You're spot on with this Tim. This competition has been destroyed over the years. I remember heading out to the pub with a few pals for a super saturday of heineken Cup games, and one game was better than the other. Even a win sometimes wasn't enough. You had a nail-biter to the end waiting to see if your team could get a bonus point. Because that could be the difference between qualifying or not. And the home away element was brilliant. As a munster fan, we loved travelling to the likes of Welford Road or Franklin's Gardens. Mega trips with great people hosting us. How in hell have they managed to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Bloody criminal the way it's all gone
Hi Tim. Going forward, why doesn’t the EPCR reduce the Champions Cup to 16 teams (6 from the Top 14, 6 from the URC, and 4 from the Premiership) - i.e. top 40% of each league? Four groups of 4, home and away, then into quarters, semis and final. So we would be back to the brilliant back-to-back match ups of old, and one would need to play nine matches to lift the trophy, not eight. But the quality would be a lot better by removing all the dead wood.
The genius administrators in rugby seem to believe that a confusing format that sports with far higher interest wouldn't touch with a bargepole lest they lose fans will somehow work for rugby. At the very least, as you say, the old, tight, competitive group structures need to be brought back.
@gavindoyle692 Good shout mate, but sounds too much like common sense for rugby authorities to opt for. + this dropping down to the Challenge Cup 🤔 No No No. Once yer oot, yer oot has to be the way.
I like your suggestion for a new format Tim! And thank you for giving an unbiased view of this, especially in regards to the amount of English clubs playing in the comp, and the treatment Premier is getting from the English press. That's how your channel is building so much credibility
US-exiled Glaswegian George here, Tim. You nailed it yet again. Ludicrous an 8th-ranked English team could qualify for a supposedly elite-level championship. Really like your home and away approach to foster spicier matches. Continued SA teams’ participation simply unviable both from travel cost-wise and having to commit to a 12 out of 12 month playing schedule.
100% in agreement with the questions raised and suggestions. Viewed from France where I come from, too many games are scheduled and a championship’s appeal also stems from scarcity and quality, which is definitely no longer the case.
My idea would be: Bring it to 16 team competition: - 5 slots for Top 14 - 5 slots for URC - 4 slots for Premiership - 2 slots for Champions cup and Challenge cup champions. Then: - 4 groups of 4 teams (no more than 2 teams from the same championship in each pool) - 6 group stages games (home and away game against the other teams from the pool) - First 2 teams from each pool go to Quarter-final. The level of this competition is more balanced and give more credit to the challenge cup where some good teams could challenge the title as well.
As a long suffering Leonster fan I agree with everything you are highlighting, Tim, but as an egghead I must point out you can't compare unequal data sets to make your first point. It could have been that in the eight previous seasons that the percentages were the same at the halfway point, but settled by end of group stage. Bring back the days of "bringing them back to Thomond" and "but we're down in Toulon next"
South Africans travels are an issue. It is originally a European competition; players welfare comes first and doing long flights is an issue. Not to mention carbone footprint.
@@ontheright2482 Agree, you probably flew from the UK to SA and then to Zimbabwe, both on the same continent with one stop. The South African teams have to fly via the Middle East, probably with a longish layover, then to London and then to wherever they are playing, all this occurring over two maybe three days!! All this is done in economy class, imagine a 6'5' 140 lbs player cramped in a tight seat for probably 16 or more hours. Do you think he would be relaxed and ready to play a strenuous game of rugby?? NH teams just have to make an overnight flight probably in Business class with "lie-flat" seating. It is ridiculous. Your suggestion of a home and away competition would be far more indicative of the strength of the teams!
Dear Tim, South Africa would be better of only playing in the URC. Having to travel for one game overseas was the same reason why SA left Super Rugby. This is just a repeat of the same problem.
As a South African the idea of us playing in an almost world cup club competition is amazing. But it all comes down to scheduling if each team is going to Europe anyway why not have 2-3 weeks of just away games for the SA teams so they get a rest throw in a URC game in there as well to make both seasons go by faster and have equal amounts of engagement. I think the only thing that needs to happen for SA fans to back the competition is a deep run in the tournament by the bulls, sharks, stormers and then you have a whole new market generating immense money
Hardly an "almost world cup competition" ... no need for hyperbole. If there was a 'Champions Cup' that saw the winners of the Top14, URC, Premiership, Japan League 1, SuperRugby, Major League Rugby, & a South American regional club competition winner ... that would be worthy of the name.
@LittleBigMediaCo what an odd thing to comment on. That statement had nothing to do with the actual point of my message. Since you're such a snob about it let me instead say, "As a South African the idea of playing in a 7 nations style club competition is amazing" u must be fin at parties
@@thatmaddenmobileman9587 Suggest you go read your own comment. The word you might be looking for is "fun". Nothing about the Champions Cup is like a 7 nations for clubs ... it's a bloated tournament with 24 financially mismatched teams, only 6 of who are actually trying seriously to win it, another 12 have one foot in and one foot out, and 6 just have better things to do. There is no parity in the travel schedule, the playing conditions, or the means of the clubs involved ... and a tournament without parity is doomed.
@LittleBigMediaCo again if your read my comment I said the idea of it is amazing, because right now the competition is not where it needs to be, as was the whole point of the video. Right now it's nowhere near a 7 nations type tournament. But if things can work out properly I think having a South African market can do numbers for this game
@@thatmaddenmobileman9587 Expecting a 'quality competition' with 24 teams is a pipe dream. What they have tried to create is nothing more than a competition that is as 'inclusive' as possible, in the hopes it will bring as much money as possible by tapping as many markets as possible. Instead they've got a watered down flop that no one can really justify. Already the Top14 bosses are urgently trying to reduce the salary cap, but the current agreement runs until 2029 or something crazy. So if they can't cut the cap, the next way to cut budget is to cut the squad size. And France is about to head into major political and financial turmoil. Leinster is going to be sitting man-alone with a huge squad on the books. Already their depth and finances are creating one-sided rugby. That's the first thing that will chase away casual fans, who make up probably 70% of all viewers. Just dump the whole distraction.
Big issue I have with these concerns is I have no idea what we are trying to compare it to. Simplest comparison I can see is footballs Champions League. No one there really expects Sparta Praha to be competitive with Barcelona, but we do understand it will fill seats, win tv time for the smaller club, and make the general fan base take an interest in the next game if Praha take Barcelona to the edge somehow. The league was expanded to increase tv time for the smaller clubs and get some more cash into them. To cut back again would just leave the naturally strong that bit stronger again which does nothing to increase rugbys fan base. And until South Africa’s economy gets to a level of strength where they can support their own league, they are better off with us from a TV timing perspective and making sure the advertisers stay interested. One of the years they will take it serious to chase, but at the moment they need more time to get settled into the URC and almost get tired of winning cups there to put the challenge to themselves to go far in this competition.
@@AnicetChvt You do know that the stadiums in South Africa take between 45k -70k. You muppet. UK stadiums take 8k-12k max. Looks at ticket sales not stadiums.
This years format makes things a lottery. Never mind teams sending “b “ teams the fact that you dont play every team in your group, eg Glasgow will not play Stormers who are by far the weakest and where other teams are likely to get 5 points is a disadvantage. So back to 4 groups of 4 with home and away games
The same issues that caused the Super 14 (or whatever it was called back then) to collapse. To many games, too many teams, player fatigue, travel issues between SA, AUS and NZ, etc. Money talks unfortunately and the powers that be will try and squeeze every penny out of this thing before they let go of their grip.
In France too, we have to pay another subscription (Bein sport) to watch the Champions Cup. Very few matches, among those played in France, are not behind a pay wall.
True, but there were 3 games on free to view france TV this weekend. There is always the best game involving a french team on Saturday and Sunday in the Champions Cup. + Perpignan this weekend.
I think the thing w/ the tv deals is that for the older generation (I could just be waffling), they were used to having games on free to air or always on sky or always on BT. But nowadays that’s just not how things work. Outside of the FA cup and the odd bit of horse racing, every sport is behind some sort of paywall. If you’re a premier league fan, you’ll need to have two subscriptions to watch the EPL (sky and TNT), and if your team make it into Europe you’ll need to have that TNT subscription to watch them
A solution would be a drastic reduction of the number of teams (down to 8 would be good I believe) and knock-out home and away fixtures immediately. Saffas would not be penalized and only 7 games to win it, all of them should be competitive and great. In addition, getting to play the competition would already be quite an achievement while it's today a due thing for english teams and barely competitive for URC and Top14. Qualify the best 2 after regular season of each league, plus Challenge cup winner and an extra spot for Champions cup winner league. Challenge cup would work with more teams including more exotic teams from other leagues. But come on, when you finish 8th of your league, you cannot pretend to play highest level competition.
Brilliant video! The SA teams will settle in. This is a very tough comp and we just need time to figure it all out. In terms of format change suggestions; 100% on board. Less teams, home and away and knockout format sounds incredible!
Yes but at least with a full package on Supersport one gets other sports apart from rugby e.g. football, cricket etc. In the UK if one wants to watch rugby and say Premiership football, UEFA Champions League football, Test cricket/ODI/T20, one needs a combination of Sky, TNT, Amazon Prime, and Premier sports. Can get ridiculously expensive!!
All reasonable suggestions Tim. I think you could also go 5/5/4 from URC/T14/Prem. + Winners of challenge cup (next team from that league if already qualified), winners of champions cup (next team from that league if already qualified) to make 16 teams in total. Also SA teams are in, both us Europeans and Saffers themselves should focus on solutions. I think they could be accommodated a lot more, shouldn't be too difficult to coordinate them playing their away games in a big bunch in URC and Champions Cup.
When you’ve lost your way, retrace your steps. The original HC format was ideal, home & away games, the back-to-back December fixtures, it needs to be reverted to.
It really wasn’t. You’re just remembering the good parts. There were tonnes of blowout fixtures, made even more ridiculous by having two legs. And often by the last couple of games, teams had no hope of qualifying so just gave up completely.
