Zurich/Guiness/Aviva Premiership - the "old" order?

Yes i am a stats geek. Following a throwaway comment I thought i would look at how the teams have performed in the Premiership in its various guises. For the purposes of this I have just looked at where sides finished at the end of the season, and for each season since 1997 awarded 6 points for finishing the regular season in first place, down to 1 point for finishing 6th (ie effectively the last HC spot).

The rankings are as follows:

Leicester	72
Gloucester	38
Bath	35
Wasps	34
Saracens	32
Northampton	31
Sale	22
Quins	17
London Irish	14
Newcastle	7
Bristol	5
Leeds	2
Richmond	2

this effectively breaks down into 4 groups:

Always up near the top
Tigers

Consistent Challengers
Gloucester, Bath, Wasps, Saints, Sarries

Intermittent Challengers
Harlequins, London Irish, Sale

One good Year
Falcons, Bristol, Leeds (and for this year Exeter)

LT, think you might want to scale it by number of seasons to get any sensible conclusion for the 'smaller' clubs?

I still hanker for the days when Coventry was the pre-eminent Midlands club, with Moseley and Nottingham providing the closest local opposition.

After 3 administrations/liquidations in close succession and (alleged) asset-strippers negating the support of the local council, Coventry survive in National 1. There, but for the grace of commercial acumen, go the recently established professional rugby businesses.

Just saying

Confirms what we outside of the English Prem all knew, that only Leicester can consistently be a good team and challenge on the European front. And they say the Celtic League is weak.

Morgannwg wrote:Confirms what we outside of the English Prem all knew, that only Leicester can consistently be a good team and challenge on the European front. And they say the Celtic League is weak.

lol, the celtic league is weak other than a few irish sides...

Yeah, same for the English league apart from one side... And even they got thumped in Europe this year.

Five Celtic League sides made the KO stages compared to your league's one. That was three Irish sides plus a Welsh and Scots one. So yeah, only the few irish sides that do the work.

Dubbelyew L Overate wrote:I still hanker for the days when Coventry was the pre-eminent Midlands club, with Moseley and Nottingham providing the closest local opposition.

Just saying

Almost 40 years since those days. Coventry started to slide first and I have a vague recollection of Moseley making a final in about 83. Through the 80s the preminent Midland clubs were really Nottingham and Tigers.

Mind you Bristol and Glaws old boys I know still view Bath as upstart jonny come latelys

Morgannwg wrote:Five Celtic League sides made the KO stages compared to your league's one. That was three Irish sides plus a Welsh and Scots one. So yeah, only the few irish sides that do the work.

remind me again how many Welsh/Scottish/Italian teams have won it? or is success in the competition now defined as getting into the KO stages so you call your welsh teams a European success?

Well we are discussing consistentcy here actually and over the last few years it is an actual fact that teams from the Celtic League are more consistent than the English League teams on domestic and european fronts. Typical of an England fan to crawl into the past archives though. Before you next go on to yap about 2003 allow me to just remind you that your current place in life is on the bottom of the Grand Slammers boot. Haha!

It alqays seems a bit rich, Welsh fans slating us about the relative strength of the Clubs. Irish I could understand.

Nobody is slating you though. The only club slating tends to come from the English. I made statements based on facts.

Morgannwg wrote:Well we are discussing consistentcy here actually and over the last few years it is an actual fact that teams from the Celtic League are more consistent than the English League teams on domestic and european fronts. Typical of an England fan to crawl into the past archives though. Before you next go on to yap about 2003 allow me to just remind you that your current place in life is on the bottom of the Grand Slammers boot. Haha!

so one hand your looking back at consistency yet on the other we're not allowed as it would be classed as an england fan crawling into past archives? What utter tosh!

Morgannwg wrote:Nobody is slating you though. The only club slating tends to come from the English. I made statements based on facts.

Nothing like starting the morning with a good chuckle

Morgannwg wrote:Confirms what we outside of the English Prem all knew, that only Leicester can consistently be a good team and challenge on the European front. And they say the Celtic League is weak.

This is what you said - note you accuse us of slating the LEAGUE while you slate the clubs.

