Anyone think the new pan european tournament looks a little... lopsided?

First topic message reminder :

Just had a look at the groups, and well it looks less like a representitive tournament than PRL/LNR invitational.

Now i'm not having a go, or have any vested interest, but surely so many games every year involving either 2 English teams or 2 french teams playing each other in the group stage detracts from the competition.

I prefer a tournament that has Europes and rugbys interest in mind, and like this tournament less now I know it's an elitist version of a once great spectacle.

What is wrong with allowing 2 Scottish teams, 2 Italian teams and maybe Spanish, Russian national representitives?

Is anyone else looking forward to the competition starting so the debate can actually be about rugby?

Bathman_in_London wrote:Is anyone else looking forward to the competition starting so the debate can actually be about rugby?

Actually yes, I am looking forward to it, but to be honest, for me, the competition seems to have lost it's soul, if you know what I mean, I am not as excited as I was in previous years.

Feeling distinctly underwhelmed his year. Have been to the last 7 finals, usually booking the tickets ASAP after the previous final. This year just can't be ar$ed

PenfroPete wrote:Feeling distinctly underwhelmed his year. Have been to the last 7 finals, usually booking the tickets ASAP after the previous final. This year just can't be ar$ed

I think a lot of people will hold fire on buying tickets until the group stages are resolved - if it looks like there is a good chance of a Jeff or Pro12 side getting there the tickets will shift, if an all French final looks on the cards then Groupon could well be your friend.

Irish Londoner wrote:

PenfroPete wrote:Feeling distinctly underwhelmed his year. Have been to the last 7 finals, usually booking the tickets ASAP after the previous final. This year just can't be ar$ed

I think a lot of people will hold fire on buying tickets until the group stages are resolved - if it looks like there is a good chance of a Jeff or Pro12 side getting there the tickets will shift, if an all French final looks on the cards then Groupon could well be your friend.

I know what you're saying IL (was good to meet you at Twickenham for the All-Irish final   ) but previously I've bought my tickets for the final as soon as the go on sale - just haven't got that excited feeling this year

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:

thebandwagonsociety wrote:

quinsforever wrote:Does LNR represent clubs? Yes

There ERC had shareholders who are clubs as well as unions

And that's not even to talk about votes, which PRL had too.

The whole problem for you Irish who got upset and are still upset about the changes that happened to ERC is that you still think the HC was a union run competition.

I'm glad that we won't have to have that debate going forwards.

What is my problem Quins? It might be the changes... or it might be sweeping generalisations based on someones nationality.

e

It would be nice if an Irish poster popped his head above the parapet and showed support for the new competitions.

I won't go so far as to support the new competition but I will definitely cheer on my team, my fellow Irish sides, and the teams supported by good friends I've made over the seasons at previous matches (ASM, Toulouse, Quins, Saracens, Saints, Scarlets) so long as they aren't up against each other in which case classic tiering and favouritism will be applied. It will be nice to get back to actual european rugby and try to push some of this regurgitated disagreement to the background. Having to shuffle between two subscriptions for games is a farce, not having a title sponsor - but the previous title sponsor being the only top tier brand associated with the competiton is a bit of a farce, trying to make out any of the previous negotiations were about ambitions loftier than a money grab exercise is a farce. But I'll cheer on the players on the field all the same. Their hard work, blood, sweat and broken bodies after exerting every bit of energy to achieve victory is to be applauded and commended. What goes on with the money men demeans their efforts.

What on earth is this about on the official, verified EPCR twitter feed?



Hacked? But the rest of the activity seems normal. What a bizarre and self-inflicted own goal...

It's been removed... whether a misguided employee or a hacker, we'll never know...

Who would have dastardly hacked into a legitimate site and left such a scurrilous and libelous message about the proven best club competition in the world before it even starts???
It's sabotage, that's what it is!  Bruce Craig won't be pleased - he'll say its the Irish showing their non-pragmatic side and theaten that they should now be banned entirely from a gentlemanly sport that doesn't need such pranksters.