@@Zveebo I wouldn't say the original HC format was ideal but I do believe it was better than what we currently have. Most teams would fully compete for the first two games as you had to in order to try and qualify. If you lost both of the first two games then you would see B teams being sent as the odds of qualifying were so low. With the current format teams are not automatically starting off with their best teams from the get go. A 50% win rate is good enough to qualify so teams are targeting their home games so will send a B team even if it is their first or second game. Seeing B teams so early into the comp is what is annoying people and devaluing the competition. Seeing 8/10 teams qualify into the "elite" Champions Cup is devaluing, seeing 4/6 teams teams qualify from the "elite" pools is devaluing, seeing a round of 16 knock out round before the quarter finals is devaluing. The old format was not ideal but it certainly felt more valuable than what we have currently.
Partial stats are pretty statistically worthless until all the games are played. Don't hang yourself out to dry yet! But your point on the Prem allocation is spot on.
Tim I think we (South Africa) should play URC only until a global calendar is implemented. Our guys need a rest and we find this champions cup not as important as say the Currie Cup - at least the way it is now. What I find humerous though we keep hearing how this is for Europeans only but the non-SA teams have no problem recruiting our guys to play in it for their teams - do as we say and not as we do. I have seen French guys complain at us for not fielding full teams but they have no issue sending weak teams to the southern hemisphere in June and have said they will do that in NZ no problem in 2025. This works both ways and World Rugby have to sort out a global calendar.
A global calendar will never be sorted and it’s impossible because it’s a winter sport and either the southern or northern hemisphere would have to play rugby in the summer
Dear Bunny No .French people dont complain that you are not sending the best teams. As the matter of fact we understand it. We just take note that what was the summer rant against the french can now be applied to URC and premiership teams . But we understand it
I agree there are too many teams and i cant fathom who we are to play when the draw is being made. Also i agree we miss the home away fixtures. Plus the last 2 years we have seen repeats of ties in round of 16 that we had in pool stages. One suggestion i saw some years back that if you want to keep 24 teams you could go 8 pools of 3, each team plays home and away. then only the pool winners go into the quarter final. this would help reduce the number of games by one i realise but everything helps. also it increases the jeopardy as only one team qualifies from a group. bringing back the home away also increases the animosity and camaraderie in the fans. But i think fewer teams would be better.
Jeopardy is the thing Tim as you mentioned. I remember the miracle match munster needed to score 4 tries and win by 27 point to get out of the group. One of the All time great games in ERC. Less teams and please let the groups make sense for the casual fan
Won't lie, as a SA club fan I have no place in my heart, currently, for Champions Cup. Taking absolutely nothing away from it's history or meaning to European fans. Means nothing to me only because we were busy with Super Rugby all those years and only time we heard about it was when another SA player left our shores to play in Europe and our Super Rugby teams got a little bit weaker. It was that comp that kept taking our players so it's not like we ever looked at it with stars in our eyes. I do think it's in our interest for our players to play in Japan and Europe though, but maybe not our teams. That's not to say the Champions Cup has no value, because of course it does, but we as SA fans don't know it well enough and are still in the process of getting into URC which is where our attention is, outside of international rugby. Leaving Champions Cup may well have knock on effects for us though with all the talk of English Irish leagues etc, but just speaking honestly, when I see it's a Champion's Cup weekend my interest drops from the URC levels as it's currently just a distraction from the comp that we are invested in, for us. And this will come off as salty as heck, but the appeal of watching an SA club get beaten by your own players and players from the SH is just, not what we're used to or what we were raised on. We were raised on club rugby being a bunch of NZ teams with NZ players against a bunch of Aus teams with Aus players against us, a bunch of SA teams with SA players, going at it. Followed by Tri Nations where the best of all of those bashed it out at international level.
@@greenplasticgun we love the SA teams in the URC as Irish fans. If your inclusion in the CC can precipitate a change back to the original format that fans could actually understand - that being a simplified group structure - interest in SA will grow and regrow in Ireland I'm sure.
@ simplifying is a big step towards generating interest. SA isn’t used to the tournament structure that Europe uses for its sports at all. For us it’s been one comp you try win each year, a domestic comp and internationals. But more importantly will be being competitive in the CC and I’m not sure given the player base left in SA and going up against the club strengths that exist in the CC that SA will ever really be competitive in it. URC probably wouldn’t be as popular as it is in SA if our teams had not been as relatively successful as they have been coming in.
6 from the URC, 5 from the Top14, 4 from the premiership, plus last year’s winner. 16 teams, put them into four pools, home and away for six matches, top two go into the last eight.
On the Premier Sports criticism, you should know by now that people like to plead poverty on everything and expect everything to be free. It's a tenner. The coverage is decent. Regarding the qualification, yes 2 less teams makes sense. And a team finishing bottom of any league shouldn't be qualifying for any European competition. What would happen if the unthinkable finally did happen and a team were relegated from the Prem. Would they be playing Challenge Cup games in the Championship?
Good points all. Streamlining the competition, syncing the SA teams’ travel with their URC obligations, and having a tighter home and home setup would all improve things. Maybe even better to make it a pure home and home knockout tournament and bag the pool stage altogether; then every single match would have meaning. 12 teams, with three league champions plus the previous year’s champion or finalist, unless both of those were also a league champion….those four are seeded directly to a quarterfinal, with the other eight drawn into a first-round home/home tie to reach the quarterfinals. Semis and the grand final could be one-offs on neutral venues. That’s fewer matches - 19, I think - but all with high stakes and great potential and greater prestige.
Super Rugby's demise was due to clueless expansionism. The South African teams could add value if the scheduling was more aligned for both sides. This weekend we saw an impressive display by Northampton against my beloved Bulls who themselves were quite poor at a very cold StoneX stadium after thumping Connacht the week before limiting the impact of one match travel in this instance. I think the blocks of the competition need to be stretched out more, 6 rounds, get rid of the last 16 and schedule based on travel.
Quite good fixes you proposed. Here is an other idea to adress the b teams problem : Make the EPCR games count in domestic leagues. I guess some will find odd to make the elite competition points count for the domestic season but I'm pretty sure it would help teams and their fans push a bit harder to get to knock-off stages AND it would mechanically select the most epcr involved squads for next year rounds. If my grammar was'nt telling, I'm French. And as a french and Top 14 fan, I'm pissed to hear staffs saying they're letting half off their best players at rest for a Champion's cup game because they need to focus on the next Top 14 bloc....
Very good idea with the format in the video Lot of issues now -SA Teams that have nothing to do in the european cups. -Travel in SA that does not make sense and make it unfair if you play an SA team home or away -Too many teams and sometimes not good enough -URC teams don't play in SA during stage pool and quite unfair for ENG and FR teams Best option is less teams and game or home and away but games that have a value. For the challenge cup, i don't know. With some teams that are currently playing in CC, it can be more interesting but in france, we don't really care about this competition anyway
My first thought when South African teams joined was not too dissimilar from what Yoda said in Empire Strikes Back: "I am wondering...why are you here?" 😂
There used to be an issue with the old HEC with the geographical bias, now it’s SA teams sending their reserves. It makes no sense having the SA teams if they don’t want to at least try and win it, I can’t imagine it’s firing up their fans either. I think you brush over the extra subscription issue too, I’m a rugby nut but I’m not paying another sub to watch a sub standard competition. How on earth is the game going to grow outside of its core if it costs 100's of pounds/euro/rand to access every competition? Hardly an appealing proposition for the casual or uncommitted fan. The whole thing is yet another rugby balls up with governing bodies failing the game at every turn and nearly always to chase a fast buck rather than proper strategic planning. Selling the game off piecemeal to outside investors like CVC, bringing South African clubs into European competitions, multiple and complex broadcasting rights, taking competitions to the Middle East for a few dollars more. WR still haven’t managed to create a global calendar to protect or enhance the games Crown Jewels FFS. My club that I had supported for 40 years (Wasps) went bust, the club where my son went through the academy system (London Irish) too. I’m now asked to fork out for a TNT, Sky, Premier Sports and maybe Amazon Prime sub too to watch the game I love on TV. A day out at Twickenham for my son and I to watch England vs SA with trave, beer and food cost over £350. Meanwhile the man at the top of the RFU is trousering £1m+ in salary and bonuses and justifying it by the fact that the Red Roses have the only fully professional league and set up behind and shock horror are virtually unbeatable versus almost entirely amateur opposition. If this mismanagement carries on the game will start to lose die hard fans like me then what hope for the future. It’s a f**king shambles. Rant over…
From a South African, I wouldn't mind if our players weren't involved in Champs and Challenge Cup. Our players play a 12 month season and they could do with some rest. But if they stay, 1. How many teams have won Champs Cup without winning their home league? Only the Stormers have won URC and they're more injured than a hospital ward so what are they supposed to do. So trying to win your home league before having a go at Champs Cup makes sense. 2. SA teams can't host after the round of 16, so why bother getting a good seed in the pools? And because of the two week blocks, even if an SA team host a R16 game, they then need to fly to Europe to play the next weekend for a "home game." So now the "home team" has to do far more travelling than the away team. So again, why would SA clubs try for a good seed in the pools? 3. I understand why SA teams get a lot of hate for what's happening in Champs Cup, but are we the only ones that don't take it seriously? From what I understand Exeter are taking it pretty seriously, and still losing by massive margins. There isn't enough parity across the three leagues to suppoort so many teams
Agree with the first two point but the 3rd doesn’t make sense. Yes Exeter aren’t in a good place rn but they understand the legacy of the competition and put out their best team everytime which is in the spirit of the cup, showing the best players in the world duking it out in different teams to their nationality. SA teams have shown they don’t care about the cup and won’t send their best teams away and essentially purposefully tank games in sacrifice to the URC (sharks away, stormers away, especially bulls last year in the quarter finals purposefully throwing the game) . If the management doesn’t want to send their best team to the premier competition in favour of another, they shouldn’t play in it at all
@DxQ2 you're right. Honestly I was between two points, the first is that some teams send full strength side and still lose massively and other send weak sides and lose massively. Either way, the game is boring. Of course it's easier for European sides to send a weakened side but still with first choice players to away game in Europe because of the travel time. If SA sides get full membership and so get more money to travel in better condition, we'll see if they start sending better sides to Europe. But, like the Bulls last year, I can't see an SA side that's doing well in both Champs Cup and URC try win both if they haven't yet won a URC title. It feels like trying to run before you can walk. Now that the Bulls have lost at home, we'll see how seriously they take the Champs Cup going forward. Stormers are just trying to find 23 rugby players regardless of position and the Sharks are still on track for what they would've planned. But they need to either beat Toulouse in SA or Bordeaux in France... we'll see what happens. And they're on track in the URC so I imagine they're still trying to win both, but it'll probably come down to picking one at the end of the season. But like I said, I wouldn't mind the SA teams not playing Champs Cup if either things aren't organised better to optimise travel or if SA side continue to not send their best sides after receiving more cash to pay for better travel
I really, honestly think SA teams should get out of this competition. Everybody wants to make money but this is not working. Further rounds might, of course, prove me wrong. I hope so but I'm not holding my breath. The coaches of the SA teams are too negative, and they probably have legitimate gripes. Keep it a European competition. I would love our teams to rejoin the Super Rugby stable but I also doubt whether that will happen. Money, money, money. Too much rugby, if you can call it that, and in the process we are ironically harming the game. I have already switched off. Will rather watch the World Darts Championships which starts soon. Now that's exciting! 180!!
