Latest Euro rankings (not ERC)

Euro-rankings

Accurate or not?

not accurate, although because they are not the official rankings I will let it go. Dragons above the Blues FFS.

Not really accurate unless you are going on form. I would take 5th though. Much better than our horrific official european ranking.

Can't really see Quins as better than us as we beat them in the last 4 AP encounters.

Montpellier,Agen and Toulon that high?

I only saw number 1.

Looks good to me!

not better, not worst than the official ranking I think

Agen at 11 is a bit of joke but is probably on the back of their recent T14 form which doesnt mean much on the long run...

if you look at the various factors taken into account there is some interesting ones:
"-Strength of the domestic league (Account is taken of the differences in playing standards of the various domestic leagues by applying coefficients for each country. These are based on the performance of each country's clubs in the Heineken Cup (and to a much lesser extent, the European Shield) over the previous three seasons. The approach is similar to that used by UEFA to calculate their football rankings for each country.
-Importance of the game (more points are awarded for European Cup games and at the latter stages of all cup competitions)."

Dragons above the Blues! Love it - very accurate I would say!

Up & coming fixtures plus thoughts based on rankings:

Thursday, 8 December 2011
Amlin Challenge Cup
Agen v Sale, Pl5 - 11th vs 32nd, comfy Agen victory
Newcastle v Toulon, Pl2 - 37th vs 7th, easy away win for Toulon

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Friday, 9 December 2011
Heineken Cup
Ulster v Aironi, Pl4 - easy home win for Ulster
Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh - 30th vs 25th, could go either way, prob marginally in favour of Blues given home advantage and recent head2head record
Harlequins v Toulouse - 3rd vs 2nd, home advantage, Quins win
Amlin Challenge Cup
Perpignan v Cavalieri Prato, Pl4 - comfortable home win
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Saturday, 10 December 2011
Heineken Cup
Castres v Northampton, Pl1 - 13th vs 12th, home advantage shades it for Castres (plus Saints' backrow worries?)
Connacht v Gloucester, Pl6 - 34th vs 24th, away win for Glaws
Treviso v Biarritz, Pl5 - 27th vs 28th, home advantage to count?
Racing Metro 92 v London Irish, Pl2 - 18th vs 23rd, RM too much for Exiles at home?
Scarlets v Munster, Pl1 - 14th vs 4th, Munster too experienced in Europe, ROG with a last minute DG to win the match?
Saracens v Ospreys, Pl5 - 5th vs 8th, home win, just?
Amlin Challenge Cup
Rovigo v Bordeaux-Begles - comfy away win
Rugby Club La Vila v Brive, Pl5 - likewise
Lyon Olympique v Petrarca - comfy home win
Crociati Parma v Stade Francais - another comfy away win
Bayonne v Wasps, Pl3 - 19th vs 33rd, wow, Wasps have fallen from days of European glory, has to be a home win
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Sunday, 11 December 2011
Heineken Cup
Bath v Leinster, Pl3 - 17th vs 1st, champs continue their march onwards
Glasgow v Montpellier, Pl3 - 20th vs 10th, too big a gap for home advantage to make up, Montpol win
Clermont Auvergne v Leicester, Pl4 - 6th vs 9th, likely home win
Amlin Challenge Cup
Bucuresti v Worcester, Pl1 - comfy away win
Exeter v Newport-Gwent D'gons, Pl4 - 22nd vs 29th, likely home win

Bayonne have appointed J-P Ellisade (J-B's pere) to replace their current coaching team of Director of Rugby Christian Gajan and his coaches, Thomas Lièvremont (forwards) and Frédéric Tauzin (backs)

Toulouse could be without Albacete, Census Johnston, Poitrenaud, Caucau and Guthro Steenkamp - will they even notice?!

Is Benoit Lecoul back this season? Quality operator that fella.

Going on the current form of the teams i would say (looking at the ML sides) that the ratings seem pretty fair.