I'd guess its the Underworld Organisation of Disgruntled Provinces (leaders Sin, DOD, Fly...although those musketeers wish to remain incognito for the time being) demanding a return of the family silver that was melted down unceremoniously to produce the new cup.

Sorry but I couldn't resist. 7 games between pro 12 sides and ap sides so far - 5 wins to the pro 12. Meritocratic entry?

Yup.

What - all these weak ap teams getting in as of right?

Yup. 3 leagues each fairly represented.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Yup. 3 leagues each fairly represented.

Ah - so not meritocratic then.

Bottom 5 teams so far are made up of 2 English, 1 French and 2 Pro12. Seems pretty even to me.

Although I could see 4 pools with English teams at the bottom (I could also see just the one).

Clutching at straws Hammer?

edit: can't be bothered

TJ wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Yup. 3 leagues each fairly represented.

Ah - so not meritocratic then.  

Completely. 3 leagues with fair representation.

TJ wrote:Sorry but I couldn't resist.  7 games between pro 12 sides and ap sides so far - 5 wins to the pro 12.  Meritocratic entry?

Hardly surprising given that 4 of those 5 PRO12 wins were at home. Sale is the only English side that lost at home and they are having a poor season in the AP as well, third from bottom. No English side has played the worst PRO12 side yet.

If the new qualification process does its job of making the competition more unifrom in quality, what we should see after all the pool stages and completion of the home & away of each fixture is a relatively equal number of wins between the leagues, primarily home.

HammerofThunor wrote:edit: can't be bothered

Good call

cant resist...

so top of pro12 plays top of AP...

34-6

pretty much proves which league is stronger no?

Not that anyone seems interested in the Challenge Cup but the AP teams are currently outperforming the Pro12 teams there ...

Challenge indeed

In what sense Heaf?

I'll take up that Challenge.

20 matches played?

AP sides have won 7?
Top14 have won 6?
Pro12 have won 7?

Two AP sides have already met one each of the two non-Top League sides from Italy and Romania?  Only one Pro12 side has met one of them so far.  So Pro12 have won 6 games when facing AP or Top14 sides so far.  AP have won 5 of those games against Pro12 or Top14 sides so far.

AP 3 away games?
Pro12 4 away games?

So?  Outperforming?

I put questions on all that because I'm only scanning and I'm as liable as the next guy to make mistakes.  By all means correct me if I'm wrong anywhere.

And whilst I'm at it, I might as well attempt a combo stat attack.

Now again, this might be a little off in parts (by all means correct me if so as I can be statistically dyslexic when lazy/tired )

But there were 40 games between the TWO Euro contests over the two weeks?

Wins:

AP      - 12 wins
Top14 - 13 wins
Pro12  - 15 wins

Away wins:

AP      - 4 Away wins (a 1/3)
Top14 - 6 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)
Pro12  - 7 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)

Two AP sides and one each from Top14 and Pro12 beat the outsiders (Italian and Romanian) in Challenge Cup over the two weeks.  So let's go on and let's just do a hand to hand combat read on the three big Leagues alone:

AP      - 10 wins
Top14 - 12 wins
Pro12  - 14 wins

It of course says no more than it says; and in terms of how the pools pan out, it says nothing - like everyone's stats above me.  But what it does say is that Pro12 have the nose ahead at this point in meritocracy terms. The Begging Bowl Jokers League confounds the Non-Believers once again

I would say the answer to the OPs question is NO.

Next........

SecretFly wrote:And whilst I'm at it, I might as well attempt a combo stat attack.

Now again, this might be a little off in parts (by all means correct me if so as I can be statistically dyslexic when lazy/tired )

But there were 40 games between the TWO Euro contests over the two weeks?