Why not go back to grassroots. Yes, trim the number of teams, but why not also limit the number of foreign players in teams, like they did in football's old European club competitions?
SA are just too isolated, and stuck between a rock and a hard place. Europe have each other, NZ have Australia and are starting to dip their toes in Japan with discussions started regarding a JRLO and Super Rugby crossover tournament.
Couldn’t agree more, the idea of the smaller cohort getting in and I like the cup draw for the playoffs too. I hadn’t actually thought of it being 24 teams out of 40… dead right it just is too many.
I think we should look at at the stats again at the end of the champions cup. SA teams were involved in the 23-24 season too and that looks pretty much in the same area as previous years. Think there are a few things we need to keep in mind. South African sides has never had to play 2 cups to play for at the same time. Will need time to build depth! Salary caps for different teams also a factor on building depth!
Another fantastic video Tim including many good and valid points. So here's my thoughts...... Firstly both the format and scedule have to change, as you've pointed out something along the lines of the old pools of four teams teams playing home and away is much more sensible, although if we had pools of 6 teams playing each other once to give us five games with three home and two away fixtures for some teams while two home and three away fixtures for other teams , the best seeded teams from the previous season's Champions Cup and Challenge Cup would be the ones with the three home games ,this rewarding teams with a better win rate and attacking play etc , however I'd be in favour of a 16 team elite tournament thats four pools of 4 teams playing home and away. As for the schedule, yes certainly the old schedule seemed to be better , however I can remember one Munster fan pointing out about fans being asked to attend games in freezing cold December and January with 8pm kick-offs , perhaps starting the competition with two games in January just prior to the 6 Nations with the remaining pool matches in late March/ early April and then late April with a quarter-finals in May and the semi-finals as a double header in June with the Final at the same venue the following weekend, this would be great for any host city such as Cardiff, Dublin and Edinburgh etc for tourism and publicity for the competition and so on such as helping club administrators sorting out the travel issues etc . Secondly while I agree that we have too many of our English teams in the Champions Cup , could we put two of any South African teams in this competition in the same pool ? This would certainly help with travel and scheduling issues , you're definitely spot on Tim , the powers at be within the URC, Top 14 and Premiership and Rugby Europe need to be working together to sort this mess out. Thirdly, a bit of thinking outside the box here but could having a southern hemisphere section for this competition be a way forward by having the the Australian and New Zealand teams in a section with the South Africans that is played during the same time as the 6 Nations , bringing back some of them much missed Super Rugby clashes, these games could be hosted one year in South Africa and then the following year between Australia and New Zealand followed by play-offs and as said semi-finals and Final in a single host bringing in prestige and publicity a bit like the Super Bowl in the NFL, although this would require a change of format for Super Rugby but would surely bring in far better finance all roud . Finally great that your back on the telly Tim but the is a point from fans regarding yet another subscription, many of us have Sky Sports as we still love our Super Rugby, so along with TNT it's a bit much to ask for people to pay out for a third subscription, is the £70 offer only on a streaming service ? Or is thst available through uour Sky box , many people I've spoken to have had trouble contacting Premier Sports, everything is a bit vague and also trouble with cancelling a subscription with the company reportedly taking money for another year , clarity would be welcomed from Premier Sports please.
Good to see you on the tv over the weekend Tim. It need sto be the best of the best. It juat feels like its waiting for Toulouse vs A N other. Probably Leinster. English teams are screwed, just can't compete with the big boys due to the salary cap. The best sides have a world class 23.
The English sides have squads to match most URC teams with the exception of Leinster and maybe a couple of the South Africans teams are a bit stronger.
There is not a major rugby competition on the planet where they get the scheduling right. This might be the singular and most important use of AI to bang out an equitable travel plan and draw for inter country competitions. Plus, like Microsoft, rugby always seems susceptible to bloatware. Well........like councils, government bureaucracies, non govt bureaucracies, IOC, UN, WHO and pretty much any human endeavour where people like to feel important.
It's a great way to build depth and give lots of players a chance to play. With the physical challenges that rugby places on a player I think resting players in appropriate.
The obsession Europeans have with crowd attendance is something new in the Southern hemisphere. Tim can you tell us the tv ratings? We care more about the rugby than the atmosphere in a stadium. Also dont think the Bulls and Sharks are at the bottom of there logs.
Every competition is boring before you reach the play offs. The Champions League in soccer is really boring right now and will be until we reach the knock out stages.
December in the old Heineken Cup was absolutely riveting drama because of the implications of disqualification. The extra teams have added little bit revenue
Like yourself I liked the old home and away. I was fortunate enough, in my younger days, to be a TJ/AR and had some great trips/matches. As for the different channels, it is a great deal for Premiere Sports at 70 quid.
At least you have reached the FACT that the new format is a dog’s dinner. The possibility of getting the clowns that developed this system to change their minds? ,do they any, is probably impossible.
The problems started when it was very difficult to get out of the group stage which led to some dead rubbers when teams couldn't qualify. For whatever reason the administrators decided to fix that by making it ridiculously easy to get out of the group. Of curse that will also lead to dead rubbers. Agree with reducing the number of teams who qualify out of the Premiership, 80% qualifying is daft. WRT the TV rights issue, I do get why people are upset, it includes me TBH. I simply won't pay another fee to watch what might be only two games for my side. One other point on that, the instant highlights are awful, no replays just incident, ref awards pen, kicker kicks it etc.
Everyone loves to blame the South African teams. Maybe don’t set up a schedule in which the Sharks players have to fly from playing Wales, back to Durban to play Exeter, and then back north to play Leicester. If they switched those games around, you would cut their travel in half, and maybe they could have fielded a stronger team in both games. The Bulls went strong in both games, the Stormers have literally all their Bok players injured. Stop blaming us.
I’ve been really satisfied with my premier sports subscription, as an Ireland fan in England. Both tournaments I want to watch (URC and ICC) are on the same website, pretty reasonable cost (as a student that is invaluable) and the commentary is fine for the most part, some noticeably poor commentators but that comes with the noticeably good ones
Personally think the players are playing too many games and most teams don't have the depth to play for a 10 month season. Something has to give, you have to sacrifice something, player wellbeing or position in the tournament with this current format.
No South African teams. 16 teams in 4 pools of 4. 5 URC, 5 Top14, 4 from the Prem, and a spot each for the previous year's 2 winners. Squad limit (32 players or thereabouts?). Home and way in the pools for 6 pool games total. Straight to semi finals. Investment capital has ruined the format in pursuit of more games.
Unpopular opinion but I don’t actually mind the format. I really enjoyed watching Toulouse smash Exeter yesterday. I feel the format encourages the best teams to play their best teams to ensure home fixtures in future rounds and so they take it serious lot early on (Toulouse, La Rochelle, Leinster have all played full strength teams for both of their games so far). You can see a few teams really aren’t engaged in the tournament and that’s never great but I choose not to get to stressed about that
I think of something quite easy 16 teams. 5 best top 14, 5 best URC 4 best premership + winners of challenge and champions cup (if they're already qualified, the spot goes to the first non qualified from their championship) 4 groups of 4. First two go on to direct quarter finals. Winners of group receive in 1/4 finals. Semi finals are full draw (including home and awat teams). Boom, only good teams and cool matches + it gives new interest to the local leagues since you'd want to be in the top spots to qualify.
I always laugh when I hear any suggestions the URC should do this or that. This is an English mess of the premiership and BT sports making. We had the greatest. Now we have this.
With all this English moaning, it makes me think I'm the mental one who hallucinated their toys out of the pram destruction of the greatest rugby tournament in the world in its pomp. Where's BT Sports now, by the way?
This. A million times. They tore the old format apart, forced everyone to dismantle the body that ran it, moved from Sky to BT and promised riches that never came. And now they’re whining again, seemingly confused as to where it all gone wrong. If Saracens had won their cups a few years earlier it might never have happened. They were losing their minds over Munster and Leinster winning repeatedly. That whole Bruce Craig/Nigel Wray debacle is seemingly completely forgotten about.
Premier Ports are doing great. It's actually the best move for the sport. Club rugby on free to air is the shop window. One subscription broadcaster works best. Premier Sports need to get the English Premiership no matter what happens. That will be best for everyone involved and then Premier Sports can build the product and their own revenue.
The previous TV deal with TNT included a simulcast of one game per round on FTA, and terrestrial highlights. Moving the live games to a second-rate broadcaster, and losing the FTA "shop window" - yes that is a stonking move by EPCR. Top-drawer
Champions Cup and Challenge Cup in one big pool with straight knock-out, please! This weekend's Benetton v Bath game would have been all over the news. That result hasn't had the impact it should because of the lack of jeopardy.
Also what incentive is there for a South African team to win all their games if they are not allowed to host home semi finals. Makes no difference whether you qualify 4th or 8th, so not much point
Make the Currie Cup great again! Screw the Champions Cup and all the politics that go with it. Sadly the CC is a shell of what it used to be and due the huge lack of money in SA, it won't be coming back soon.
