English clubs in the Heineken Cup: Stats since 1999

According to http://www.statbunker.com/rugby/btb/index.php?PL=competition&CompID=382&statType=448

Why 1999-2000? Because that is the full set of continuous English club involvement in the competition. But feel free to annotate/edit/cut and dice as you wish.

Or repeat the exercise for any other country.

HEC English involvement in knock-out stages:

Year/QF teams(winners)/SF teams(winners)/Final teams(winners)
2000: 2(1) 1(1) 1(1)
2001: 2(2) 2(1) 1(1)
2002: 2(1) 1(1) 1(1)
2003: 2(0)
2004: 2(1) 1(1) 1(1)
2005: 3(1) 1(0)
2006: 2(1) 1(0)
2007: 3(1) 3(2) 2(1)
2008: 3(2) 2(0)
2009: 3(1) 1(1) 1(0)
2010: 1(0)
2011: 2(1) 1(1)_1(0)
2012: 1 ...

What does this prove?

Clearly the trend is for English clubs to weaken overall especially in the semi/final rounds.


Well I've got a boxed set of supposedly broken records which are actually still playing well in hi-fi and full stereo.

On this occasion I'll repeat 'The affordable wage cap song'.

There is a new generation of talented English players. But they're still stuck playing with the average, post 2003 generation which went before them. More talent has to come through for the English to win HEC's again.

If you look at Leinster, BOD, D'arcy, Horgan, Hickie etc. came through. They were obviously great players and raised Leinsters performances. But they achieved almost nothing until a second wave of talent (Kearney, Heaslip, Fitzgerald etc.) came in behind them to add even more class to the team. And we're now blooding a third wave in the league.

I heard Harlequins have set up a great academy which is reaping dividends. Is that true? If so then it's about time the penny dropped with some of the other English sides. The best teams pump talent out of their academy for a sustained period of time and fill gaps with good signings. Easier said than done, I know. But there is nothing inherently wrong with the English club setup that can't be tuned and improved.

It's not that long ago that the English league was the strongest. Now that they've fallen a bit behind, nobody else is gonna wait for them to catch up. So the Chief executive of Premier Rugby should stop calling for the Pro 12 to be more like the English league and start looking at ways for the English to face up to the Celtic challenge and retain their place as the best league in Europe.

That would be the wage cap that is no higher than salary levels elsewhere...other than the French

Feckless Rogue wrote:There is a new generation of talented English players. But they're still stuck playing with the average, post 2003 generation which went before them. More talent has to come through for the English to win HEC's again.

If you look at Leinster, BOD, D'arcy, Horgan, Hickie etc. came through. They were obviously great players and raised Leinsters performances. But they achieved almost nothing until a second wave of talent (Kearney, Heaslip, Fitzgerald etc.) came in behind them to add even more class to the team. And we're now blooding a third wave in the league.

I heard Harlequins have set up a great academy which is reaping dividends. Is that true? If so then it's about time the penny dropped with some of the other English sides. The best teams pump talent out of their academy for a sustained period of time and fill gaps with good signings. Easier said than done, I know. But there is nothing inherently wrong with the English club setup that can't be tuned and improved.

It's not that long ago that the English league was the strongest. Now that they've fallen a bit behind, nobody else is gonna wait for them to catch up. So the Chief executive of Premier Rugby should stop calling for the Pro 12 to be more like the English league and start looking at ways for the English to face up to the Celtic challenge and retain their place as the best league in Europe.

I don't want to go off-piste from my original post Fec, but another of my supposedly s includes the single 'The Celtic League is good exclusively Ireland' And that one still plays well albeit that it hasn't sold many copies.

geoff999rugby wrote:That would be the wage cap that is no higher than salary levels elsewhere...other than the French

isn't that sentence a contradiction? you can't make a point about it not being any higher than the salary levels elsewhere then provide an example of where it is actually higher!

These things come in cycles. The English sides that were successful were great Wasps and Leicester teams that had very strong cultures and core groups of players that had grown up with the squad. They also had great coaches in Dean Richards and Warren Gatland/Ian McGeechan.

