Sorting out the European club competitions conundrum

1. Preliminary Round
Eight pools of four drawn from the top ten of each of the T14, the Jeff and the Rabble plus two others from the rest of Europe based on the previous season's performance stats.

Pools A - H.

Home and away

Top two from each pool to HEC Round 1
Bottom two to Amlin

That's six games per team in the preliminaries.

2. HEC
Round 1 (16 teams):

A first in pool winner v a Second in pool (e.g. A1 v H2, C1 v G2 ...)

Home and away (and no dropping down to the Amlin)

That's two games per team

Winners go into pools J-M

Round 2 (8 teams):

J1 v M2, K1 v L2 etc.

Home and away (and no dropping down to the Amlin)

That's two games per team

Semi-finals (4 teams):

Drawn at random FA Cup style in a one-off.
1 game.

The final (2 teams):

At a predetermined or negotiated location
1 game.

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Max no of games : 12 (currently 9)



2. Amlin (16 teams):

An FA Cup style KO
Max no of games : 10

I like it the way it is now to be honest...

I like it the way it is. Maybe a few changes go the seeding system.

LeinsterFan4life wrote:I like it the way it is now to be honest...

LF4L, I would expect supporters of back-to-back cup winners would be swamping the board supporting changes to the format.

Portnoy wrote:

LeinsterFan4life wrote:I like it the way it is now to be honest...

LF4L, I would expect supporters of back-to-back cup winners would be swamping the board supporting changes to the format.

Why change the best club competition in the world?

To spread the accessibility for teams outside the top three leagues and to structure it better so that the best teams get through and to avoid an excessive number of games in the Amlin (which can't be a money-spinner) just for starters.

I think that letting the top 10 of each league play in the HC like Portnoy says, would be a good answer to the English /French complaints about PRO12 qualification. It would make it much easier on them to qualify. It would level the playing field as it were, without meddling in the PRO12 setup, which is what their current proposals do.

The only problem I'd see with Portnoy's proposal is that there'd be 2 extra games, which the French probably wouldn't agree to. I'd have just the top team in each pool going through to the quarter finals, which would be one leg, home advantage decided by pool points, as it is now.

I'd also look at changing the seedings.

Feckless Rogue wrote:I think that letting the top 10 of each league play in the HC like Portnoy says, would be a good answer to the English /French complaints about PRO12 qualification. It would make it much easier on them to qualify. It would level the playing field as it were, without meddling in the PRO12 setup, which is what their current proposals do.

The only problem I'd see with Portnoy's proposal is that there'd be 2 extra games, which the French probably wouldn't agree to. I'd have just the top team in each pool going through to the quarter finals, which would be one leg, home advantage decided by pool points, as it is now.

I'd also look at changing the seedings.

You identified the weakness in my proposal FR on the HEC side. Two extra games would be in practice an enormous encumbrance on the sides making it to the final stages. It won't come as any surprise to learn that I'd do away with playoffs to accommodate them.

The seedings issue ought to be reviewed in any case (but that's a separate issue).

That is simple to solve only the 8 group winners qualify - then you have the same number of games as now