I would be more critical of the south-African teams and all those who send a B team outside because unlike the French clubs none of these teams play in a league as homogeneous as the top 14 where some may also know the fear of relegation. When the Stade Français sends their B team, it can be understood in terms of their position in the league when the Bulls did it last year, much less. Overall, it is not an abyssal difficulty to compete among the best in URC or Premiership to at least qualify for the next European Cup. It’s this fake European cup format that allows a team to qualify with only one win and some bonuses that need to be reviewed and thrown away.
What rubbish. Frenchman pointing fingers while you send crap teams to the Southern Hemisphere every June and you will be doing it to the All Blacks in 2025 because of your same Top 14. You are also clearly priotitizing what you deem special and what you don't so sit down and zip it.
@@bunnychowmuncher Bunny your "elegant"comment to a fact based one is not warranted. Do you know what relegation is ? Z Le parc was not talking about summer tours. Dont be obsessed .Zebre or Ulster or bulls can lose all their URC games and still enjoy URC the next year and suffer no damage. For a top 14 team sometimes it is life or death.
@@jlsimonable You bullshit is not warranted either. You're acting as if everything revolves around France and what the rest of us do and what our competitions are, are not serious. If you're that hellbent about the Top 14 and relegation then don't play anything else. You guys stole the 2023 RWC hosting rights from SA though out and out corruption and now you've told NZ they are not important enough for you to send a decent team. Who the f*** do you think you are?
@@bunnychowmuncher Tell me in which world a country should apologize to have the best championship in the world which already made enough concessions during the season for national teams, so sorry !! if we choose to don't devaluate the final for friendly games in summer that only people with bored life care about after a though and intense season that everywhere you can be in the world to wrote your silly message you will never know. And it won't change the fact that URC has a less global level without pressures which don't justify to send B team in URC. Deal with it little bunny.
I think most issues in rugby boil down to an issue on the global calendar. I started researching and looking into the calendar in my spare time and how to improve it. A month or 2 down the line I’ve got a full PowerPoint presentation just in case someone from world rugby knocks on my door 😂
I remember reading Planet Rugby articles complaining about French teams sending their C teams away games because they prioritized the domestic league...I think the South African teams now do the same as they have to contend with crazy schedules, what with the URC away games.
Hi Tim agree with a lot of your ideas, one thing that really annoys me is the differing broadcasters for the various competitions. For example I subscribe to Premier sports and was wanting to watch the Autumn Internationals. I wanted to subscribe to TNT for the duration of the games, but could only find offers for a long term subscription. Hence I missed all the games.
As a South African 🇿🇦 I wont lie... I really miss Super 12 rugby. It was fast , dynamic. Was still the best rugby competition on the planet. There is no appetite for this European stuff. Stadiums are mostly empty here in South Africa.
Hello Tim. What is expected as a result for a match opposing the current 1st of Top 14 and last of the Premiership? 21 - 64. My proposal: 4 from Top 14, 3 from Premiership 4 from URC + the winner of the previous Challenge Cup. 3 groups of 4, Home and away matches then semi and finals.
I think going by stats after two weeks is a bit pointless - nothing has changed in the format since last year, and the balance of games depends entirely on the fixtures week to week. More interesting would be to compare last year with the old Heineken Cup era, which people are constantly pitching as some sort of perfect contest where every game was close and meaningful (despite the fact that it had a whole bunch of blowouts and dead rubbers). The Home / Away thing is fine in theory, but does seeing Ulster get battered twice rather than once by Toulouse *really* make things better? Also it’s really not compatible with the whole reducing travelling thing - it would mean more trips to South Africa for European teams unlucky enough to have them in their group, and vice versa - groups with out SA sides would have a massive advantage. I’m with you on reducing the number of teams, but I think that could be fairly easily done just by taking out 4 English Teams and one French team, and providing a free slot for last year’s winner (to bring the total to 20). It doesn’t require massive changes to the contest.
I assume your talking about the stats in 2:46. For games within 7 points. 23/24 season first 2 rounds/24 games was 45.8%. 22/23 first 2 rounds/24 games was 41%. And for first 2 rounds/24 games for 21+ points it was 23/24 = 17% and 22/23 = 25%. Matchups definitely matter, but those stats are definitely concerning, especially because they don't look like they will be trending upwards anytime soon
The biggest issue is there is still no "global" season, resulting in a jumbled mess, with competitions overlapping and interfering with one another, breaking momentum and diluting interest in the effected comps. The season should start with the URC/SR/Top14 etc, then have a round of international comps like 6 Nations and Rugby Championship, then bigger club comps like Champions Cup, and then end with the "autumn" international series - but switch it up, so one year in the north, and the next year in the south 🤘
what about having teams from other european nations compete, take a few spots from the prem top 14 and urc, and give them out to the domestic champions of romania, goergia, portugal spain. Yeh those teams will probably get battered but atleast at the start, but theres already many blowouts so what about some different teams getting battered, i imagine it would be a great way for players from those countries to get experience against tier 1 nations players.
I think the inclusion of the SA teams is good for the quality in Europe and it will help build all teams. The revenue they generate is also good. People don't always acknowledge that SA teams are usually >90% SA players, while the English teams have a lot of foreign born players. It may take a little time to build enough depth to be competitive 12 months a year but it will happen.
Living in the USA, I’ve been catching up on these games by watching the highlights on TH-cam. The quality of the highlights from match day one was terrible e.g audio issues and replays shown before the realtime plays. Things don’t feel tied down properly from a production standpoint.
The intersting thing about SA which i dont think has been covered in most rugby circles is that they have chosen (or been forced to chose) a calender where there domestic conpetion is Eurppean based and their international is Southern hemisphere. Even with a global calendar there would still be some friction here as you would have to change the seasonality of the sport in one of those 2 locations. Outside of that, definitely some excellent points covered and attempts at providing solutions rather then the typical moaning and nostalgia driven bias that normally drives the conversations on other outlets
We tried to have our cake and eat it too... Never really got that saying. Why would you not eat a cake you have? Anyway, greed got the better of us. The Super 12 was perfect with 12 teams. Season started in February, ended in May, and Currie Cup stated in June/July, with the Springboks joining after mid-year Test season. And between November and February, players were at home resting. It was perfect and harmonious. A 12-month season is not good for the players. Just look at how depleted the Stormers are. Players are breaking down because there is no rest. We don't want to be playing in the Champions Cup.
You are expected to eat the cake but once you do you no longer have the cake. You have to accept the consequences of your actions, in this case the format of the EPCR has been changed in a way that devalues the pool stages, combined with the logistics of travel teams are focusing on winning their home games and sending weaker teams away even if that away game is their first or second game. The EPCR cannot have a format that incentivises such tactics and then be surprised teams avail of those tactics. They cannot eat their cake, and have their cake too.
The original saying was you cannot eat your cake and have it too, in the 1930s to 1940s it started to change around, but the word "have" in this phrase is used as the word "eat", similar to having ice cream, so it doesn't really matter which way around you use because it basically says you can't eat your cake and then eat it again.
I'd also expect the numbers for the next two weekends to be closer to normal. For example the SA teams are 1/6, but they have derbies next week. They'll have an easier spring after the next round.
5 teams from each league plus previous years challenge cup winner = 16 teams. Straight to 1/4 finals ( over 2 legs - home and away).Less games overall but each team guaranteed 2 matches. Each fanbase gets a home game . Best of all every game is going to be taken seriously.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 91 | คู่เอก "คมอาวุธ vs อเล็กเซย์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V0RkEfYFsgM/mqdefault.jpg)
You're spot on with this Tim. This competition has been destroyed over the years. I remember heading out to the pub with a few pals for a super saturday of heineken Cup games, and one game was better than the other. Even a win sometimes wasn't enough. You had a nail-biter to the end waiting to see if your team could get a bonus point. Because that could be the difference between qualifying or not. And the home away element was brilliant. As a munster fan, we loved travelling to the likes of Welford Road or Franklin's Gardens. Mega trips with great people hosting us. How in hell have they managed to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Bloody criminal the way it's all gone
As a Munster fan both my father, some of his brothers and my grandfather all did away matches as part of the red army, would love to do it some day.
Hi Tim. Going forward, why doesn’t the EPCR reduce the Champions Cup to 16 teams (6 from the Top 14, 6 from the URC, and 4 from the Premiership) - i.e. top 40% of each league? Four groups of 4, home and away, then into quarters, semis and final.
So we would be back to the brilliant back-to-back match ups of old, and one would need to play nine matches to lift the trophy, not eight. But the quality would be a lot better by removing all the dead wood.
The genius administrators in rugby seem to believe that a confusing format that sports with far higher interest wouldn't touch with a bargepole lest they lose fans will somehow work for rugby.
At the very least, as you say, the old, tight, competitive group structures need to be brought back.
Spot on it used to be a lot better 16 teams would ensure a more competitive tournament
@gavindoyle692 Good shout mate, but sounds too much like common sense for rugby authorities to opt for.
+ this dropping down to the Challenge Cup 🤔 No No No. Once yer oot, yer oot has to be the way.
The old pools of six should be brought back.
I like your suggestion for a new format Tim! And thank you for giving an unbiased view of this, especially in regards to the amount of English clubs playing in the comp, and the treatment Premier is getting from the English press. That's how your channel is building so much credibility
US-exiled Glaswegian George here, Tim. You nailed it yet again. Ludicrous an 8th-ranked English team could qualify for a supposedly elite-level championship. Really like your home and away approach to foster spicier matches. Continued SA teams’ participation simply unviable both from travel cost-wise and having to commit to a 12 out of 12 month playing schedule.
100% in agreement with the questions raised and suggestions. Viewed from France where I come from, too many games are scheduled and a championship’s appeal also stems from scarcity and quality, which is definitely no longer the case.
On l'aime plutôt comme il est à Toulouse. En même temps on gagne quasi tout.
My idea would be:
Bring it to 16 team competition:
- 5 slots for Top 14
- 5 slots for URC
- 4 slots for Premiership
- 2 slots for Champions cup and Challenge cup champions.