I personally think the English sides will be back, but that the grand old names are going through re-building phases at the moment, like much of England rugby, and as noted above, it needs several waves of talent to build a great side.

Sides like Leicester and Northampton need to identify their core group, build on it and allow a core to develop. That's how you build an HC winning side.

Sarries are the most cohesive squad in the Aviva in my view, so it doesn't surprise me that they are the side going through to challenge. Tough job against Clermont though, but if anyone can shut them down it's Sarries. If they manage it then it'll be one English side in the semis, probably two Irish and either a Scottish or a French. What crisis? The there will be a "crisis" in Wales. All very dramatic.

Interesting stats. Some English media used to claim that there was less representation in the quarters recently than there had been previous. But those stats show that on average there's only been two teams making it to the knockout stages.

And when there were three teams in the quarters, they don't seem to have fared any better, with the exception of 2007 when there were two England teams in the final.

All that matters is now and history is nothing but selective memory of what suites you.
The right now is a South African feeder club is representing England in the HC.

Agree with above....these things go in cycles...

At present other leagues are fairing better...but in a year or two this could change and the English teams could be the dominant force again....

Had a look at those stats in more detail for English and other teams.

Overall, teams from various countries that have made it through to the quarters, excluding the first year in which there weren't any, looks like this.

France 46
England 36
Ireland 23
Wales 19
Scotland 2


Excluding the two years when England was absent, the average number of teams from each country in knockout stages is:
Wales 1.267
France 3.067
England 2.40
Ireland 1.53

As has been said here before, the idea of the European competition was to give a chance of the "best" from each union to participate. This was more evident in earlier years when different clubs from Wales, Scotland and Italy played in the pools.

If you set the limit to the 1999/2000 season as the OP has done, then the knockout figures look like this:

France 36
England 29
Ireland 21
Wales 14
Scotland 2

Bearing in mind the point that only Irish teams have been successful from Pro12, the figures since 2006 first victory look like this:

Wales 7
France 18
England 16
Ireland 13
Scotland 1

Leaving aside number of teams participating in pool stages from a particular country, the trend in knockout figures each season since Year Two of the cup is:

Wales: 2, 1, 2, 2,2,2,1,1,1,1,0,0,1,2,2,1,0,1
France: 3,3,4,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,2,1,4,4,2
England: 0,3,4,0,2,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,1,2,1
Ireland: 0,0,0,2,1,1,1,1,2,1,2,2,2,1,2,2,3

Another element to consider is the figures in league terms as Mark McCafferty seeks to do. What is the return on knockout places against the number of teams entering? But someone else can do that.

Does the above include this year? Ireland obviously have three teams in the ko stages.

nathan wrote:

geoff999rugby wrote:That would be the wage cap that is no higher than salary levels elsewhere...other than the French

isn't that sentence a contradiction? you can't make a point about it not being any higher than the salary levels elsewhere then provide an example of where it is actually higher!

Well without getting into a discussion on grammar the key point is that the explanation for Irish success has often been because they have no salary cap. Whilst this is true, the salaries bill in the three senior provinces is no higher than the leading English clubs.

geoff998rugby wrote:

nathan wrote:

geoff999rugby wrote:That would be the wage cap that is no higher than salary levels elsewhere...other than the French

isn't that sentence a contradiction? you can't make a point about it not being any higher than the salary levels elsewhere then provide an example of where it is actually higher!

Well without getting into a discussion on grammar the key point is that the explanation for Irish success has often been because they have no salary cap. Whilst this is true, the salaries bill in the three senior provinces is no higher than the leading English clubs.

Although the published IRFU accounts seem to indicate otherwise.

In former years, Ospreys and Blues also spent above the equivalent of the English salary cap.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Agree with above....these things go in cycles...

At present other leagues are fairing better...but in a year or two this could change and the English teams could be the dominant force again....

I can see no evidence of any cyclic trend GF.

Just a continual decline - especially ay the sharp end of the contest.