Wins:

AP      - 12 wins
Top14 - 13 wins
Pro12  - 15 wins

Away wins:

AP      - 4 Away wins (a 1/3)
Top14 - 6 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)
Pro12  - 7 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)

Two AP sides and one each from Top14 and Pro12 beat the outsiders (Italian and Romanian) in Challenge Cup over the two weeks.  So let's go on and let's just do a hand to hand combat read on the three big Leagues alone:

AP      - 10 wins
Top14 - 12 wins
Pro12  - 14 wins

It of course says no more than it says; and in terms of how the pools pan out, it says nothing - like everyone's stats above me.  But what it does say is that Pro12 have the nose ahead at this point in meritocracy terms. The Begging Bowl Jokers League confounds the Non-Believers once again

Yep - take the crap out and see how the stats improve.

So Exeter Chiefs,  London Irish, Newcastle Falcons, Gloucester and London Welsh are Crap?

They'll enjoy hearing you say so.  I'll spread the word around.    

Of course you won't worry what London Welsh think. They have the misfortune of being an English Premiership side with 'Welsh' in their title.  Always an automatic path to crapdom.

SecretFly wrote:So Exeter Chiefs,  London Irish, Newcastle Falcons, Gloucester and London Welsh are Crap?

They'll enjoy hearing you say so.  I'll spread the word around.    

Of course you won't worry what London Welsh think.  They have the misfortune of being an English Premiership side with 'Welsh' in their title.  Always an automatic path to crapdom.

Yep, take those guys out and the Jeff would look better. As for LW they dont need any help from anyone else they have proved all too profficient at generating their own unique world of crap and blaming everyone else for it.

I am merely saying that if you take out the worst performing members of a group then the average performance of that group will go up. Considering that many of the worst performers in the previous HC's (as well as some of the best performers) have come from the pro12, the pro12's performance this year is likely to look considerably better on average.

And at the end of the year this improved Pro12 performance will give the likes of sin e and TJ huge amounts of ammunition for why all the changes were unjust, when its just down to numbers and adding the bottom half of the Pro12 back in would drag the average performance right down again..

As we all (should) know, there is the old saying that there are lies, damn lies and statistics

quinsforever wrote:cant resist...

so top of pro12 plays top of AP...

34-6

pretty much proves which league is stronger no?

Whole team carried by a single Welshman

lostinwales wrote:

SecretFly wrote:And whilst I'm at it, I might as well attempt a combo stat attack.

Now again, this might be a little off in parts (by all means correct me if so as I can be statistically dyslexic when lazy/tired )

But there were 40 games between the TWO Euro contests over the two weeks?

Wins:

AP      - 12 wins
Top14 - 13 wins
Pro12  - 15 wins

Away wins:

AP      - 4 Away wins (a 1/3)
Top14 - 6 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)
Pro12  - 7 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)

Two AP sides and one each from Top14 and Pro12 beat the outsiders (Italian and Romanian) in Challenge Cup over the two weeks.  So let's go on and let's just do a hand to hand combat read on the three big Leagues alone:

AP      - 10 wins
Top14 - 12 wins
Pro12  - 14 wins

It of course says no more than it says; and in terms of how the pools pan out, it says nothing - like everyone's stats above me.  But what it does say is that Pro12 have the nose ahead at this point in meritocracy terms. The Begging Bowl Jokers League confounds the Non-Believers once again

Yep - take the crap out and see how the stats improve.

Or replace it with other crap...

ME-109 wrote:

lostinwales wrote:

SecretFly wrote:And whilst I'm at it, I might as well attempt a combo stat attack.

Now again, this might be a little off in parts (by all means correct me if so as I can be statistically dyslexic when lazy/tired )

But there were 40 games between the TWO Euro contests over the two weeks?

Wins:

AP      - 12 wins
Top14 - 13 wins
Pro12  - 15 wins

Away wins:

AP      - 4 Away wins (a 1/3)
Top14 - 6 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)
Pro12  - 7 Away wins (roughly a 1/2)

Two AP sides and one each from Top14 and Pro12 beat the outsiders (Italian and Romanian) in Challenge Cup over the two weeks.  So let's go on and let's just do a hand to hand combat read on the three big Leagues alone:

AP      - 10 wins
Top14 - 12 wins
Pro12  - 14 wins

It of course says no more than it says; and in terms of how the pools pan out, it says nothing - like everyone's stats above me.  But what it does say is that Pro12 have the nose ahead at this point in meritocracy terms. The Begging Bowl Jokers League confounds the Non-Believers once again

Yep - take the crap out and see how the stats improve.