Then:
- 4 groups of 4 teams (no more than 2 teams from the same championship in each pool)
- 6 group stages games (home and away game against the other teams from the pool)
- First 2 teams from each pool go to Quarter-final.
The level of this competition is more balanced and give more credit to the challenge cup where some good teams could challenge the title as well.
Would make a LOT more sense
Great great plan
As a long suffering Leonster fan I agree with everything you are highlighting, Tim, but as an egghead I must point out you can't compare unequal data sets to make your first point. It could have been that in the eight previous seasons that the percentages were the same at the halfway point, but settled by end of group stage.
Bring back the days of "bringing them back to Thomond" and "but we're down in Toulon next"
16 games is still a good sample of games. It’s worth discussing.
South Africans travels are an issue. It is originally a European competition; players welfare comes first and doing long flights is an issue. Not to mention carbone footprint.
I live in uk. I went to a holiday in Zimbabwe. That flight was ridiculously long. I can't imagine doing that for one game. You are very correct here.
@@ontheright2482 Agree, you probably flew from the UK to SA and then to Zimbabwe, both on the same continent with one stop. The South African teams have to fly via the Middle East, probably with a longish layover, then to London and then to wherever they are playing, all this occurring over two maybe three days!! All this is done in economy class, imagine a 6'5' 140 lbs player cramped in a tight seat for probably 16 or more hours. Do you think he would be relaxed and ready to play a strenuous game of rugby?? NH teams just have to make an overnight flight probably in Business class with "lie-flat" seating. It is ridiculous. Your suggestion of a home and away competition would be far more indicative of the strength of the teams!
Carbon footprint.
Yeah right
@@paulcostello1807wow, cool way to announce you only finished high school.
Carbon footprint? You mean like all those "climate" wankfests where they all arrive in private jets and scoff down tons of wagyu beef?
Rugby's dark secret is that the Challenge Cup games are much more interesting and entertaining
And they don't show most of them now
Which is why I don’t want Munster yo end up relegated.
Dear Tim, South Africa would be better of only playing in the URC. Having to travel for one game overseas was the same reason why SA left Super Rugby. This is just a repeat of the same problem.
As a South African the idea of us playing in an almost world cup club competition is amazing. But it all comes down to scheduling if each team is going to Europe anyway why not have 2-3 weeks of just away games for the SA teams so they get a rest throw in a URC game in there as well to make both seasons go by faster and have equal amounts of engagement. I think the only thing that needs to happen for SA fans to back the competition is a deep run in the tournament by the bulls, sharks, stormers and then you have a whole new market generating immense money
Hardly an "almost world cup competition" ... no need for hyperbole.
If there was a 'Champions Cup' that saw the winners of the Top14, URC, Premiership, Japan League 1, SuperRugby, Major League Rugby, & a South American regional club competition winner ... that would be worthy of the name.
@LittleBigMediaCo what an odd thing to comment on. That statement had nothing to do with the actual point of my message. Since you're such a snob about it let me instead say, "As a South African the idea of playing in a 7 nations style club competition is amazing" u must be fin at parties
@@thatmaddenmobileman9587 Suggest you go read your own comment.
The word you might be looking for is "fun".
Nothing about the Champions Cup is like a 7 nations for clubs ... it's a bloated tournament with 24 financially mismatched teams, only 6 of who are actually trying seriously to win it, another 12 have one foot in and one foot out, and 6 just have better things to do.
There is no parity in the travel schedule, the playing conditions, or the means of the clubs involved ... and a tournament without parity is doomed.
@LittleBigMediaCo again if your read my comment I said the idea of it is amazing, because right now the competition is not where it needs to be, as was the whole point of the video. Right now it's nowhere near a 7 nations type tournament. But if things can work out properly I think having a South African market can do numbers for this game
@@thatmaddenmobileman9587 Expecting a 'quality competition' with 24 teams is a pipe dream.
What they have tried to create is nothing more than a competition that is as 'inclusive' as possible, in the hopes it will bring as much money as possible by tapping as many markets as possible.
Instead they've got a watered down flop that no one can really justify. Already the Top14 bosses are urgently trying to reduce the salary cap, but the current agreement runs until 2029 or something crazy. So if they can't cut the cap, the next way to cut budget is to cut the squad size. And France is about to head into major political and financial turmoil. Leinster is going to be sitting man-alone with a huge squad on the books. Already their depth and finances are creating one-sided rugby. That's the first thing that will chase away casual fans, who make up probably 70% of all viewers.
Just dump the whole distraction.
Well done Tim. I think you've put some excellent ideas forward that should be noted by the Admins.
Big issue I have with these concerns is I have no idea what we are trying to compare it to. Simplest comparison I can see is footballs Champions League. No one there really expects Sparta Praha to be competitive with Barcelona, but we do understand it will fill seats, win tv time for the smaller club, and make the general fan base take an interest in the next game if Praha take Barcelona to the edge somehow.
The league was expanded to increase tv time for the smaller clubs and get some more cash into them. To cut back again would just leave the naturally strong that bit stronger again which does nothing to increase rugbys fan base.
And until South Africa’s economy gets to a level of strength where they can support their own league, they are better off with us from a TV timing perspective and making sure the advertisers stay interested. One of the years they will take it serious to chase, but at the moment they need more time to get settled into the URC and almost get tired of winning cups there to put the challenge to themselves to go far in this competition.
Great video. Really good talking about the data instead of just a feeling. Keep it up.
The South African travel issue would be resolved if they simply weren’t in European competitions.
Which other competition remains closer?
URC is fine buy Championship is a bridge too far.
You're right, moreover their stands are empty. Poor country!
@@AnicetChvt You do know that the stadiums in South Africa take between 45k -70k. You muppet. UK stadiums take 8k-12k max. Looks at ticket sales not stadiums.
I'd prefer to lose the English teams than the SA teams. It would also be karma for destroying the old competition.
This years format makes things a lottery. Never mind teams sending “b “ teams the fact that you dont play every team in your group, eg Glasgow will not play Stormers who are by far the weakest and where other teams are likely to get 5 points is a disadvantage.
So back to 4 groups of 4 with home and away games
Agree Tim, qualitty over quantity should be best for every actor in the ecosystem!
The same issues that caused the Super 14 (or whatever it was called back then) to collapse. To many games, too many teams, player fatigue, travel issues between SA, AUS and NZ, etc. Money talks unfortunately and the powers that be will try and squeeze every penny out of this thing before they let go of their grip.
In France too, we have to pay another subscription (Bein sport) to watch the Champions Cup. Very few matches, among those played in France, are not behind a pay wall.
True, but there were 3 games on free to view france TV this weekend.
There is always the best game involving a french team on Saturday and Sunday in the Champions Cup. + Perpignan this weekend.
Don’t canal and bien come as a package? I pay 70€ per month and get all sports
@kenrehill8775 yes, you can get a package, but it's more than the standard Canal subscription.
@ right
I think the thing w/ the tv deals is that for the older generation (I could just be waffling), they were used to having games on free to air or always on sky or always on BT. But nowadays that’s just not how things work. Outside of the FA cup and the odd bit of horse racing, every sport is behind some sort of paywall. If you’re a premier league fan, you’ll need to have two subscriptions to watch the EPL (sky and TNT), and if your team make it into Europe you’ll need to have that TNT subscription to watch them
A solution would be a drastic reduction of the number of teams (down to 8 would be good I believe) and knock-out home and away fixtures immediately. Saffas would not be penalized and only 7 games to win it, all of them should be competitive and great. In addition, getting to play the competition would already be quite an achievement while it's today a due thing for english teams and barely competitive for URC and Top14. Qualify the best 2 after regular season of each league, plus Challenge cup winner and an extra spot for Champions cup winner league.
Challenge cup would work with more teams including more exotic teams from other leagues.
But come on, when you finish 8th of your league, you cannot pretend to play highest level competition.
Brilliant video! The SA teams will settle in. This is a very tough comp and we just need time to figure it all out. In terms of format change suggestions; 100% on board. Less teams, home and away and knockout format sounds incredible!
Amazing how often the issues with the game come back to administrators actually being expected to administer.
Big time
Spot on Tim. Home and away would do it for me. Now teams figure that if you win your home games you will get through.
£70 a year really is a bargain. In SA just supersport costs close to £40 per MONTH
Yes but at least with a full package on Supersport one gets other sports apart from rugby e.g. football, cricket etc. In the UK if one wants to watch rugby and say Premiership football, UEFA Champions League football, Test cricket/ODI/T20, one needs a combination of Sky, TNT, Amazon Prime, and Premier sports. Can get ridiculously expensive!!
All reasonable suggestions Tim. I think you could also go 5/5/4 from URC/T14/Prem. + Winners of challenge cup (next team from that league if already qualified), winners of champions cup (next team from that league if already qualified) to make 16 teams in total.
Also SA teams are in, both us Europeans and Saffers themselves should focus on solutions. I think they could be accommodated a lot more, shouldn't be too difficult to coordinate them playing their away games in a big bunch in URC and Champions Cup.
The back to back pool games were amazing. 100% agree that format element should return
When you’ve lost your way, retrace your steps. The original HC format was ideal, home & away games, the back-to-back December fixtures, it needs to be reverted to.
It really wasn’t. You’re just remembering the good parts. There were tonnes of blowout fixtures, made even more ridiculous by having two legs. And often by the last couple of games, teams had no hope of qualifying so just gave up completely.
@@Zveebo I wouldn't say the original HC format was ideal but I do believe it was better than what we currently have. Most teams would fully compete for the first two games as you had to in order to try and qualify. If you lost both of the first two games then you would see B teams being sent as the odds of qualifying were so low. With the current format teams are not automatically starting off with their best teams from the get go. A 50% win rate is good enough to qualify so teams are targeting their home games so will send a B team even if it is their first or second game. Seeing B teams so early into the comp is what is annoying people and devaluing the competition. Seeing 8/10 teams qualify into the "elite" Champions Cup is devaluing, seeing 4/6 teams teams qualify from the "elite" pools is devaluing, seeing a round of 16 knock out round before the quarter finals is devaluing. The old format was not ideal but it certainly felt more valuable than what we have currently.
