ground running. Where you base them would be important. The Borders region is Scottish rugby's heartland, but then for the sake of spreading the game going to Aberdeen or Dundee could work. But you wpuld need to examine the potential support levels. I only mention Dundee because of the University which I think has a decent rugby heritage. But I have no idea about the rest of the city. The fact they already have two pro football teams suggests an already crowded market.

Puafisi has received a three week ban so he's done for the season.

Bazzo wrote: »

I was wondering if he was going to get cited. Did it just happen now? Very delayed isn't it?

Red cards are automatic citations. I was actually just thinking similar today that we hadn't heard anything, maybe it's cos last week was an off week?

Strangely the total Pro12 attendance for the semi final weekend of 26,900 was over 4,000 more than the Aviva Premiership total of 22,537.

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Not very strange. All 4 games were sold out, that's just the capacity of all the stadia involved. I'm sure Exeter and Connacht could both have doubled those figures, Leinster and Saracens probably could have as well.

Yeah.....no.