Or replace it with other crap...

Given that the number of teams in the ECC is less I guess we are not replacing the old crap, just shifting the goal posts on what we consider to be classified as crap.

quinsforever wrote:cant resist...

so top of pro12 plays top of AP...

34-6

pretty much proves which league is stronger no?

*blows raspberry*

SecretFly wrote:Challenge indeed

In what sense Heaf?

I'll take up that Challenge.  

20 matches played?

AP sides have won 7?
Top14 have won 6?
Pro12 have won 7?

Two AP sides have already met one each of the two non-Top League sides from Italy and Romania?  Only one Pro12 side has met one of them so far.  So Pro12 have won 6 games when facing AP or Top14 sides so far.  AP have won 5 of those games against Pro12 or Top14 sides so far.

AP 3 away games?
Pro12 4 away games?

So?  Outperforming?

I put questions on all that because I'm only scanning and I'm as liable as the next guy to make mistakes.  By all means correct me if I'm wrong anywhere.

In the sense that AP versus Pro12 is 2-0 (1 home, 1 away) so far and 4 out of 5 pools are topped by AP teams ...

So in summary the AP and Pro12 teams are fairly even. This seems to prove that getting rid of the poorer pro12 teams has worked and has created a competition of evenly matched teams.

Exiledinborders wrote:So in summary the AP and Pro12 teams are fairly even. This seems to prove that getting rid of the poorer pro12 teams has worked and has created a competition of evenly matched teams.

So far PRO 12 have a 57% winning ratio, Top 14 has 58%, Aviva has 36% win ratio.

Maybe they are including the pointless cup in the stats?

I think the point people are trying to make is that the new league based system is no more meritocratic, because coming 6th in one league may be easier or more difficult than coming 6th in another league. Why is it meritocratic for the English teams (no titles since 2007) to always have 6 guaranteed spots, whereas, say Irish teams (four titles in that time) have only one guaranteed spot? Or 7 if you insist on talking about leagues rather than proud rugby nations. No UEFA competition gives the same number of spots to every league.

Basically people want the naked self interest of the English PRL to be acknowledged here, and for this pretense that they only wanted things to be "fairer" and "better" to be dropped. Because there aren't many more annoying things in the world than someone more powerful than you screwing you, and telling you they're only doing what's right and decent and are in fact helping you; when they know as well as you do, that they're screwing you, entirely for their own self interest. I mean, we do all actually remember the series of public slurs and threats coming from the PRL in the lead up to all this.

So could somebody from England please just acknowledge that the PRL's changes made things better for the PRL, and that's why they wanted the changes. Because I can admit that the new tournament is fine. I'd have a quibble with the seeding system but the old one was crazy too.

Exiledinborders wrote:So in summary the AP and Pro12 teams are fairly even. This seems to prove that getting rid of the poorer pro12 teams has worked and has created a competition of evenly matched teams.

Hmmm................  when it (the HEC contest that is somehow now so irrelevant that the Official Site of the New Competition holds onto its records; filling their pages with folklore data that doesn't belong to them! ) ----

---- when it (HEC) included the dross of Pro12 sides, that meant the AP should have been capitalising more on the presence of so much point leaking dross and winning more HECs?  They and Top14 certainly capitalised by using such dross to get to the play off stages.  Pro12 dross should be thanked that they provided the framework for ye ancient HEC folklore, that ERCC now think belongs to them.
The AP and Top14 loved the point magnet Pro12 dross in their pools.  Anyone who says they didn't is a liar.  What they didn't like was the Pro12 dross that kept surviving the Pools.  That's what the New contest was designed to stall.  The dross that survived the pools was the target not the dross that didn't deserve to be in the pools.  

Don't lose focus now, Exiled..... the Plan is still only in it's early stages.  It'll take a few seasons to perfect fully.

