The IRISH RUGBY thread

[Kilkevan]

Would a European league - Div 1 & 2 or Regional based not make more sense to the blazers??

Surely the French and English Clubs would love the potential of big travelling support from Ireland. Better TV deals etc

These South African franchises might eventually morph into London based clubs with no ties to the homeland.

The simple fact is the Rugby Premiership and the Top 14 don't need the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian teams. The quality in both is top notch, though I much prefer the French style of the competition to the English, and they're making megabucks from the competitions each year. It's a non-starter to even think of developing a competition with the English and French teams.

I don't know about in England but in France the Champions Cup isn't even seen as the pinnacle; the Top 14 is. The French teams in the Challenge Cup aren't really interested in it until it gets to semifinal stage; the quality and depth of their squads means they often get there anyway and whilst the Champions Cup is seen as highly desirable, clubs would still rather win the national championship.

The Welsh regions have tried a number of times to get into the Rugby Premiership but it hasn't worked. A bit like Celtic and Rangers trying it with soccer. The Welsh regions are a load of cr@p anyway as they supposedly put together clubs which hate each other; the Blues supposedly include, for example, Cardiff and Pontypridd whilst Ponty despise Cardiff and the Ospreys include Swansea and Neath who have never gotten on. Hence the disengagement from the public.

The Pro12 is in serious trouble going forward, especially when you read this: http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/gbrennan/proposed-pro-12-format-decimate-provincial-derbies/

The first thing I get from that is the organisers are so clueless that they don't even know the biggest Irish derby is Munster v Leinster nor that rivalry in Wales is most intensely felt when Cardiff meet Newport and Llanelli play Ospreys.

[Walter Cronc]

Would a European league - Div 1 & 2 or Regional based not make more sense to the blazers??

Surely the French and English Clubs would love the potential of big travelling support from Ireland. Better TV deals etc

These South African franchises might eventually morph into London based clubs with no ties to the homeland.

The simple fact is the Rugby Premiership and the Top 14 don't need the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian teams. The quality in both is top notch, though I much prefer the French style of the competition to the English, and they're making megabucks from the competitions each year. It's a non-starter to even think of developing a competition with the English and French teams.

I don't know about in England but in France the Champions Cup isn't even seen as the pinnacle; the Top 14 is. The French teams in the Challenge Cup aren't really interested in it until it gets to semifinal stage; the quality and depth of their squads means they often get there anyway and whilst the Champions Cup is seen as highly desirable, clubs would still rather win the national championship.

The Welsh regions have tried a number of times to get into the Rugby Premiership but it hasn't worked. A bit like Celtic and Rangers trying it with soccer. The Welsh regions are a load of cr@p anyway as they supposedly put together clubs which hate each other; the Blues supposedly include, for example, Cardiff and Pontypridd whilst Ponty despise Cardiff and the Ospreys include Swansea and Neath who have never gotten on. Hence the disengagement from the public.

The Pro12 is in serious trouble going forward, especially when you read this: http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/gbrennan/proposed-pro-12-format-decimate-provincial-derbies/

The first thing I get from that is the organisers are so clueless that they don't even know the biggest Irish derby is Munster v Leinster nor that rivalry in Wales is most intensely felt when Cardiff meet Newport and Llanelli play Ospreys.

The Top 14 is garbage to watch. Its a scrum fest!

[JPGJOHNNYG]

Would a European league - Div 1 & 2 or Regional based not make more sense to the blazers??

Surely the French and English Clubs would love the potential of big travelling support from Ireland. Better TV deals etc

These South African franchises might eventually morph into London based clubs with no ties to the homeland.

The simple fact is the Rugby Premiership and the Top 14 don't need the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian teams. The quality in both is top notch, though I much prefer the French style of the competition to the English, and they're making megabucks from the competitions each year. It's a non-starter to even think of developing a competition with the English and French teams.

I don't know about in England but in France the Champions Cup isn't even seen as the pinnacle; the Top 14 is. The French teams in the Challenge Cup aren't really interested in it until it gets to semifinal stage; the quality and depth of their squads means they often get there anyway and whilst the Champions Cup is seen as highly desirable, clubs would still rather win the national championship.