Don't really understand how the rankings work so can't really comment, was expecting Tiggers to be a little higher than that though, based on nothing more than my own personal bias.

Metal Tiger wrote:Don't really understand how the rankings work so can't really comment, was expecting Tiggers to be a little higher than that though, based on nothing more than my own personal bias.

MT, that's as good as anything to go on, imo, certainly dominates my thinking on a regular basis

This thing is based on recent form. The last 30 games I think. Not overall pedigree over a number of seasons.

Treviso 27th Ahead of two welsh teams

Seems about right to me.

It would be interesting if they could run this back over say 5-6 seasons rather than a current style power ranking system (just 30 games is it?) The bottom of the Pro12 might be weak but the top end has how many HCups and teams reaching late rounds of the amlin and HC?

Joe Tekori out for Castres with a broken arm - they face Saints next up

thebandwagonsociety when you have 11 teams in the HC you should reach the latter rounds of the HC more often!

beshocked wrote:thebandwagonsociety when you have 11 teams in the HC you should reach the latter rounds of the HC more often!

Not when a lot of them are muck. I'm sure Newcastle and Worcester etc. would never get within an asses roar of the knockout stages if you gave them free entry from now to 2050.

Irish Curry wrote:Treviso 27th Ahead of two welsh teams

Eh.... They are ahead of 2 Welsh teams in the league too.

Treviso are a serious team. They were one of 3 teams to beat Munster in the Magners last year. They beat Leinster too.

Ospreys, with their full HC team out needed a late penalty to draw there a few weeks ago in the HC.

Treviso HAMMERED Ulster in Ravenhill this season.

Serious team.

beshocked wrote:thebandwagonsociety when you have 11 teams in the HC you should reach the latter rounds of the HC more often!

True, 4 of the last,what? 6, heineken cup winners have come out of the Pro12 though.
The Jeff has won it 6 times. The Top14 has won it 5 times and the Pro12 has won it 5 times.
3 of the top 4 all time try scorers in the competition's history have represented sides now in the Pro12.

So the Pro12 don't come out too badly in every category.

Where do you find these musings ?

How are Exeter above Edinburgh considering they have never played in the HK?

Last 30 games in all competitions, RDW, not just Europe

[quote="Jenifer McLadyboy"][quote="Irish Curry"]Treviso 27th Ahead of two welsh teams [/quote]
Eh.... They are ahead of 2 Welsh teams in the league too.

Treviso are a serious team. They were one of 3 teams to beat Munster in the Magners last year. They beat Leinster too.

Ospreys, with their full HC team out needed a late penalty to draw there a few weeks ago in the HC.

Treviso HAMMERED Ulster in Ravenhill this season.

Serious team.[/quote]

My bad!

Difficult to rank teams from 3 different leagues - only direct reference between them are the HC/ Amlin games. I don't see any rankings that look really off, but there are teams who have moved 5-7 places (out of 30) in one week. That seems like a lot; this might be an unusual week, but if those sort of changes were happening often, I'd be dubious about the formula used to calculate the rankings.

http://www.ercrugby.com/eng/ranking.php

RDW_Scotland wrote:How are Exeter above Edinburgh considering they have never played in the HK?

Fair play to Edinburgh though, they've qualified for the last how many years? They may as well just give them an automatic spot in the competition...

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Where do you find these musings ?

Its all just out there I suppose.
It is interesting to think that since the HCup began, if you take it on a Top14-Jeff-Pro12 basis, the winners are fairly even at 5-6-5 respectively. But within that only 2 french teams have won the HCup (Toulouse, Brive), 4 English (Tigers, Wasps, Saints, Bath) and 3 Irish (Munster, Leinster & Ulster). I know the Irish element is propping up the Pro12 but the Pro12 is written off as a weak league very quickly and people always point to HCup as the benchmark, but if you look at who walks away with the silverware it is quite evenly split.