Our performance this year was poor and has been in decline. Nut Nathan's point still stands - there have been no winners from Wales/Scotland or Italy yet.

As to the original table - all it really shows is that Tigers have been pretty consistent in the professional era (helped a lot by luck/timing - if the game had gon pro 8 years earlier after the first RWC things coul dhave been very different). Behind that there are a series of clubs who have been competitive for large chunks of time but not the whole 14 years. That 3 of them also won the HC in this time, shows that they have not been "weak". Very few teams have challenged consistently in Europe more had good periods.

Why bother to try to even argue with this goon?

I really don't think Morgan is here for a discussion on the leagues, just to try a wind up.

Stop trying to ruin a good thread.

I'm surprised Sarries are so high actually, in my mind they had always been lower mid-table until the last couple of years. I suppose Leicesters standing shows that success breeds success, especially when you have a secure financial footing to start with.

I'd love to see Richmond make a return to the top flight, or at least being a solid championship team. An aside I know, but I really dislike the idea of ring fencing the league, it seems ridiculous that teams could be rewarded for being in the right place at the right time, or simply in the 'right' geographical location.

Sarries did pretty well (but just one cup win) in the early years. Big money was spent on signings such as Lynagh, Sella and Pienaar.

I suppose Leicesters standing shows that success breeds success, especially when you have a secure financial footing to start with.

I think it helped massively that Tigers were so close to running as a professional side before the professional era, everything but players salaries was set up as if for a pro team. Mind you there were plenty of accusations of brown envelopes left in shoes etc (though if you read Austin's autobiography some of the Northern RU players would play RL under psydoneums in order to earn more, now whilst at Tigers though). Tigers have always been there or there abouts even in their injury riddled, RWC effected or transitional periods thanks mainly to the ethos of the club and a good financial footing that has allowed us to stave off competition for our players signatures.

A little suprising we are that far out in front as in no season have we ever been uncontested (particulary in recent years, damn Wasps!).

Well we are discussing consistentcy here actually and over the last few years it is an actual fact that teams from the Celtic League are more consistent than the English League teams on domestic and european fronts.

Consistent on domestic fronts? No, the Celtic league fluctuates as much as the majority of the AP where as no Celtic team is so reliably near the top as Tigers (well except Munster). The English clubs in Europe have managed 3 defeated finalists and 1 champion of the main tournament (we've had a couple of Amlin winners etc) in the last 5 years. That's 1 winner and 1 defeated finalist in 2007, defeated finalist in 2009 and defeated finalist in 2011. More than the Welsh and Scottish have ever achieved between them. I think that the English clubs have also won as many HECs over the course of the competition as Irish teams have though they seem to be the superior nation in the tournament at the moment as England were a few years back.

That's a staggering amount of points for Leicester.

Gloucester with that consistency are unlucky not to notch up one English title trophy. The playoffs have hurt them in this regard admittedly.

I do enjoy it when the English fans throw the 'how many HC have the welsh won?'line. Let's set the record straight beyond the tigers the other English teams taking the HC were littered with class non English players! Any team with money could do that.

viewtothegym wrote:I do enjoy it when the English fans throw the 'how many HC have the welsh won?'line. Let's set the record straight beyond the tigers the other English teams taking the HC were littered with class non English players! Any team with money could do that.

Yes because it's as easy as chucking money at a team to instantly win titles. No it's not that simple.

If it was Toulon would have won the Top 14 or any title by now. They didn't even qualify for the HC last season.

Same with Stade Francais and Racing Metro

Bath with their sugar daddy are surely wiping the floor with everyone....wait a minute....

Saracens with their superstars in the 90s won lots of trophies didn't they?


Leinster have shown you can be class on a smaller budget than the big French giants.

beshocked wrote:

viewtothegym wrote:I do enjoy it when the English fans throw the 'how many HC have the welsh won?'line. Let's set the record straight beyond the tigers the other English teams taking the HC were littered with class non English players! Any team with money could do that.

Yes because it's as easy as chucking money at a team to instantly win titles. No it's not that simple.

If it was Toulon would have won the Top 14 or any title by now. They didn't even qualify for the HC last season.