The Welsh regions have tried a number of times to get into the Rugby Premiership but it hasn't worked. A bit like Celtic and Rangers trying it with soccer. The Welsh regions are a load of cr@p anyway as they supposedly put together clubs which hate each other; the Blues supposedly include, for example, Cardiff and Pontypridd whilst Ponty despise Cardiff and the Ospreys include Swansea and Neath who have never gotten on. Hence the disengagement from the public.

The Pro12 is in serious trouble going forward, especially when you read this: http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/gbrennan/proposed-pro-12-format-decimate-provincial-derbies/

The first thing I get from that is the organisers are so clueless that they don't even know the biggest Irish derby is Munster v Leinster nor that rivalry in Wales is most intensely felt when Cardiff meet Newport and Llanelli play Ospreys.

The Derbies will likely be kept otherwise it would be financial suicide, just because teams are in different conferences doesnt mean they dont play each other, look at most american sports

[Kilkevan]

The Top 14 is garbage to watch. Its a scrum fest!

I don't know what Top 14 matches you've seen but I can assure you it's nothing of the sort. Matches between the struggling teams tend to be forward dominated because of the desperation these teams feel from the pressure of trying to avoid going down to D2 which seriously hurts a player's reputation. The top teams go for it a lot more, particularly with the rules around bonus points. Very few matches in France are ever dead with time to go because you have to have scored three more tries than the opposition (and win) to get the attacking bonus. Hence Clermont, for example, could have scored four tries to Bayonne's none but have to look for the fifth if possible because if Bayonne score one then their bonus is threatened. In the Pro12, if Leinster are twenty points ahead of Treviso, having scored four tries and with 25 minutes to play the game is over. Also, with two teams facing the drop, six teams in the quarter finals and a seventh place meaning a play off for Champions Cup rugby, there's something to play for for almost every team right up until the end of the season. There's nothing like that in the Pro12. There's a lot more movement of teams year on year in France. Toulouse seriously struggled last year for example and Stade Francais nearly went out of existence whilst La Rochelle really performed. In the Pro12, the decent teams tend to stay at the top and the cr@p teams (three quarters of the league) stay at the bottom, Connacht's championship being a fluke year. The quality across the Pro12 is terrible as well; there's only about three teams that are any way decent and none of them would live in France or England with hard matches coming every other week.

The Derbies will likely be kept otherwise it would be financial suicide, just because teams are in different conferences doesnt mean they dont play each other, look at most american sports

I'd say they're only at the teething stages at the moment.

[AZOffaly]

If they are keeping the derbies they'd want to schedule them a bit better or relax the international hold on the players. Christmas should be a brilliant few games between connacht ulster leinster and munster, but because of regulations teams can only play internationals in one of the games. They usually pick the home game. Hence munster travel to connacht with a B team and leinster come to Thomond park. It's a joke from a league marketing perspective. 

[seafoid]

From.the Irish Times

The risk of doing nothing with the Pro12 in the long term is the greater risk. We have to have some sort of paradigm change, otherwise we'll keep doing the same thing and getting the same result and we'll fall further behind Top 14 and PRL. 

"One would hope that if we go to a new market, no matter what that market is, that it will have a positive impact on the revenue generated by Pro12 and on the distributions that are made to the unions/clubs."

[Kilkevan]

If they are keeping the derbies they'd want to schedule them a bit better or relax the international hold on the players. Christmas should be a brilliant few games between connacht ulster leinster and munster, but because of regulations teams can only play internationals in one of the games. They usually pick the home game. Hence munster travel to connacht with a B team and leinster come to Thomond park. It's a joke from a league marketing perspective.

If they're going to go ahead with two conferences it surely makes sense to have them set up something like:

Conference A: 4 Welsh, 2 Italian, 2 South African.

Conference B: 4 Irish, 2 Scottish.