FecklessRogue wrote:I think the point people are trying to make is that the new league based system is no more meritocratic, because coming 6th in one league may be easier or more difficult than coming 6th in another league. Why is it meritocratic for the English teams (no titles since 2007) to always have 6 guaranteed spots, whereas, say Irish teams (four titles in that time) have only one guaranteed spot? Or 7 if you insist on talking about leagues rather than proud rugby nations. No UEFA competition gives the same number of spots to every league.

Basically people want the naked self interest of the English PRL to be acknowledged here, and for this pretense that they only wanted things to be "fairer" and "better" to be dropped. Because there aren't many more annoying things in the world than someone more powerful than you screwing you, and telling you they're only doing what's right and decent and are in fact helping you; when they know as well as you do, that they're screwing you, entirely for their own self interest. I mean, we do all actually remember the series of public slurs and threats coming from the PRL in the lead up to all this.

So could somebody from England please just acknowledge that the PRL's changes made things better for the PRL, and that's why they wanted the changes. Because I can admit that the new tournament is fine. I'd have a quibble with the seeding system but the old one was crazy too.

You could look at it another way - ignoring the extra playoff place - the AP can only ever have 50% of it's teams in the Champions Cup whereas Ireland, for example, could have 100% ... in fact based on the current league positions that's what it would be at the moment if I understand correctly? It's difficult to see any realistic scenario where Ireland won't have at least 50% representation.

Re the PRL, surely if they were unhappy with the old comp they had a right to push for change? How much it's actually made things better for them I'm not really sure as I haven't followed the details that closely but as they have no more places than before I can only assume they get more money now?

Em.................................... and an even more serious point! And this might annoy people but I have to be totally honest now!

The clock is wrong on this site ... must have happened when we were all given an extra hour of dreaming about rugby stats

Heaf wrote: the AP can only ever have 50% of it's teams in the Champions Cup whereas Ireland, for example, could have 100% ... in fact based on the current league positions that's what it would be at the moment if I understand correctly?  It's difficult to see any realistic scenario where Ireland won't have at least 50% representation.

Firstly, I salute you, Heaf.  You're a cool guy.  You keep to the points and reply on the points made methodically.

Secondly,  I'm Irish and I can easily imagine Irish rugby...or Welsh rugby... going through a slump in form that stretched out to four sides.  I can easily over the next few years see the possibility that such a slump could hit.  And if the slump came, the rules of the competition would have no mercy.  One Irish side.
With England and France, I know I say it endlessly - but it's the Central point - with those two nations, even if they have a slump in form from their six best sides - six of their sides will still show up at the top contest and be given the chance to brush off slumps and keep best players in their nations by having continuous guaranteed representation at the top end - form up or form down.

Cheers Fly

I can see your point but I'd put money on Ireland having at least 2 teams in for as long as this version of the competition lasts - but yes I understand nothing is guaranteed. So maybe the question is - is it better to have 50% fixed or 25% at worst but an opportunity for 100%? Scotland and Italy of course have 50% at worst with an opportunity for 100%, so you could say they are the best off out of everyone.

In terms of the AP teams if they have a slump, whilst another AP team would effectively take their place, it doesn't guarantee those players being in the top comp.

PS I also wondered what was up with the clock

According to an article in Independent.ie, under the old ERC, income generated for this season was €70 m.

Over the course of his 14 years at the wheel of a bus that was gathering real pace - revenues increased fivefold on his watch, and would have hit €70m this season if ERC were still at the controls - the CEO had a few near misses along the way, for the clubs of England and France were in regular agitation mode.

Derek McGrath (CEO) left ERC last Friday. I wonder who is running the new show in town now? They have yet to appoint an 'independent' chair and a new Director General (unless its jobs for the French boys and the geriatric over in Switzerland will be the new Director General).

http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/champions-cup/erc-chiefs-tv-call-shaped-professional-game-30710818.html

to my surprise, i think its actually quite a good article.

the subscription vs free-to-air debate is a really good one for all levels of the game apparently. money or audience?

I'm enjoying the new tournament. I'd say the average quality is up. An English side may not win it, but that doesn't matter.