Partial stats are pretty statistically worthless until all the games are played. Don't hang yourself out to dry yet! But your point on the Prem allocation is spot on.
Tim I think we (South Africa) should play URC only until a global calendar is implemented. Our guys need a rest and we find this champions cup not as important as say the Currie Cup - at least the way it is now.
What I find humerous though we keep hearing how this is for Europeans only but the non-SA teams have no problem recruiting our guys to play in it for their teams - do as we say and not as we do. I have seen French guys complain at us for not fielding full teams but they have no issue sending weak teams to the southern hemisphere in June and have said they will do that in NZ no problem in 2025.
This works both ways and World Rugby have to sort out a global calendar.
A global calendar will never be sorted and it’s impossible because it’s a winter sport and either the southern or northern hemisphere would have to play rugby in the summer
@@edconway8599Right now the South Africans are plying in the summer.
@edconway8599 rugby biggest event being played in either winter or summer, depending on where it is hosted, so that is just a stupid argument.
Dear Bunny No .French people dont complain that you are not sending the best teams. As the matter of fact we understand it. We just take note that what was the summer rant against the french can now be applied to URC and premiership teams . But we understand it
@ No, there’s a huge difference between sending second team to a club game, and international test series.
I agree there are too many teams and i cant fathom who we are to play when the draw is being made. Also i agree we miss the home away fixtures. Plus the last 2 years we have seen repeats of ties in round of 16 that we had in pool stages. One suggestion i saw some years back that if you want to keep 24 teams you could go 8 pools of 3, each team plays home and away. then only the pool winners go into the quarter final. this would help reduce the number of games by one i realise but everything helps. also it increases the jeopardy as only one team qualifies from a group. bringing back the home away also increases the animosity and camaraderie in the fans. But i think fewer teams would be better.
Jeopardy is the thing Tim as you mentioned. I remember the miracle match munster needed to score 4 tries and win by 27 point to get out of the group. One of the All time great games in ERC.
Less teams and please let the groups make sense for the casual fan
What a match!!!
Won't lie, as a SA club fan I have no place in my heart, currently, for Champions Cup. Taking absolutely nothing away from it's history or meaning to European fans. Means nothing to me only because we were busy with Super Rugby all those years and only time we heard about it was when another SA player left our shores to play in Europe and our Super Rugby teams got a little bit weaker. It was that comp that kept taking our players so it's not like we ever looked at it with stars in our eyes. I do think it's in our interest for our players to play in Japan and Europe though, but maybe not our teams.
That's not to say the Champions Cup has no value, because of course it does, but we as SA fans don't know it well enough and are still in the process of getting into URC which is where our attention is, outside of international rugby.
Leaving Champions Cup may well have knock on effects for us though with all the talk of English Irish leagues etc, but just speaking honestly, when I see it's a Champion's Cup weekend my interest drops from the URC levels as it's currently just a distraction from the comp that we are invested in, for us.
And this will come off as salty as heck, but the appeal of watching an SA club get beaten by your own players and players from the SH is just, not what we're used to or what we were raised on. We were raised on club rugby being a bunch of NZ teams with NZ players against a bunch of Aus teams with Aus players against us, a bunch of SA teams with SA players, going at it. Followed by Tri Nations where the best of all of those bashed it out at international level.
@@greenplasticgun we love the SA teams in the URC as Irish fans. If your inclusion in the CC can precipitate a change back to the original format that fans could actually understand - that being a simplified group structure - interest in SA will grow and regrow in Ireland I'm sure.
@ simplifying is a big step towards generating interest. SA isn’t used to the tournament structure that Europe uses for its sports at all. For us it’s been one comp you try win each year, a domestic comp and internationals.
But more importantly will be being competitive in the CC and I’m not sure given the player base left in SA and going up against the club strengths that exist in the CC that SA will ever really be competitive in it.
URC probably wouldn’t be as popular as it is in SA if our teams had not been as relatively successful as they have been coming in.
Fair enough.
6 from the URC, 5 from the Top14, 4 from the premiership, plus last year’s winner.
16 teams, put them into four pools, home and away for six matches, top two go into the last eight.
I wish they’d just hire Tim to be head of World Rugby.
On the Premier Sports criticism, you should know by now that people like to plead poverty on everything and expect everything to be free. It's a tenner. The coverage is decent.
Regarding the qualification, yes 2 less teams makes sense. And a team finishing bottom of any league shouldn't be qualifying for any European competition.
What would happen if the unthinkable finally did happen and a team were relegated from the Prem. Would they be playing Challenge Cup games in the Championship?
Good points all. Streamlining the competition, syncing the SA teams’ travel with their URC obligations, and having a tighter home and home setup would all improve things. Maybe even better to make it a pure home and home knockout tournament and bag the pool stage altogether; then every single match would have meaning. 12 teams, with three league champions plus the previous year’s champion or finalist, unless both of those were also a league champion….those four are seeded directly to a quarterfinal, with the other eight drawn into a first-round home/home tie to reach the quarterfinals. Semis and the grand final could be one-offs on neutral venues. That’s fewer matches - 19, I think - but all with high stakes and great potential and greater prestige.
Super Rugby's demise was due to clueless expansionism.
The South African teams could add value if the scheduling was more aligned for both sides.
This weekend we saw an impressive display by Northampton against my beloved Bulls who themselves were quite poor at a very cold StoneX stadium after thumping Connacht the week before limiting the impact of one match travel in this instance.
I think the blocks of the competition need to be stretched out more, 6 rounds, get rid of the last 16 and schedule based on travel.
Quite good fixes you proposed.
Here is an other idea to adress the b teams problem :
Make the EPCR games count in domestic leagues.
I guess some will find odd to make the elite competition points count for the domestic season but I'm pretty sure it would help teams and their fans push a bit harder to get to knock-off stages AND it would mechanically select the most epcr involved squads for next year rounds.
If my grammar was'nt telling, I'm French.
And as a french and Top 14 fan, I'm pissed to hear staffs saying they're letting half off their best players at rest for a Champion's cup game because they need to focus on the next Top 14 bloc....
Very good idea with the format in the video
Lot of issues now
-SA Teams that have nothing to do in the european cups.
-Travel in SA that does not make sense and make it unfair if you play an SA team home or away
-Too many teams and sometimes not good enough
-URC teams don't play in SA during stage pool and quite unfair for ENG and FR teams
Best option is less teams and game or home and away but games that have a value.
For the challenge cup, i don't know. With some teams that are currently playing in CC, it can be more interesting but in france, we don't really care about this competition anyway
Why are you not involved in making these decisions? These leagues should hire you. You would help grow the game exponentially.
My first thought when South African teams joined was not too dissimilar from what Yoda said in Empire Strikes Back:
"I am wondering...why are you here?" 😂
There used to be an issue with the old HEC with the geographical bias, now it’s SA teams sending their reserves. It makes no sense having the SA teams if they don’t want to at least try and win it, I can’t imagine it’s firing up their fans either.
I think you brush over the extra subscription issue too, I’m a rugby nut but I’m not paying another sub to watch a sub standard competition. How on earth is the game going to grow outside of its core if it costs 100's of pounds/euro/rand to access every competition? Hardly an appealing proposition for the casual or uncommitted fan. The whole thing is yet another rugby balls up with governing bodies failing the game at every turn and nearly always to chase a fast buck rather than proper strategic planning. Selling the game off piecemeal to outside investors like CVC, bringing South African clubs into European competitions, multiple and complex broadcasting rights, taking competitions to the Middle East for a few dollars more. WR still haven’t managed to create a global calendar to protect or enhance the games Crown Jewels FFS.
My club that I had supported for 40 years (Wasps) went bust, the club where my son went through the academy system (London Irish) too. I’m now asked to fork out for a TNT, Sky, Premier Sports and maybe Amazon Prime sub too to watch the game I love on TV. A day out at Twickenham for my son and I to watch England vs SA with trave, beer and food cost over £350. Meanwhile the man at the top of the RFU is trousering £1m+ in salary and bonuses and justifying it by the fact that the Red Roses have the only fully professional league and set up behind and shock horror are virtually unbeatable versus almost entirely amateur opposition.
If this mismanagement carries on the game will start to lose die hard fans like me then what hope for the future. It’s a f**king shambles.
Rant over…
From a South African, I wouldn't mind if our players weren't involved in Champs and Challenge Cup. Our players play a 12 month season and they could do with some rest. But if they stay,
1. How many teams have won Champs Cup without winning their home league? Only the Stormers have won URC and they're more injured than a hospital ward so what are they supposed to do. So trying to win your home league before having a go at Champs Cup makes sense.
2. SA teams can't host after the round of 16, so why bother getting a good seed in the pools? And because of the two week blocks, even if an SA team host a R16 game, they then need to fly to Europe to play the next weekend for a "home game." So now the "home team" has to do far more travelling than the away team. So again, why would SA clubs try for a good seed in the pools?
3. I understand why SA teams get a lot of hate for what's happening in Champs Cup, but are we the only ones that don't take it seriously? From what I understand Exeter are taking it pretty seriously, and still losing by massive margins. There isn't enough parity across the three leagues to suppoort so many teams
Agree with the first two point but the 3rd doesn’t make sense. Yes Exeter aren’t in a good place rn but they understand the legacy of the competition and put out their best team everytime which is in the spirit of the cup, showing the best players in the world duking it out in different teams to their nationality. SA teams have shown they don’t care about the cup and won’t send their best teams away and essentially purposefully tank games in sacrifice to the URC (sharks away, stormers away, especially bulls last year in the quarter finals purposefully throwing the game) . If the management doesn’t want to send their best team to the premier competition in favour of another, they shouldn’t play in it at all
@DxQ2 you're right. Honestly I was between two points, the first is that some teams send full strength side and still lose massively and other send weak sides and lose massively. Either way, the game is boring. Of course it's easier for European sides to send a weakened side but still with first choice players to away game in Europe because of the travel time. If SA sides get full membership and so get more money to travel in better condition, we'll see if they start sending better sides to Europe.
