Mark McCafferty is a disgrace

First topic message reminder :

Interview link below.

http://www.espnscrum.com/heineken-cup-2011-12/rugby/story/157976.html?CMP=OTC-RSS

Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty has suggested that a flawed qualification system is largely to blame for English rugby's failure to make a significant impression on this season's Heineken Cup.

England's leading clubs have struggled to keep pace with their European rivals in recent seasons with only one side - Premiership champions Saracens - likely to make the quarter-finals this term. The Premiership provided just one quarter-finalist two seasons ago in the shape of Northampton and the Saints, beaten finalists last year, were one of only two teams alongside Leicester to make the knock-out stages in that competition.

McCafferty believes that the Premiership's leading sides and their French Top 14 counterparts are treated unfairly by qualifying arrangements that he claims favour those teams competing in the RaboDirect PRO12. The Celtic-Italian league provides 10 teams for the Heineken Cup with the three highest placed sides from Ireland and Wales and the two sides from Scotland and Italy guaranteed qualification. Additional places are available depending on the destiny of the previous season's Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup.

McCafferty argues that the battle to claim one of the six automatic spots open to the 12-team Premiership and the Top 14 is a much tougher task - a point that he is set to put to tournament organisers European Rugby Cup Ltd.

"At the moment pretty much everyone in the PRO12 knows they've qualified for next year's Heineken, whereas French and English sides are still fighting tooth and nail and will be doing so in the middle of the Heineken Cup next season to ensure qualification for the season after," he told the Sunday Telegraph. "Make it more meritocratic and everyone will have to take their leagues seriously."

McCafferty went on to explain how he believes the process should work. "Our view is that Heineken Cup qualification should be based on league form," he said. "There are three of those - the Aviva Premiership, the Top 14 Orange in France and the Pro 12 - and you should take the qualifying teams from the best sides in those leagues. Then it's a completely meritocratic system."

This season the 24 teams in the six Heineken Cup pools are made up of 11 from the PRO12, six from the Top 14 and seven from the Premiership. McCafferty believes it should be eight across the board.

"We've put that proposal on the table but we know there will be a huge amount of resistance to it because it means countries in the PRO12, a league which currently has 10 places allocated to it, might go down to eight. There will be concerns that it could lead to one or two countries not being represented in the Heineken Cup. But the price you pay for that inclusivity is not necessarily having the best against the best."

McCafferty also highlighted what he sees as the Irish sides' ability to prioritise the Heineken Cup over domestic matters. "The real change over the past four or five years," McCafferty added, "is that the Irish sides have become more successful in Europe because of the priority they have put on it.

"After round four of this season's tournament I looked at the starting line-ups of Ulster, Leinster and Munster [all through to the quarter-finals] and only four of the 45 starters in the Heineken Cup were retained for their PRO12 league games the next weekend. Take a model where the top eight clubs qualify from each league and they wouldn't be able to take as many risks. That's the issue our clubs have.

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So let me get this straight, you want to handicap the amount of teams in the Rabbo and give 2 additional spaces to English sides to make it fairier? How is it fair that England get to enter 6 teams already? Just because other Unions have streamlined their playing pools into a smaller number of teams to increase their standard and squad strenght.

The biggest issue I have with the guy is that he has completely failed to identify the problem and yet again is looking at it from a English Club increased Revenue standpoint. In truth there are 2 bigger factors at play.

1. Relegation - Its forcing English sides to play cup rugby. Get rid of that and your teams migth stand a better chance.

2. Quality - In truth the quality of squads is no longer available to English sides. French Clubs assemble the squads for the most money so have all the biggest names and the Home Unions to a large degree are keeping their stars at home. As they dont have to split resources by as many clubs as the English do it will make them naturally stronger (with the exception of Scotland). The handicap works against teams too as you have 12 teams bidding for the same player pools. Its understandable why so many buy no name SH imports.

To think this guy is partly responsible in helping English clubs worries me. He clearly has missed the point altogether.

I hope the HC Board laugh him out of the meeting or at the very least counter the argument with "Sure - as long as you will accept 3 places instead of 6".

This bloke is an idiot and his idea of improving English Rugby is to pull other (working systems) down, instead of improving his own.

HammerofThunor wrote:Basically the English clubs use the LV in a similar was as the Irish and Welsh teams use the PRO12.

I know it is another wind up but it would be nice if once, just once, an English supporter would justify the claim Pro 12 teams rota more than English teams.

I have shown that Ulster do not so so, and that the Leinster game was a one off. I have shown that Leicester and Ulster over a given period did the same thing re rotation but not once has an English suipporters posted any hard facts showing that this often repeated claim has any substance

It's pretty hard to justify when most people don't have a clue about the facts.

I would have thought that the provinces must rest their players more than the English clubs and the Regions simply due to the restriction put on the Irish players by the IRFU. But the EPS players miss a few games now too. Regarding none international players, I've no idea.

Geoff,

may I take this opportunity to repeat my assertion (hard facts E&OE) that the starting Leicester XV and XXIII had considerably more gametime than the Ulster equivalent in the 3 games preceding their HC round 5 encounter.

The inevitable conclusion is that you are wrong, unless, of course, one ignores the extrapolations of Ulster into the whole of Pro12, Leicester into the whole of AP, and 3 games ito the whole season. In that case, it remains unproved by you, or anyone else, and it seems quite fair for posters to form an opinion unfettered by spurious stats.

Thank you.

I posted elsewhere that in comparing Leinster and Bath over the period of time of the first four rounds of H Cuo games and league games, both Bath ad Leinster rotated their squads fairly equally after Round Two, but Bath more or less fielded the same side after Round Four compared to less than half for Leinster.

Northampton are fairly similar. The reality is that AP clubs do keep their core squad together for more matches than some of their Pro12 counterparts at different times of the season. As a counterpoint to this, it would be interesting to look at the squads fielded by Connacht and Treviso in the same time period.

It would also be interesting to see the number and types of injuries to the different squads. Do sides that rotate get fewer general injuries (not including freak one offs like leg breaks, etc)

Dubbelyew L Overate wrote:Geoff,

may I take this opportunity to repeat my assertion (hard facts E&OE) that the starting Leicester XV and XXIII had considerably more gametime than the Ulster equivalent in the 3 games preceding their HC round 5 encounter.

The inevitable conclusion is that you are wrong, unless, of course, one ignores the extrapolations of Ulster into the whole of Pro12, Leicester into the whole of AP, and 3 games ito the whole season. In that case, it remains unproved by you, or anyone else, and it seems quite fair for posters to form an opinion unfettered by spurious stats.

Thank you.

What we established was that the forwards of Leicester and the forwards of Ulster palyed the same game time as each other between Rounds 4 and 5. Now as we all know it is forwards that need rest rather than backs because of the physicality of their positions. Now from the above I assume you are saying the Ulster backs did not play as much in those three games as the Ulster backs, I haven't checked but I'll take your word for it. As I have explained this was to a one off situation due to the short turn around between matches - as I have shown elsewhere this is not the norm for Ulster who indulge in virtually no rotation and have not done so during the last 10 years or so.

Sorry but I don't have to prove anything - it is the Englsih supporters who keep banging on above Pro 12 teams rotating more than the English. The onus is on them to PROVE this assertion - otherwise I will continue to call it the bunk I believe it to be