Out of curiosity, I think it might also be said that no French side has won the HCup without having Cedric Heymans in their squad?

Jenifer Mcladyboy actually if you gave Newcastle no threat of relegation and guaranteed HC rugby every year they might have held onto the likes of Flood,Dowson,Noon,TaitYoung,Brookes,Wilkinson etc. Also Hayman probably would have stayed.

This meant they could have competed in the HC cup. That security is huge. They could have used their excellent academy to devastating effect except having all their best prospects being cherry picked.

Pro 12 teams have a huge advantage in regards to incentives. They can almost guarantee HC qualification every year and no threat of relegation.


thebandwagonsociety the HC is the bread and butter of the Pro 12 teams.

It's hard to sometimes take the Pro12 seriously when frequently you see so many players out. Ospreys had 19 players out and still won. Leinster destroyed Cardiff while resting 7 players.

How seriously do Leinster take the Pro12?

beshocked wrote:Jenifer Mcladyboy actually if you gave Newcastle no threat of relegation and guaranteed HC rugby every year they might have held onto the likes of Flood,Dowson,Noon,TaitYoung,Brookes,Wilkinson etc. Also Hayman probably would have stayed.

This meant they could have competed in the HC cup. That security is huge. They could have used their excellent academy to devastating effect except having all their best prospects being cherry picked.

Pro 12 teams have a huge advantage in regards to incentives. They can almost guarantee HC qualification every year and no threat of relegation.


thebandwagonsociety the HC is the bread and butter of the Pro 12 teams.

It's hard to sometimes take the Pro12 seriously when frequently you see so many players out. Ospreys had 19 players out and still won. Leinster destroyed Cardiff while resting 7 players.

How seriously do Leinster take the Pro12?

We're currently top of the league, we fininshed 3rd last year (got to the final), we finished 1st the year before (got to the final), we finished 2nd the year before (there was no final), we won it the year before that.

How much more seriously would you like them to take the league!?

robbo277 wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:How are Exeter above Edinburgh considering they have never played in the HK?

Fair play to Edinburgh though, they've qualified for the last how many years? They may as well just give them an automatic spot in the competition...

Wasn't a dig at Exeter, merely don't see the point in European rankings if it includes teams that never play in European competition, or haven't for a number of year! How they meant to be compared to everyone else?

And with regards to the automatic qualification - get over it! You really expect us to say "actually guys, this isn't fair on everyone else - we don't want the automatic qualification!"

And anyway - when the Borders were about we did have to qualify, as the lowest ranked Scots team didn't make it into the HK.

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:
Treviso HAMMERED Ulster in Ravenhill this season.

Drivel.

Were Ulster poor yes
Did Treviso put in a honest committed performance - Yes
Were Ulster dictating the game, with just a few point in arrears, until D'Arcy gifted them a try - Yes

It was a game Ulster should and could have won but lost due to some sloppy and loose play - it was a million miles from being a hammering.

Mickado sometimes it seems with Leinster you can do well in the Pro 12 without even trying that hard. Last season for example BOD played so few Pro12 matches it was ludricrous. Not faulting Leinster.

RDW Scotland Exeter play in the Amlin. It's like saying Aironi must be better than Toulon because one is in the HC and the other isn't.

RDW_Scotland wrote:

robbo277 wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:How are Exeter above Edinburgh considering they have never played in the HK?

Fair play to Edinburgh though, they've qualified for the last how many years? They may as well just give them an automatic spot in the competition...

Wasn't a dig at Exeter, merely don't see the point in European rankings if it includes teams that never play in European competition, or haven't for a number of year! How they meant to be compared to everyone else?

