Make Qualification for HC 2012/13 a pure meritocracy.

16 teams in 4 polls.

Qualifiers are:

Group winners (6 this year, 4 from then on).
Winners of the second tier Competition
Leading Finisher in respective league for each country. (rewards League position not play-off results)
3 highest placed teams from the ERC rankings not already qualified.

So entrants for 2012/13 would be:

Leinster, Munster, Edinburgh, Toulouse, Clermont, Saracens
Harlequins, 3rd Placed French team (currently toulon), Glasgow, Ospreys, Treviso, ulster
toulon or Biarritz (may open up room for 4th placed French Team)
Cardiff, Northampton, Tigers (I think)

I don't know why people want to make this competition more and more elite, surely the elite shouldn't be allowed to receive all the monetary gains that this comp provides!!!

I think the opposite should happen and the comp should be opened up to 32 teams.

3 teams Ireland/Wales/Scotland/Italy
4 teams Eng/France
2 finalists from previous year
Amlin winner
the other 9 spots should come from developing nations, maybe a combined team from each nation. For example the russians can only play sevens in school, but they can put together a squad of non tier one league players easily enough. Spanish clubs could unite for the tourny etc...

I want to see an actual european competition, not a axis of western domination!

so Leinster play the best Romania team and win 121- 0.

Thats great entertainment

Do you watch every single HC game???

Would a best representitive romanian team lose 122 - 0????

Would Leinster really send out a full team to face them???

How does the HC grow into something as competitive as the champions league without giving these teams a chance?

But of course you would rather rugby stayed in a nice little civilised western bubble, where only a certain type of person is allowed to play it!!!!

An alternative is to make HC qualification dependent only on last year's HC performance, with quite a few poor HC performers demoted to Amlin, replaced by top Amlin performers.

HC becomes elite, Amlin becomes all-encompassing development with broader appeal.

https://www.606v2.com/t28627-hc-amlin-non-league-qualification#1186586

One of the big limiting factors to expanding the competition is that additional matches or weeks cannot be shoe-horned in. The schedule is extremely tight as it is.

Wouldn't need more games, just make the groups one less. It means the knockouts would come sooner.

8 groups of 4 teams, top get home draw 2nd get away draw at random!

What doesn't really work about this is it makes it harder for new teams to break in.

I think you need more qualifying places given to the 6 countries. Maybe keep it as is and all the quarter-finalists qualify automatically?

Just for the record, the Pampas XV team was suppose to get slammed in the SH but won the tourny without loss first season!

thebluesmancometh wrote:Do you watch every single HC game???

Would a best representitive romanian team lose 122 - 0????

Would Leinster really send out a full team to face them???

How does the HC grow into something as competitive as the champions league without giving these teams a chance?

But of course you would rather rugby stayed in a nice little civilised western bubble, where only a certain type of person is allowed to play it!!!!

Thank you for totally distorted my views.

That is what would happen now.
It would be a totally meaningless game and be of no benefit to either side, would generate zero TV interest and would be a financial drain on the game -what is the point.

If you post here regularly you will know I am an advocate of Georgia playing in the 6N. I also look forward to the 3 premier leagues diversifying to allow more team in - as has occurred with the Italians. This can only be done through measured steps. Parachuting teams into a game of rugby against a team they are ill matched against remains a pointless exercise.

Leinster would get a cricket side against any Rumania club side, and would win pretty comfortably against the National side. Currently the gulf is too wide. The worse side to come to Ravenhill in the professional era was the Portugese National side. That is how apart teams are. A yearly cup competition does nothing to close the gap

Like Pampas XV were accused of a few seasons ago you mean?

A romanion club side isn't a Romanian representitive side, or the national side! The nations need regular top rugby, and introducing them as whipping boys is just what they need.

thebluesmancometh wrote:Just for the record, the Pampas XV team was suppose to get slammed in the SH but won the tourny without loss first season!

I think they won in their second season, no?

How does the Vodacom Cup compare to say Amlin/HEC/LV cups in the NH?

It's not Super Rugby or Currie Cup is it? Do teams play their first 15 in the matches?

As another reference point, Bucarest bet the Italian team in their Amlin group home and away, but were hammered by Worcester and Stade.

bluesman, surely the first step to getting other European nations involved in Europe is to first set-up a sustainable professional rugby structures in that country. Perhaps something like the Pro12 for minor European countries.

I don't know if its possible, tbh. I think they might find it difficult to maintain.

Pampas XV play in the Vodacom cup, hardly comparable with the Heineken Cup.

It strikes me as so very peculiar that when these ideas of European competition get thrown around, people come out of the woodwork and get all quasi-Internationalist They want the Georgian in, they want the Romanians in, they want the Uzbekistans in, they want the Libyans in, they want the Israelis in. They want all these guys in, fighting an epic yearly battle (that takes about five years to actually get through!)...and when all of that is done, a few of them don't want to walk up the street to the Pro12 clash of Munster V Dragons.

I'm asking where the crowds will be for all this glorious 'letting everybody have a chance to grow their rugby' revised edition of the HC?

thebluesmancometh wrote:Do you watch every single HC game???

Would a best representitive romanian team lose 122 - 0????

Would Leinster really send out a full team to face them???

How does the HC grow into something as competitive as the champions league without giving these teams a chance?

But of course you would rather rugby stayed in a nice little civilised western bubble, where only a certain type of person is allowed to play it!!!!

Im with the Bluesman on this. Open it up. Let it grow. Let it prosper.

Im a Leinster man for 30 years now. But Id hate to see it down to us Ladyboys and some Frog team every year. Self-defeating. Just look at the fact that Edinburgh & Ulster made it to a SF this year.

If someone had said that out loud at the outset, they would have been laffed off the Forum. But, it happened.

The only way teams will grow & prosper is to expose them to it.

One Embra swallow does a Scottish summer make Gibbo. Take a look at the Rabo table.

Embra is in a tough league. They probably found HC easier.....

You open it by introducing teams who can compete reasonably well.

Bring teams into a competition where the losing 50 to 100 - 0 is totally pointless.