But, like the Bulls last year, I can't see an SA side that's doing well in both Champs Cup and URC try win both if they haven't yet won a URC title. It feels like trying to run before you can walk. Now that the Bulls have lost at home, we'll see how seriously they take the Champs Cup going forward. Stormers are just trying to find 23 rugby players regardless of position and the Sharks are still on track for what they would've planned. But they need to either beat Toulouse in SA or Bordeaux in France... we'll see what happens. And they're on track in the URC so I imagine they're still trying to win both, but it'll probably come down to picking one at the end of the season. But like I said, I wouldn't mind the SA teams not playing Champs Cup if either things aren't organised better to optimise travel or if SA side continue to not send their best sides after receiving more cash to pay for better travel
I really, honestly think SA teams should get out of this competition. Everybody wants to make money but this is not working. Further rounds might, of course, prove me wrong. I hope so but I'm not holding my breath. The coaches of the SA teams are too negative, and they probably have legitimate gripes. Keep it a European competition. I would love our teams to rejoin the Super Rugby stable but I also doubt whether that will happen. Money, money, money. Too much rugby, if you can call it that, and in the process we are ironically harming the game. I have already switched off. Will rather watch the World Darts Championships which starts soon. Now that's exciting! 180!!
Well spoken 😂 and that's coming from a Kiwi. 😅
Why not go back to grassroots. Yes, trim the number of teams, but why not also limit the number of foreign players in teams, like they did in football's old European club competitions?
SA are just too isolated, and stuck between a rock and a hard place. Europe have each other, NZ have Australia and are starting to dip their toes in Japan with discussions started regarding a JRLO and Super Rugby crossover tournament.
It makes sense. It would help also to have a UEFA style ranking of the teams that determines how many teams each league qualifies.
Also need to factor in that Premiership is just England, Top 14 is just France, and URC is South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy.
Couldn’t agree more, the idea of the smaller cohort getting in and I like the cup draw for the playoffs too. I hadn’t actually thought of it being 24 teams out of 40… dead right it just is too many.
It feels like the easiest thing to do is blame the Safas. I think we should do that….
Tim,you are hitting the nail on it's head!
A straight knock-out Cup competition with home-and-away matches. That would be cool.
Sharks left 11 players at home, Stormers had 7 out, Bulls had NO excuses. Once again I feel SA teams are sacrificing this tournament for the URC.
Most of Sharks and stomers players were injured.
@@vuyaniman9440"injured" for the holidays
@ , wow.
6+6+6 and the winner of the the challenge and champions cup (winners country gets an extra team) makes 20 for 4x5 team groups back to old format
I think we should look at at the stats again at the end of the champions cup. SA teams were involved in the 23-24 season too and that looks pretty much in the same area as previous years. Think there are a few things we need to keep in mind. South African sides has never had to play 2 cups to play for at the same time. Will need time to build depth! Salary caps for different teams also a factor on building depth!
If I was John Dobson, i wouldve focused on the championship cup, we are so far out in the URC that the champions cup wouldve made more sense.
100% right, it’s only the English base who are complaining about the fact that the matches are on Premier Sports.
Another fantastic video Tim including many good and valid points. So here's my thoughts......
Firstly both the format and scedule have to change, as you've pointed out something along the lines of the old pools of four teams teams playing home and away is much more sensible, although if we had pools of 6 teams playing each other once to give us five games with three home and two away fixtures for some teams while two home and three away fixtures for other teams , the best seeded teams from the previous season's Champions Cup and Challenge Cup would be the ones with the three home games ,this rewarding teams with a better win rate and attacking play etc , however I'd be in favour of a 16 team elite tournament thats four pools of 4 teams playing home and away.
As for the schedule, yes certainly the old schedule seemed to be better , however I can remember one Munster fan pointing out about fans being asked to attend games in freezing cold December and January with 8pm kick-offs , perhaps starting the competition with two games in January just prior to the 6 Nations with the remaining pool matches in late March/ early April and then late April with a quarter-finals in May and the semi-finals as a double header in June with the Final at the same venue the following weekend, this would be great for any host city such as Cardiff, Dublin and Edinburgh etc for tourism and publicity for the competition and so on such as helping club administrators sorting out the travel issues etc .
Secondly while I agree that we have too many of our English teams in the Champions Cup , could we put two of any South African teams in this competition in the same pool ? This would certainly help with travel and scheduling issues , you're definitely spot on Tim , the powers at be within the URC, Top 14 and Premiership and Rugby Europe need to be working together to sort this mess out.
Thirdly, a bit of thinking outside the box here but could having a southern hemisphere section for this competition be a way forward by having the the Australian and New Zealand teams in a section with the South Africans that is played during the same time as the 6 Nations , bringing back some of them much missed Super Rugby clashes, these games could be hosted one year in South Africa and then the following year between Australia and New Zealand followed by play-offs and as said semi-finals and Final in a single host bringing in prestige and publicity a bit like the Super Bowl in the NFL, although this would require a change of format for Super Rugby but would surely bring in far better finance all roud .
Finally great that your back on the telly Tim but the is a point from fans regarding yet another subscription, many of us have Sky Sports as we still love our Super Rugby, so along with TNT it's a bit much to ask for people to pay out for a third subscription, is the £70 offer only on a streaming service ? Or is thst available through uour Sky box , many people I've spoken to have had trouble contacting Premier Sports, everything is a bit vague and also trouble with cancelling a subscription with the company reportedly taking money for another year , clarity would be welcomed from Premier Sports please.
Good to see you on the tv over the weekend Tim. It need sto be the best of the best. It juat feels like its waiting for Toulouse vs A N other. Probably Leinster.
English teams are screwed, just can't compete with the big boys due to the salary cap. The best sides have a world class 23.
The English sides have squads to match most URC teams with the exception of Leinster and maybe a couple of the South Africans teams are a bit stronger.
We have a salary cap in france
There is not a major rugby competition on the planet where they get the scheduling right. This might be the singular and most important use of AI to bang out an equitable travel plan and draw for inter country competitions.
Plus, like Microsoft, rugby always seems susceptible to bloatware. Well........like councils, government bureaucracies, non govt bureaucracies, IOC, UN, WHO and pretty much any human endeavour where people like to feel important.
It's a great way to build depth and give lots of players a chance to play. With the physical challenges that rugby places on a player I think resting players in appropriate.
SA have added a lot to the URC so I dunno wot the solution is for the heinous cup but please don’t leave the URC my SA amigos
Would like to hear more about specifically which turkey needs to vote for what for a global season to work, Maybe it’s been covered already.
The obsession Europeans have with crowd attendance is something new in the Southern hemisphere. Tim can you tell us the tv ratings? We care more about the rugby than the atmosphere in a stadium. Also dont think the Bulls and Sharks are at the bottom of there logs.
Got to pay the bills mate.
Every competition is boring before you reach the play offs. The Champions League in soccer is really boring right now and will be until we reach the knock out stages.
December in the old Heineken Cup was absolutely riveting drama because of the implications of disqualification. The extra teams have added little bit revenue
Like yourself I liked the old home and away. I was fortunate enough, in my younger days, to be a TJ/AR and had some great trips/matches. As for the different channels, it is a great deal for Premiere Sports at 70 quid.
At least you have reached the FACT that the new format is a dog’s dinner. The possibility of getting the clowns that developed this system to change their minds? ,do they any, is probably impossible.
Have to find where the spivs hid the head office in Switzerland first.
The problems started when it was very difficult to get out of the group stage which led to some dead rubbers when teams couldn't qualify.
For whatever reason the administrators decided to fix that by making it ridiculously easy to get out of the group. Of curse that will also lead to dead rubbers.
Agree with reducing the number of teams who qualify out of the Premiership, 80% qualifying is daft.
WRT the TV rights issue, I do get why people are upset, it includes me TBH. I simply won't pay another fee to watch what might be only two games for my side.
One other point on that, the instant highlights are awful, no replays just incident, ref awards pen, kicker kicks it etc.
Everyone loves to blame the South African teams. Maybe don’t set up a schedule in which the Sharks players have to fly from playing Wales, back to Durban to play Exeter, and then back north to play Leicester. If they switched those games around, you would cut their travel in half, and maybe they could have fielded a stronger team in both games. The Bulls went strong in both games, the Stormers have literally all their Bok players injured. Stop blaming us.
I don't think it's about blaming you, it's just not working too well.
I’ve been really satisfied with my premier sports subscription, as an Ireland fan in England. Both tournaments I want to watch (URC and ICC) are on the same website, pretty reasonable cost (as a student that is invaluable) and the commentary is fine for the most part, some noticeably poor commentators but that comes with the noticeably good ones
Personally think the players are playing too many games and most teams don't have the depth to play for a 10 month season. Something has to give, you have to sacrifice something, player wellbeing or position in the tournament with this current format.
No South African teams. 16 teams in 4 pools of 4. 5 URC, 5 Top14, 4 from the Prem, and a spot each for the previous year's 2 winners. Squad limit (32 players or thereabouts?). Home and way in the pools for 6 pool games total. Straight to semi finals.
Investment capital has ruined the format in pursuit of more games.
Straight to the quarters surely ? Only having a semi and a final is madness
Why not ?
What if there's 3 SA teams in the Top 5 ( URC) ? Trust he I don't want us to be in the CC.
I I think the prestige of the tournament has takien a huge hit over the last while.
Unpopular opinion but I don’t actually mind the format. I really enjoyed watching Toulouse smash Exeter yesterday.
I feel the format encourages the best teams to play their best teams to ensure home fixtures in future rounds and so they take it serious lot early on (Toulouse, La Rochelle, Leinster have all played full strength teams for both of their games so far).
You can see a few teams really aren’t engaged in the tournament and that’s never great but I choose not to get to stressed about that
I think of something quite easy 16 teams. 5 best top 14, 5 best URC 4 best premership + winners of challenge and champions cup (if they're already qualified, the spot goes to the first non qualified from their championship) 4 groups of 4. First two go on to direct quarter finals. Winners of group receive in 1/4 finals. Semi finals are full draw (including home and awat teams).
Boom, only good teams and cool matches + it gives new interest to the local leagues since you'd want to be in the top spots to qualify.
Saw your pre match chat with Andy Goode, he invited you on the rugby pod yet?😉😂
I also think that the comp needs t be moved to the end of the season. Winners of that seasons Pro-14, URC and Prem, to compete in that years euros.