And I point my finger at arbitrary finite wage caps which has (like goverment education policies) produced bog-standard as the norm and decline in relative international standards.

The difference being that there are no overriding social imperatives in professional professional rugby.

Its nothing to do with a wage cap. in the years you have listed English was on a decline as a whole. the truth of the matter is that the players just arent there at the moment.

However they will come again.

caoimhincentre wrote:Its nothing to do with a wage cap. in the years you have listed English was on a decline as a whole. the truth of the matter is that the players just arent there at the moment.

However they will come again.

Is just a glib, unsubstantiated assertion. This is a debate on English HEC performance based on statistical evidence.

You'd have to back your argument with facts for it to cut any ice with me.

Portnoy wrote:

caoimhincentre wrote:Its nothing to do with a wage cap. in the years you have listed English was on a decline as a whole. the truth of the matter is that the players just arent there at the moment.

However they will come again.

Is just a glib, unsubstantiated assertion. This is a debate on English HEC performance based on statistical evidence.

You'd have to back your argument with facts for it to cut any ice with me.

Its not really. the success of the irish sides in the HC is mainly down to a generation of Irish players that happen to be playing very good rugby over the last five years.

at present and over the last 5 years english club teams did not have this foundation of English players.

Its not a cut at english players as i firmly believe that the rolls will be reversed again.

Portnoy, Geoff (the Ulster poster who always seems to have inside knowledge at Ravenhill) says that the 3 Irish provinces have much the same budget as the top English teams. So I’m not sure that raising the salary cap would reap the rewards that you seem to think.

Frankly English clubs overperformed at the beginning of the tournament. any comparison should only ever be made with teh French clubs - as they are the only country to have a club system with the players spread around much more widely.

French clubs have performed better than us, and the wage budget has a big part to play in this.

Ireland have seriously outperformed compared to Wales and Scotland, and while Edinburgh fans are rightly proud of qinning their group, the performance of Scottish clubs over the years has been woefull. There has been Irish presence at the tail end of the competition pretty much constantly since Ulster won in 98 (Munster in the 200 and 2002 finals before actually winning for instance).

(Small thing - Leinster and Munster have similar salary budgets to the AP cap BUT only include the HC players in this amount AND due to tax breaks the players have much higher take-home pay)

LondonTiger wrote:Frankly English clubs overperformed at the beginning of the tournament. any comparison should only ever be made with teh French clubs - as they are the only country to have a club system with the players spread around much more widely.

French clubs have performed better than us, and the wage budget has a big part to play in this.

Ireland have seriously outperformed compared to Wales and Scotland, and while Edinburgh fans are rightly proud of qinning their group, the performance of Scottish clubs over the years has been woefull. There has been Irish presence at the tail end of the competition pretty much constantly since Ulster won in 98 (Munster in the 200 and 2002 finals before actually winning for instance).

(Small thing - Leinster and Munster have similar salary budgets to the AP cap BUT only include the HC players in this amount AND due to tax breaks the players have much higher take-home pay)

You mean the players in the HC squad? We wouldn't play too many players in the league that are outside of that squad. And the tax breaks only apply to Irish players at the end of their career and wouldn't help with foreign recruitment.

To bring in Ireland into this debate is to muddy the water as the model is entirely different (paternalistic, top-down and franchise-based) and so introduces too many variables which make comparisons. A separate parallel debate between Rabo national sides would be more appropriate.

When I've got a few spare minutes I'll do a parallel analysis on the T14 later to analyse their results in the same time period. That would be more relevant.

I am a market socialist - by which I mean that I believe that markets can work efficiently only if constrained by ethical and sustainable rules. Otherwise extreme wealth and mass poverty coexist, sustainable competition cannot be maintained (a la banking crisis) etc.

What I am asking for is a sustainable wage cap based on the affordability to maintain medium-long term confidence of the competitors based on turnover. In banking terms the current equivalent term is 'capitalisation'. In either case it's about not overstretching the elastic.

I have fears for the T14 model as I can't see it's sustainability - especially as from the rumours that the French are taking a typically laissez-faire, relaxed attitude to 'les regles'.