Same with Stade Francais and Racing Metro

Bath with their sugar daddy are surely wiping the floor with everyone....wait a minute....

Saracens with their superstars in the 90s won lots of trophies didn't they?


Leinster have shown you can be class on a smaller budget than the big French giants.

And of course, Leinster don't have any foreign players either do they?

Of course, he still hasn't answered the question of how many Welsh clubs/Regions have won the HC - probably because he can't count that high...

Let's set the record straight beyond the tigers the other English teams taking the HC were littered with class non English players! Any team with money could do that.

Like Wasps? Who won the 2007 cup with only two foreign players (Ibanez and Reddan) in the starting 15. I think there was only 1 additional foreigner on the bench (Dan Leo). When they won it in 2004 I think only Leota was the only foreigner in the starting line up. Wasps never had any money, they had and still do have a great academy.

Saints might have had a few more foreigners in their team but I think Dawson and Grayson were the half backs for them that day, my memory isn't that good after that.

Leinster have shown you can be class on a smaller budget than the big French giants

Or a Rugby Union that gives central contracts to all their big name Irish players so that the club can retain them at half their market value.

Slightly off the wall comment followed by semi-serious point on stats given. Devastating rejoinder to Welsh posters. Smiley.

One interesting stat recently by Cleary in the Telegraph was that in the AP there has only been one team that has qualified for the HC every year for the last (just) five years, Leicester. That suggests a pretty competitive league. There have been nine R12 sides who have competed in the HC for the last five years, regardless of how competitive it might be.

This season five of the R12 sides in the HC lost more games than they won in the league in the previous season. There have only been three French/english sides that have qualified like that in the last five years.

Logic would suggest that last stat being expected but interesting to see nonetheless. I'm not going to go over previous ground regarding HC qualification but fundamentally that comes down to clubs competing against elite franchises which will never be resolved.

I don't know - just last season the English side who made the HC final was different to the English side who won the Amlin cup, who were a different side to the English team who won the LV cup, who were a different side to the team who won the Jeff.

Apart from that, there is definitely only one team in it.

EnglishReign wrote:I don't know - just last season the English side who made the HC final was different to the English side who won the Amlin cup, who were a different side to the English team who won the LV cup, who were a different side to the team who won the Jeff.

Apart from that, there is definitely only one team in it.

Class

I don't know - just last season the English side who made the HC final was different to the English side who won the Amlin cup, who were a different side to the English team who won the LV cup, who were a different side to the team who won the Jeff.

Apart from that, there is definitely only one team in it.

Yeah, good post.

I think that this shows two things. That Leicester are top dogs which is why they go from strenght to strenght. Others come and go with good teams but don't sustain it and once the players move they fall back down like wasps.

I would be interested to see how much leicesters 22 change by each year I would say maybe three or four that is why they have been so consistant as have Tolous and Munster and Os.

Once the Wasps teams retired or left they fell apart as with others. Toulon change to much which is the problem with money it is too easy to get in more players so you spend half the season getting use to each other.

I would love to see a HC 1/4s for the same period. You would have to do it per season as that would remove the Rabo teams luck v Sarries who haven't been in as much.

I think you would see Munster, Leinster, Leicester, Toulous and Blues ahead of everyone else.

I think that it is only the welsh that go on about the Rabo teams.

Scotland had their best HC season every and no welsh say they are better then the English it is just the Scots did well and lets back it up next year. Ulster was the same its nothing till you back it up.

And this year they did and it wasn't a weak group like last year.

The English posters in general say we didn't do as well we need to do better.

I wish the welsh could be more postive on their improvement or look to see why they aren't ( and I know it is only a few)

nathan wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:Well we are discussing consistentcy here actually and over the last few years it is an actual fact that teams from the Celtic League are more consistent than the English League teams on domestic and european fronts. Typical of an England fan to crawl into the past archives though. Before you next go on to yap about 2003 allow me to just remind you that your current place in life is on the bottom of the Grand Slammers boot. Haha!

so one hand your looking back at consistency yet on the other we're not allowed as it would be classed as an england fan crawling into past archives? What utter tosh!