RDW, don't worry, didn't think you were having a go at Exe, know you too well for that As beshocked notes, Exe were in the Amlin last season, picked up Brive and Montpol scalps at home, and given that the rankings are only based on the last 30 games, then the fact that they were in the Championship the year before isn't accounted for

beshocked wrote:Mickado sometimes it seems with Leinster you can do well in the Pro 12 without even trying that hard. Last season for example BOD played so few Pro12 matches it was ludricrous. Not faulting Leinster.

RDW Scotland Exeter play in the Amlin. It's like saying Aironi must be better than Toulon because one is in the HC and the other isn't.

Look, O’Driscoll probably Leinster’s greatest ever player, if we flog him the way players are flogged in the Prem then he’d have retired 2 years ago and we’d have no succession plan in place. It’s far from ludicrous that any player can be rested and a replacement groomed.

If Leinster were in the premiership do you think he would have played in more games? I really don’t think so.

Aslong, I think your memory may be slightly optimistic - Exe put out an A team against a weakened Montpellier team at Sandy Park in the first round of the Amlin last year and lost, fairly narrowly. However that was probably more than 30 games ago, so has no effect on these rankings.

The accusation of Leinster not taking the Pro12 seriously is bemusing, given they've finished in the top 2 for 4 years in a row and are top this year.

They have a really strong squad and use it effectively. So do Toulouse. Nobody accuses them of not taking tournaments seriously when they rotate their squad.

Dubbelyew L Overate wrote:Aslong, I think your memory may be slightly optimistic - Exe put out an A team against a weakened Montpellier team at Sandy Park in the first round of the Amlin last year and lost, fairly narrowly. However that was probably more than 30 games ago, so has no effect on these rankings.

That's Chiefs fans for you, it's all just one big happy journey!!

geoff998rugby wrote:

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:
Treviso HAMMERED Ulster in Ravenhill this season.

Drivel.

Were Ulster poor yes
Did Treviso put in a honest committed performance - Yes
Were Ulster dictating the game, with just a few point in arrears, until D'Arcy gifted them a try - Yes

It was a game Ulster should and could have won but lost due to some sloppy and loose play - it was a million miles from being a hammering.

Sorry Geoff. I may have lost the run of myself slightly with that word. I just looked up the score and it was 12 23. I thought it was more from memory. I suppose I was just impressed that an Italian team could beat Ulster at Ravenhill, and perhaps that "enhanced" the game in my mind.

You can't say Treviso did not deserve to win it though. As I said in my OP they are a bloody good team.

If we take the ludicrous notion that HC should be an elite competition, rather than a development one, with teams qualifying on merit rather than nationality, then this merit table at the beginning of this season would have:

3 Irish
3 Welsh
8 English
10 French

Whilst the Amlin would boast:

1 Welsh
1 Irish
2 Scottish
4 English
4 French
2 Italian
1 Romanian
1 Spanish
4 Italian 2nd Tier

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

Dubbelyew L Overate wrote:Aslong, I think your memory may be slightly optimistic - Exe put out an A team against a weakened Montpellier team at Sandy Park in the first round of the Amlin last year and lost, fairly narrowly. However that was probably more than 30 games ago, so has no effect on these rankings.

That's Chiefs fans for you, it's all just one big happy journey!!

It's such a oft trotted out line. Poor old AP clubs they have to worry about relegation. That's why their league is full of boring stodgefest games, and it puts them at a disadvantage in the HC.

It's life, we can't change it. Too many factors come into play.

Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Italy' Rugby playing population is so low compared to England and France.

Ireland (when you include the Irish part of the UK) has a total population of about 6 million which is about twice that of Wales, about a million more than Scotland and 12% of England.

No Idea what the Rugby population of Italy is but I would say it is miniscule.

Before there was a Celtic league. English fans complained that All an Irish province had to was beat Connacht to get into the HC.

True of course, but it had the effect of putting us into the HC with no form. So we got nowhere until Ulster won.

The Celtic league enabled all the smaller countries to get gametime v each other. Relegation is not practical, where do you relegate people to?

It's hard to compare the AP and Pro12 as there are too many swings and roundabouts.