In England the sustainable clubs are constrained from progressing in Europe due to:

Fixed wage-cap
EPS payments distributed equally despite club input

To ensure that the Jeff is 'fair', but guarantees its insularity.

And that of course is without recourse to delving further into my boxed set of 's'...

Portnoy wrote:To bring in Ireland into this debate is to muddy the water as the model is entirely different (paternalistic, top-down and franchise-based) and so introduces too many variables which make comparisons. A separate parallel debate between Rabo national sides would be more appropriate.

When I've got a few spare minutes I'll do a parallel analysis on the T14 later to analyse their results in the same time period. That would be more relevant.

I am a market socialist - by which I mean that I believe that markets can work efficiently only if constrained by ethical and sustainable rules. Otherwise extreme wealth and mass poverty coexist, sustainable competition cannot be maintained (a la banking crisis) etc.

What I am asking for is a sustainable wage cap based on the affordability to maintain medium-long term confidence of the competitors based on turnover. In banking terms the current equivalent term is 'capitalisation'. In either case it's about not overstretching the elastic.

I have fears for the T14 model as I can't see it's sustainability - especially as from the rumours that the French are taking a typically laissez-faire, relaxed attitude to 'les regles'.

In England the sustainable clubs are constrained from progressing in Europe due to:

Fixed wage-cap
EPS payments distributed equally despite club input

To ensure that the Jeff is 'fair', but guarantees its insularity.

And that of course is without recourse to delving further into my boxed set of 's'...

Waffle.

As pointed on this thread, bar france the english teams get paid on average the same or more in some cases to that of other european teams.

Stop using the salary cap as an excuse. when the next cycle of good young home grown players come through the ranks you will see english teams competing more consistantly in europe

LondonTiger wrote: (Small thing - Leinster and Munster have similar salary budgets to the AP cap BUT only include the HC players in this amount AND due to tax breaks the players have much higher take-home pay)

That is factually wrong - all professional and development players are included when referencing salary levels

Anyway when you think about it the players not in the HC squad will be on low salaries anyway and will not make a big difference to the grand total.

caoimhincentre wrote:

Portnoy wrote:To bring in Ireland into this debate is to muddy the water as the model is entirely different (paternalistic, top-down and franchise-based) and so introduces too many variables which make comparisons. A separate parallel debate between Rabo national sides would be more appropriate.

When I've got a few spare minutes I'll do a parallel analysis on the T14 later to analyse their results in the same time period. That would be more relevant.

I am a market socialist - by which I mean that I believe that markets can work efficiently only if constrained by ethical and sustainable rules. Otherwise extreme wealth and mass poverty coexist, sustainable competition cannot be maintained (a la banking crisis) etc.

What I am asking for is a sustainable wage cap based on the affordability to maintain medium-long term confidence of the competitors based on turnover. In banking terms the current equivalent term is 'capitalisation'. In either case it's about not overstretching the elastic.

I have fears for the T14 model as I can't see it's sustainability - especially as from the rumours that the French are taking a typically laissez-faire, relaxed attitude to 'les regles'.

In England the sustainable clubs are constrained from progressing in Europe due to:

Fixed wage-cap
EPS payments distributed equally despite club input

To ensure that the Jeff is 'fair', but guarantees its insularity.

And that of course is without recourse to delving further into my boxed set of 's'...

Waffle.

As pointed on this thread, bar france the english teams get paid on average the same or more in some cases to that of other european teams.

Stop using the salary cap as an excuse. when the next cycle of good young home grown players come through the ranks you will see english teams competing more consistantly in europe

Again unsubstantiated claims and assertions. Please use facts with a source.

I wonder if (and this is pure speculation) whether the IRFU keep the Irish players salaries down by the lure of playing for Ireland. I've no idea how much the top players are on but someone like O'Driscoll could almost certainly get more at a French side. On top of this there is less room for moving within Ireland (and I presume the IRFU control this so there's control of player wage inflation). Even if it's just because they're not good enough there have been suggestions that players are not selected if outside of Ireland (it was even suggested in the past that playing for Ulster didn't help either).