Not sure how it even came to comparing Heineken Cup titles between the competing nations, it's rather odd that the English always go off topic when something completely relevant is pointed out to them. Allow me to also point out that the current year is 2012 before I go on.

Yes I was looking at consistentcy but not that far back. I can appreciate England have always had a strong club game and in the beginning it was mainly just their clubs in it competing with Toulouse, Brive and Stade Francais.

Teams like Bath, Gloucester and London Irish were competitive if you remember, but each went into decline and even out of the top 6, after being billed for big things in Europe not only the one season but the up and coming ones. Also in more recent times; Quins went backwards, Wasps went backwards, Northampton went backwards, Sarries will probably join them at the same backwards rate once they get knocked out of the jeff play-offs. Only Leicester are at the top, always. A bad couple of seasons for them in the big european competition by their own standards but I'm sure they are still unbeaten at home? How did going back to 2007 and further backwards disprove this Nathan?

You know I looked on this thread because I never follow English rugby and I was curious to learn something. Instead I read loads of this pointless bitching and sniping between the Welsh and English. Why don't you let London Tiger have his discussion and open a new thread just for petty point scoring. Seeing how leagues develop over time is interesting and a worthwhile discussion.

In case you're wondering, I'm Irish.

to get back on topic I have read on here that Tigers have been in the last seven finals I would love to know if people think that it will always be the way or will Sarries stay there and maybe Bath when they get on their role which will happen.

I thought Saints would be one of the big boys but if Exeter beat them this week that just shows they were a mid table.

I would be interested in seeing how Quinn go and also Exeter when they have to renew contracts or replace players.

I also think it shows that Tigers are so much ahead of everyone on and off the park which is why they are always there

Things go in cycles and teams need to be rebuilt. So far Tigers have done well in rebuilding when needed, but it will not last for ever.

Brendan wrote:to get back on topic I have read on here that Tigers have been in the last seven finals I would love to know if people think that it will always be the way or will Sarries stay there and maybe Bath when they get on their role which will happen.

I thought Saints would be one of the big boys but if Exeter beat them this week that just shows they were a mid table.

I would be interested in seeing how Quinn go and also Exeter when they have to renew contracts or replace players.

I also think it shows that Tigers are so much ahead of everyone on and off the park which is why they are always there

Next year will be a big year for Exe in terms of contract renewals and recruitment, Brendan, not expecting much at all this year, cos extensions have already been awarded or most players are mid-contract anyhew

Things go in cycles and teams need to be rebuilt. So far Tigers have done well in rebuilding when needed, but it will not last for ever

I think last season we suffered because of rebuilding. The likes of Mafi and Slater were thrown in the deep end whilst the youngsters like Forsyth, Harrison, Lewington etc we had kept on weren't ready to step up. This season they've stepped up and suddenly our squad depth is looking better (other than the 20 odd players down RWC period). Next season we'll look better as for the first time in a while they'll be genuine competition at 9 (Youngs, Harrison, Young), 10 (Flood, Ford, Bowden) and 1 (Ayerza, Mulipola). Added power on the wings as well.

Gloucester are also looking menacing as well but I think Saints may fall behind a bit because their squad depth is still poor and they are losing two leaders in the Irish lads heading home. The Saints academy does seem to at least be working again so they may be poor next year but the year after they may suprise some people.

formerly known as Sam wrote:The Saints academy does seem to at least be working again so they may be poor next year but the year after they may suprise some people.

Bloomin' Dusty Hare. Mutter mutter

But that all leads back to Tigers will be there but the current top teams may change. I think it helps Tigers as they have been there before but when teams at the top change each one of them has to learn how to do it.