The 2 Scottish, 2 Italian and 2 South African could alternate between A and B on a season to season basis. It preserves the derbies. Arguably it would make the competition more interesting also as you'd be guaranteed derbies almost every week for Irish and Welsh teams, who make up the meat of the tournament. Fans care more about beating their neighbours than they do teams from other countries. The only problem is the imbalance, at least until they launch, if ever, the North American franchises. Alternatively, have development Irish and Welsh teams to make up the extra places; it wouldn't do much for the competitiveness but it could be a boon for underage in those countries. That or perhaps give RGC1404 and a best of the AIL a run.

From.the Irish Times

The risk of doing nothing with the Pro12 in the long term is the greater risk. We have to have some sort of paradigm change, otherwise we'll keep doing the same thing and getting the same result and we'll fall further behind Top 14 and PRL.

"One would hope that if we go to a new market, no matter what that market is, that it will have a positive impact on the revenue generated by Pro12 and on the distributions that are made to the unions/clubs."

That comment in the Irish Times smacks of desperation.

[Tony Baloney]

Premier League rugby may not be the best in terms of quality but in terms of entertainment they have a decent product there and there have been some good finishes over the past few seasons.

[Kilkevan]

One thing which springs to mind is wouldn't this be the opportune moment to add relegation and try to turn this into a tournament where there is something riding on results almost right to the end instead of petering out for most teams as it does now? Surely this is something the Pro12 misses out on compared to the Rugby Premiership and the Top 14. I doubt it could be pushed through for this season because of legal ramifications but why not have a 14 team tournament this year, with no play offs, then split into two divisions based on positions at the end of 2017/18.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the South African teams will be good (at least by Pro12 standards) so 2018/19 (basing off 2016/17 finishing positions as we don't have 2017/18 positions yet) might look something like:

Division One: Cheetahs, Leinster, Llanelli, Munster, Ospreys, Southern Kings, Ulster.

Division Two: Cardiff, Connacht, Dragons, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Treviso, Zebre.

Division One could feature playoffs between the top four for the championship, with bottom place going down. Division Two could have the top placed team going straight up and feature playoffs between second to fifth with the winners playing sixth in Division One in a promotion/relegation play off. That would leave a situation where most teams had something to go for in the final weeks of their season. The potential for missed derbies could arguably be made up by having a national cup competition made up of the Irish teams in one, Welsh teams in another and Italian, Scottish and South African in a third. Perhaps Champions Cup places could be decided on these cup competitions to give them a bit of extra bite (the Italian, Scottish and South African cup would be a bit complicated to ensure at least one of each progressed to the ECC but this could be worked out).

[Syferus]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2017/0725/892950-paddy-jackson-stuart-olding/

Where are all the people who defended this wee bollix now?

Schmidt and Kiss should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to pick him with this hanging over him. Disgrace to both jersies.

American sports get a lot of things right and one of them is their willingness to suspend players facing charges.. like a lot of other sports, rugby is totally backwards and will only reach a similar point in its evolution the decades to come.

[Crete Boom]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2017/0725/892950-paddy-jackson-stuart-olding/

Where are all the people who defended this wee bollix now?

Schmidt and Kiss should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to pick him with this hanging over him. Disgrace to both jersies.

American sports get a lot of things right and one of them is their willingness to suspend players facing charges.. like a lot of other sports, rugby is totally backwards and will only reach a similar point in its evolution the decades to come.

Innocent until proven guilty I believe the term is!! If found guilty then punish appropriately but please excuse me from condemning anybody on the internet from behind a username no matter how brave this may seem!!!

[square_ball]

Was the court case today as well? Must have missed that part.

[Shamrock Shore]

Jazes Syferus. Hang them first and then put them on trial, eh?

Should everyone accused of something have to 'step aside' from their job or profession?

[Syferus]

The police have spent months pouring over the case. If they didn't think they had a very good shot at conviction they would not charge him, and the act of charging him says they fully believe he's guilty. Save your hand wringing for someone that doesn't see how marginalized rape victims are.

I hope he never plays for Ulster or Ireland again.

[gallsman]

American sports get a lot of things right and one of them is their willingness to suspend players facing charges.. like a lot of other sports, rugby is totally backwards and will only reach a similar point in its evolution the decades to come.

They are facing charges.

They have been suspended.