But swap the top teams between leagues and they would still be top. Same with the bottom.

As regards Leinster taking the Pro12 seriously. I can assure you they take it very seriously. They needed to make a lot of hard choices last year to stay in both comps due to their bad start in the Magners. Battling their way to a home semi was a serious proposition, and they came within a few post HC final pints of doing the double.

The words Leinster players use about the pro12 is "Bread and Butter"

I would say that the introduction of playoffs have a much bigger effect on our ability to rotate our squad, than the lack of relegation.

DLO I didn't realise the Heineken Cup was a development competition.

At least your proposed option would give Scottish and Italian teams more of a chance at winning an European trophy.

Jennifer Mcladyboy I don't think Bod's bread and butter is the Pro 12!

Yes every game in the AP is a boring stodgefest. It must be because you say so.

The Pro12 teams are having a pretty good time in the HC so far but will it last? The AP teams best chances of winning the HC are still firmly in the mix - Leicester and Saracens. Also Quins are still there.

Good post Jenifer. Sometimes it sounds like the English posters want us to go back to our old system so they can beat us all the time again. Not gonna happen. But what about the other way around. The English could ringfence their league. No relegation would mean they'd win lots of Heineken Cups again wouldn't it?

The fact is English teams have won 6 Heineken Cups with relegation in their league. Relegation has nothing to do with it. The top Celtic teams have just gotten much better over the last 10 years. And no current English side is quite as good as the Leicester and Wasps sides that won the HEC twice each.

When an English team is as good as those sides again they will win in Europe again. I say "when" not "if", because a truly great English team will emerge again. The quality of rugby in England has markedly improved in the last two years after a bit of a slump.

No Feckless Rogue I think it's great that the Pro12 is improving as a league.

I do think the Pro 12 teams are getting better. Just need to look at players from Scarlets and Dragons in the Welsh side to see that.

Also look at Treviso. It wouldn't be out of the question if they beat Biarritz at home would it?

I do think that because there is the threat of relegation and more of a battle of HC places adds more meaning to the AP and Top 14. Also it's more likely you'll see full strength sides being put out as there is so much emphasis on getting the win in the domestic leagues.

beshocked wrote:DLO I didn't realise the Heineken Cup was a development competition.

At least your proposed option would give Scottish and Italian teams more of a chance at winning an European trophy.

Jennifer Mcladyboy I don't think Bod's bread and butter is the Pro 12!

Yes every game in the AP is a boring stodgefest. It must be because you say so.

The Pro12 teams are having a pretty good time in the HC so far but will it last? The AP teams best chances of winning the HC are still firmly in the mix - Leicester and Saracens. Also Quins are still there.

Wow! EVERY game in the AP is a stodgefest? I didn't realise. But it must be, because you say so.

Bod, like all centrally contracted players is subject to the IRFU player welfare programme. He is also not getting any younger and needs minding to prolong his career.

Last year he played 16 games for Leinster. 7 of them were HC. He missed 2 HC pool games, inc 1 v your mates in Wembley. Due to injury.

He played the full 80 in the Semi and Final of the magners, despite doing the same in the HC, and as we now know having serious shoulder problems.

He is as committed a Rugby player as has ever walked on grass, and that includes the Pro12.

Yes Leicester, Quins and Saracens are in there, and an English team has always won when the final is in Twickenham. I would love to see Quins do it. (If Leinster can't)

beshocked wrote:

I do think that because there is the threat of relegation and more of a battle of HC places adds more meaning to the AP and Top 14. Also it's more likely you'll see full strength sides being put out as there is so much emphasis on getting the win in the domestic leagues.

The top teams in France rotate their squads more than anyone else.

This relegation thing is a red herring. Do you think Leicester, Toulouse, Clermont, Saracens, etc are worried about relegation?

As I said earlier, Playoffs have more of an impact on resting players than relegation.