Why do Saints seem to have such a poor squad when they are one of the big teams. Did they spend more money on the first team and so had to get poor players as stand ins

Why do Saints seem to have such a poor squad when they are one of the big teams. Did they spend more money on the first team and so had to get poor players as stand ins

The season before the were relegated they gave big contracts to big names who didn't necessarily live up to those names. They reduced the number of players whilst in the Championship but it's taken time to move on the players with the big contracts. They've also invested heavilly in the front row (always an expensive hobbey) and have had to offer more substantial contracts to the younger generation that have been coming through in order to keep them. They have slowly expanded the squad but it's not a easy thing to do quickly without running the risk of damaging the ethos of the club and Saints are a well drilled team so to dilute that too much would take time to repair. Then there's also the problem of their being only so many good players on the market and competition for their signature being fierce. It's taking them time but they are getting there, they are suffering at the minute because they are down 3 hookers (Hartley, Sharman and Heyward) as well as 3 flankers (Clark, Wood and Lawes who would have filled in there).

They just seem to have a much weaker squad when compared to Tigers or Sarries.

Spend big and getting little sucks

That is one issue with the wage cap

MAybe they could do it that you match day 22 have to have a total wage bill of say 3.5m

That way you could have better second string players but not really affect the 1st team

No the idea of the salary cap was to stop clubs from over reaching and then finding themselves in a financial mess ala Richmond. That is why the cap was brought in on player salary so that clubs could develop in line with their own financial well being away from the squad but no crazy ambitious arms race would see clubs over reach each other bidding for the best talent only to see the game collapse once the banks got fed up with lending. The idea of using the cap to keep the league competitive as a whole is a later development.

What you'd get if you allowed you plan to happen is the bigger clubs stock piling the best talent and then just rotating the squad around so that the cap on starting 23 was met but a much larger number of awesome players were grouped at the top clubs. This would threaten the financial stability of clubs in the long run and potentially ruin the competitiveness of the league.

They just seem to have a much weaker squad when compared to Tigers or Sarries.

Tigers developed their squad over a couple of decades carefully maintaining squad size with a mixture of careful signings, minimal marquee player investment and academy products. Sarries have done similar but clearly have excellent scouts and connections in SA to allow them to have recruited much faster. Although, Sarries did decimate their first time by firing a vast number of players in a massive summer clear out that made them unpopular for a short time. Saints will get there it will just take them longer. As I said above the main problem at the minute is all their missing players are either hookers or flankers which is hard to cover for, not many teams stock more than 3 first team hookers yet Saints are down to 4th and 5th choice.

I know the Cap is to stop money problems.

If the cap was small for the 22 it might help to blood more players.

Also would you play 10 bench games for tigers or 20 for Exeter.

The wages bill total would have to be as a % of tunover/Income

The wages bill total would have to be as a % of tunover/Income

You wouldn't get very far with that suggestion in a PRL meeting. LI actually suggested reducing the cap to £3.5m the other year, putting through a policy that would allow the likes of Tigers and Saints to have bigger squads would not be popular. Even the other big clubs like Bath (not really that big anymore), Sarries and Quins would certainly not like it as they have smaller average attendances or stadiums and so smaller streams of income.

It's a good idea in theory but when it's the chairman of the clubs that vote on these things then they will be out for the best deal for their club not a 'logical' choice (there is an argument it wouldn't be logical as it would favour certain clubs).

With regards to the blooding of players there seems to be quite a lot more AP experience for the England under 20s than any of the other nations age grade sides. Take fly half for example, the young 10s coming onto the scene in England are all 21 or under in Burns, Ford, Farrell and Heathcote. Burns has had a couple of seasons of regular rugby, Farrell and Ford have both won cup finals and Heathcote is starting to wrack up the experience at Bath. Compare that with the other home nations. Madigan is making a name for himself as a 10 but is now 23 with a similar exposure level to Burns and Farrell who are 2 or 3 years his junior. Priestland the new Welsh revelation at 10 is 25! There was a certain lost generation back in the middle of the 00's where getting into an AP team was hard for young English talent (even harder to get much of a chance in the national team) but that is changing as the French and Japanese leagues are signing up most of the foreign talent that would have come to England previously.

Isn't the better youth due to the Academies which is not good news for us celts

Also I think with a fair few of the bigger players going to France it is a blessing in disguse for the clubs.

Ireland is a bit different as college aged kids are pushed towards college more then anyone else so they don't really come on the sceen till about 22

As the u20s have shown they are well able to stand up to the NZ and are more then ready for the Aviva

It all bodes well for England and might bring down the price on an England man