In England there are a lot of possible teams to move too and still be playing within the system. On top of that there's less of a chance for playing for your country because there's a much larger pool of players (and they might only qualify via birth), so there's much greater potential to move abroad for the money. This means clubs have to pay more to keep players. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if players were loyal, but it's a short career, health on the line, etc, etc, blah, blah.

As I said. it's just speculation.

Portnoy wrote:

caoimhincentre wrote:

Portnoy wrote:To bring in Ireland into this debate is to muddy the water as the model is entirely different (paternalistic, top-down and franchise-based) and so introduces too many variables which make comparisons. A separate parallel debate between Rabo national sides would be more appropriate.

When I've got a few spare minutes I'll do a parallel analysis on the T14 later to analyse their results in the same time period. That would be more relevant.

I am a market socialist - by which I mean that I believe that markets can work efficiently only if constrained by ethical and sustainable rules. Otherwise extreme wealth and mass poverty coexist, sustainable competition cannot be maintained (a la banking crisis) etc.

What I am asking for is a sustainable wage cap based on the affordability to maintain medium-long term confidence of the competitors based on turnover. In banking terms the current equivalent term is 'capitalisation'. In either case it's about not overstretching the elastic.

I have fears for the T14 model as I can't see it's sustainability - especially as from the rumours that the French are taking a typically laissez-faire, relaxed attitude to 'les regles'.

In England the sustainable clubs are constrained from progressing in Europe due to:

Fixed wage-cap
EPS payments distributed equally despite club input

To ensure that the Jeff is 'fair', but guarantees its insularity.

And that of course is without recourse to delving further into my boxed set of 's'...

Waffle.

As pointed on this thread, bar france the english teams get paid on average the same or more in some cases to that of other european teams.

Stop using the salary cap as an excuse. when the next cycle of good young home grown players come through the ranks you will see english teams competing more consistantly in europe

Again unsubstantiated claims and assertions. Please use facts with a source.

I'll give you my unsubstantiated sources when you show me your sources that show English teams pay less to there players because of the salary cap.

We could go around in circles but at the end of the day i believe (and you can disagree if you want) that once another crop of english players like the ones you had in the early 00's develop you will find that the club success in europe will follow.

HammerofThunor wrote:I wonder if (and this is pure speculation) whether the IRFU keep the Irish players salaries down by the lure of playing for Ireland. I've no idea how much the top players are on but someone like O'Driscoll could almost certainly get more at a French side. On top of this there is less room for moving within Ireland (and I presume the IRFU control this so there's control of player wage inflation). Even if it's just because they're not good enough there have been suggestions that players are not selected if outside of Ireland (it was even suggested in the past that playing for Ulster didn't help either).

In England there are a lot of possible teams to move too and still be playing within the system. On top of that there's less of a chance for playing for your country because there's a much larger pool of players (and they might only qualify via birth), so there's much greater potential to move abroad for the money. This means clubs have to pay more to keep players. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if players were loyal, but it's a short career, health on the line, etc, etc, blah, blah.

As I said. it's just speculation.

A friend of mine told me that he met BOD's father, a doctor, around the time he was in contract negotiations with the IRFU. He was seen being introduced to the crowd at a Toulouse game and was obviously being offered big bucks. His father told my friend that if BOD went to France he would be playing in the region of 40 games per season, whereas if he stayed at home it would be more like 30 or so. This would obviously lead to fewer injuries and a prolonged career. He said that this was a major factor in him deciding to stay with Leinster. So it's not just about the money.

That anti-Ulster bias was complete bunkum. If they were good enough, they got selected. End of story.

If you're referring to posts I made, I didnt say Kidney was bias towards Ulster, I said he was bias in favour of Munster. Not that I want to get into this again.

Just read the above posts, and realized you're not talking in relation to my posts

Basically there are too many English teams competing in the competition. Your top players are spread too thin on the ground and playing too many games, your squads are too small, and you are unable to attract the top players from abroad.