I always laugh when I hear any suggestions the URC should do this or that. This is an English mess of the premiership and BT sports making. We had the greatest. Now we have this.
With all this English moaning, it makes me think I'm the mental one who hallucinated their toys out of the pram destruction of the greatest rugby tournament in the world in its pomp.
Where's BT Sports now, by the way?
This. A million times. They tore the old format apart, forced everyone to dismantle the body that ran it, moved from Sky to BT and promised riches that never came. And now they’re whining again, seemingly confused as to where it all gone wrong.
If Saracens had won their cups a few years earlier it might never have happened. They were losing their minds over Munster and Leinster winning repeatedly. That whole Bruce Craig/Nigel Wray debacle is seemingly completely forgotten about.
@@brianboyle2681It's TNT.
Premier Ports are doing great. It's actually the best move for the sport. Club rugby on free to air is the shop window. One subscription broadcaster works best. Premier Sports need to get the English Premiership no matter what happens. That will be best for everyone involved and then Premier Sports can build the product and their own revenue.
The previous TV deal with TNT included a simulcast of one game per round on FTA, and terrestrial highlights. Moving the live games to a second-rate broadcaster, and losing the FTA "shop window" - yes that is a stonking move by EPCR. Top-drawer
Champions Cup and Challenge Cup in one big pool with straight knock-out, please! This weekend's Benetton v Bath game would have been all over the news.
That result hasn't had the impact it should because of the lack of jeopardy.
Also what incentive is there for a South African team to win all their games if they are not allowed to host home semi finals. Makes no difference whether you qualify 4th or 8th, so not much point
Make the Currie Cup great again! Screw the Champions Cup and all the politics that go with it.
Sadly the CC is a shell of what it used to be and due the huge lack of money in SA, it won't be coming back soon.
I would be more critical of the south-African teams and all those who send a B team outside because unlike the French clubs none of these teams play in a league as homogeneous as the top 14 where some may also know the fear of relegation.
When the Stade Français sends their B team, it can be understood in terms of their position in the league when the Bulls did it last year, much less.
Overall, it is not an abyssal difficulty to compete among the best in URC or Premiership to at least qualify for the next European Cup.
It’s this fake European cup format that allows a team to qualify with only one win and some bonuses that need to be reviewed and thrown away.
What rubbish. Frenchman pointing fingers while you send crap teams to the Southern Hemisphere every June and you will be doing it to the All Blacks in 2025 because of your same Top 14. You are also clearly priotitizing what you deem special and what you don't so sit down and zip it.
@@bunnychowmuncher Bunny your "elegant"comment to a fact based one is not warranted. Do you know what relegation is ? Z Le parc was not talking about summer tours. Dont be obsessed .Zebre or Ulster or bulls can lose all their URC games and still enjoy URC the next year and suffer no damage. For a top 14 team sometimes it is life or death.
@@jlsimonable You bullshit is not warranted either. You're acting as if everything revolves around France and what the rest of us do and what our competitions are, are not serious.
If you're that hellbent about the Top 14 and relegation then don't play anything else.
You guys stole the 2023 RWC hosting rights from SA though out and out corruption and now you've told NZ they are not important enough for you to send a decent team. Who the f*** do you think you are?
@@bunnychowmuncher Tell me in which world a country should apologize to have the best championship in the world which already made enough concessions during the season for national teams, so sorry !! if we choose to don't devaluate the final for friendly games in summer that only people with bored life care about after a though and intense season that everywhere you can be in the world to wrote your silly message you will never know. And it won't change the fact that URC has a less global level without pressures which don't justify to send B team in URC. Deal with it little bunny.
great content as usual Tim
I think most issues in rugby boil down to an issue on the global calendar. I started researching and looking into the calendar in my spare time and how to improve it. A month or 2 down the line I’ve got a full PowerPoint presentation just in case someone from world rugby knocks on my door 😂
I remember reading Planet Rugby articles complaining about French teams sending their C teams away games because they prioritized the domestic league...I think the South African teams now do the same as they have to contend with crazy schedules, what with the URC away games.
Hi Tim agree with a lot of your ideas, one thing that really annoys me is the differing broadcasters for the various competitions. For example I subscribe to Premier sports and was wanting to watch the Autumn Internationals. I wanted to subscribe to TNT for the duration of the games, but could only find offers for a long term subscription. Hence I missed all the games.
As a South African 🇿🇦 I wont lie...
I really miss Super 12 rugby. It was fast , dynamic. Was still the best rugby competition on the planet. There is no appetite for this European stuff. Stadiums are mostly empty here in South Africa.
Sounds like an SA problem tbh, I saw that Leinster filled out an 82,000 stadium for a URC game, would never get that in Super Rugby
Hello Tim. What is expected as a result for a match opposing the current 1st of Top 14 and last of the Premiership? 21 - 64. My proposal: 4 from Top 14, 3 from Premiership 4 from URC + the winner of the previous Challenge Cup. 3 groups of 4, Home and away matches then semi and finals.
tim , do you have time in your program to run world rugby for us? our players can not handle 12 months of rugby and be competitive in all twelve
I appreciate the research Tim!
I think going by stats after two weeks is a bit pointless - nothing has changed in the format since last year, and the balance of games depends entirely on the fixtures week to week. More interesting would be to compare last year with the old Heineken Cup era, which people are constantly pitching as some sort of perfect contest where every game was close and meaningful (despite the fact that it had a whole bunch of blowouts and dead rubbers).
The Home / Away thing is fine in theory, but does seeing Ulster get battered twice rather than once by Toulouse *really* make things better? Also it’s really not compatible with the whole reducing travelling thing - it would mean more trips to South Africa for European teams unlucky enough to have them in their group, and vice versa - groups with out SA sides would have a massive advantage.
I’m with you on reducing the number of teams, but I think that could be fairly easily done just by taking out 4 English Teams and one French team, and providing a free slot for last year’s winner (to bring the total to 20). It doesn’t require massive changes to the contest.
I assume your talking about the stats in 2:46. For games within 7 points. 23/24 season first 2 rounds/24 games was 45.8%. 22/23 first 2 rounds/24 games was 41%. And for first 2 rounds/24 games for 21+ points it was 23/24 = 17% and 22/23 = 25%. Matchups definitely matter, but those stats are definitely concerning, especially because they don't look like they will be trending upwards anytime soon
Simple solution is remove the SA teams. They are showing that they don't care about the competition
The biggest issue is there is still no "global" season, resulting in a jumbled mess, with competitions overlapping and interfering with one another, breaking momentum and diluting interest in the effected comps. The season should start with the URC/SR/Top14 etc, then have a round of international comps like 6 Nations and Rugby Championship, then bigger club comps like Champions Cup, and then end with the "autumn" international series - but switch it up, so one year in the north, and the next year in the south 🤘
they wanted to play with the best and now they are crying hahahah i love this 😂❤
Rather cry now and laugh later.
what about having teams from other european nations compete, take a few spots from the prem top 14 and urc, and give them out to the domestic champions of romania, goergia, portugal spain. Yeh those teams will probably get battered but atleast at the start, but theres already many blowouts so what about some different teams getting battered, i imagine it would be a great way for players from those countries to get experience against tier 1 nations players.
I think the inclusion of the SA teams is good for the quality in Europe and it will help build all teams. The revenue they generate is also good.
People don't always acknowledge that SA teams are usually >90% SA players, while the English teams have a lot of foreign born players. It may take a little time to build enough depth to be competitive 12 months a year but it will happen.
Living in the USA, I’ve been catching up on these games by watching the highlights on TH-cam. The quality of the highlights from match day one was terrible e.g audio issues and replays shown before the realtime plays. Things don’t feel tied down properly from a production standpoint.
The intersting thing about SA which i dont think has been covered in most rugby circles is that they have chosen (or been forced to chose) a calender where there domestic conpetion is Eurppean based and their international is Southern hemisphere. Even with a global calendar there would still be some friction here as you would have to change the seasonality of the sport in one of those 2 locations.
Outside of that, definitely some excellent points covered and attempts at providing solutions rather then the typical moaning and nostalgia driven bias that normally drives the conversations on other outlets
We tried to have our cake and eat it too... Never really got that saying. Why would you not eat a cake you have?
Anyway, greed got the better of us. The Super 12 was perfect with 12 teams. Season started in February, ended in May, and Currie Cup stated in June/July, with the Springboks joining after mid-year Test season. And between November and February, players were at home resting. It was perfect and harmonious.
A 12-month season is not good for the players. Just look at how depleted the Stormers are. Players are breaking down because there is no rest.
We don't want to be playing in the Champions Cup.
You are expected to eat the cake but once you do you no longer have the cake. You have to accept the consequences of your actions, in this case the format of the EPCR has been changed in a way that devalues the pool stages, combined with the logistics of travel teams are focusing on winning their home games and sending weaker teams away even if that away game is their first or second game. The EPCR cannot have a format that incentivises such tactics and then be surprised teams avail of those tactics. They cannot eat their cake, and have their cake too.
I absolutely agree. We must get out of there. Leave it to the Europeans.
The original saying was you cannot eat your cake and have it too, in the 1930s to 1940s it started to change around, but the word "have" in this phrase is used as the word "eat", similar to having ice cream, so it doesn't really matter which way around you use because it basically says you can't eat your cake and then eat it again.
@@tappie34 I much prefer “you've made your bed, now lie in it”. It's easier to understand when dealing with consequences from one's actions.
For years a team would be very lucky to have an Italian team in their. Then there were stand out drubbings of Bourgoin, Ebbw Vale etc
I'd also expect the numbers for the next two weekends to be closer to normal.
For example the SA teams are 1/6, but they have derbies next week. They'll have an easier spring after the next round.
I like your sample format.
It's always been shit when teams are poor in the top comp then drop down into the challenge.
5 teams from each league plus previous years challenge cup winner = 16 teams. Straight to 1/4 finals ( over 2 legs - home and away).Less games overall but each team guaranteed 2 matches. Each fanbase gets a home game . Best of all every game is going to be taken seriously.
Correction. I meant 1/8 finals.oops.