Send South Africa back to Super Rugby to end Champions Cup woes
The Champions Cup has seemingly inherited the problems that plagued Super Rugby in its latter years.
Instead of a simple, understandable format that rewards teams based on merit and paves the way for one of the best competitions in the world, the Champions Cup has ostensibly devolved into a complicated, cross-border mess.
That’s not entirely down to the introduction of the South African sides to the competition, of course. The Champions Cup changed its format last year after growing dissatisfaction from England’s Premiership Rugby and France’s Ligue Nationale de Rugby due to their ‘under-representation’ in the tournament.
Expanding the competition to include 24 sides – up from 20 – forced EPCR to rethink the format and while six pools of four might have been widely viewed as the obvious way forward, that was going to lead to too long a season and the current monstrosity was born.
If the Premiership and LNR were willing to put their egos aside and admit the new format simply wasn’t sustainable, they could have reverted to 20 teams – but that’s no longer possible with the introduction of South Africa to the mix.
The United Rugby Championship stakeholders aren’t likely to settle for having any fewer than eight teams represented in the Champions Cup if South Africa are involved, with Ireland, Scotland and Wales all dropping a side for this year’s iteration of the tournament. And if England and France weren’t happy with having just 13 teams collectively involved prior to the format change, they certainly won’t be willing to decrease that number to 12.
So what’s the solution?
There are, of course, different ways that EPCR could structure the competition – but all are likely to either result in equally as convoluted a format, or too many undeserving sides earning representation.
The better option might be to give South Africa the boot.
That’s not as radical or punishing a suggestion as it may sound – South Africa shouldn’t be left out in the cold entirely.
Halfway across the world, there’s another competition that still leaves a little bit to be desired in the form of Super Rugby Pacific.
The Oceanic tournament has its fair share of excellent match-ups, but far too often matches are entirely predictable. Australia can’t sustain five competitive top-level franchises and by the time the finals series rolls around – with eight of the 12 sides taking part – much of the interest falls away until the New Zealand sides start squaring off.
The competition is also shoehorned into an 18-week calendar (ostensibly to produce a longer season for broadcasters), with two rounds of repeated matches, when a 16-week tournament makes far more sense.
The best of both worlds could be accomplished, however, by bringing the South African sides back into the fold for the finals series and dropping the extra round-robin fixtures.
There are many ways the new Super Rugby Pacific governing board could structure the set-up of the finals and it’s possible that sides out of Japan could also easily be incorporated but the dates match up perfectly at present.
The URC grand final is set to take place on 27 May next year while Super Rugby Pacific’s regular season would finish a week earlier, assuming the two additional round-robin fixtures were dropped from the calendar.
The URC schedule could also be tweaked so that the South African sides don’t take part during weekends where South Africa are involved in the Rugby Championship (currently there’s a two-game overlap), with their matches slotted into the gaps created by removing them from the Champions Cup – but that’s not a necessity. Already, a number of sides in Europe have weekends off throughout the season due to either not participating in the European tournaments or the Six Nations taking place, so it would hardly be a massive adjustment.
The change would allow the Champions Cup to revert to a more palatable format while also adding some extra spice to a relatively bland Super Rugby finals series. It might also hand South Africa a few additional home knockout games, something which currently appears out of the question in the Champions Cup.
Perhaps the four South African sides would join the four top sides in Super Rugby Pacific for a second round of knockout matches after the Super Rugby champion is declared, perhaps you would replace the finals altogether, with the top side in the competition after 11 rounds declared the winner (Blues fans rejoice). With up to five rounds to work with – assuming no tweaks to the start or end dates of the competition – there are numerous possibilities worth exploring.
The Champions Cup has always been revered as the pinnacle of European Rugby but that mantle has largely deteriorated over the past two years. The Champions Cup didn’t need a revamp – at least from the fan engagement side of things – but it now does. The same can be said for Super Rugby Pacific. The solution seems obvious.
Comments on RugbyPass
Dagg is still trying to get enough headlines to make himself relevant enough to get a job. The Crusaders went back to square one at all levels. Shelve this season and nail the next one.
4 Go to commentsHe was in such great form. Sad for him but only a short term injury and it will be great to see him back for the finals.
1 Go to commentsAfter their 5/0 start, I had the Crusaders to finish Top 4 only…they lost the plot in Perth but will reload and back themselves vs 4th placed Rebels…
3 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
3 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
36 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to comments