Magners Eng Premiship Top 14 format

[k974]

(Sorry about the smileys i have copied and pasted from word and cant get rid of em)


In my opinion the sheer number of games European teams are playing and the structure of the season will also hold us back in international game, Super 14 start in Feb finish in May 15 games if you win the comp, the players then go into international camp for the remainder of the yr, and play approx 13 intenational games, 3 june tests, 6 tri nations and 4 novemeber tests in Europe, compared with the sheer number of games played in Europe and the structure of our season it makes us uncompetitive.

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Its mind boggling to see that the French are already in round 4 of 5 of a domestic season that goes until June, how can they compete the AB’s that may possibly be even rested for the super 14 season. The southern hemisphere teams have one month off between the end of super 14 and the first june test, our players often fly out the day after a final.<Osmileys/razz.gif
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Even now the Magners has expanded even more games, Anyway one solution I’ve thought of and I don’t it goes against everything I believe in is using the NRL and Australian rugby comps draw system, where you place some teams once and some teams twice, its flawed and goes against everything we’re used of i.e play every team once or every team home and away but it’ll help the international game.<Osmileys/razz.gif
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Basically you now have 12 magners league teams = 22 league games, if you had a comp where you have 17 league rounds and an open draw, and have a top 6 playoffs which will take away the advantage of one team drawing leinster once and the other drawing em twice. 1 &amp; 2 go straight to the semis, 3v6 and 4v5 to get the other 2 semi finalists

I don’t personally like the concept but its what they do down under and it works for them NRL dometic rugby, proposed new super 15 format.

[Point]

You need to copy into notepad first, and then post it.

[LLCOOLJ14]

I like how our season is structured- the breaks in HC for example, keep it fresh all the time imo...the ML doesnt really come into it as the top players dont play more then 50% of the game really, and the intensity is also below HC level...


Int wise, Id rather we only played each SH team once every 2 years up here, but think Nov is good prep for our 6N. I love the end to our season, from 6N on, then HC resumes, and hopefully one day the domestic league playoffs will increase in importance.

I agree and have said repeatedly that the SH have their
season (in terms of international performance) massively
better structured. Fair play to them for achieving that.
Their season structure aims for one peak period that ties
together. ours on the other hand needs to peak for
autumn internationals, maintain that for HEC games around
that time, then across the 2 month gap to the 6N, maintain
during that tournament, then peak again a month or so
later for HEC knockouts and then again for summer tours.
It's simply impossible to do that and it's why the HEC finals
tend to be so poor compared to S14 finals, most of the
players are on their last legs by that stage just looking to
finish their season.

The biggest problem is the big gaps between international
sessions. Autumn to 6N to summer leaves big gaps to fill.
Rather than messing too much with club season it might
actually make more sense to play the HEC November-
March, then the 6N March-May followed by summer tour.
The quality of the HEC would possibly improve and the
quality of the 6N would probably improve.

[k974]

it was more the number of games than the structure i was getting too obvioussly internaitionals in nov, feb-mar and june isnt as good as the southern hemisphere but it was more the number of club games.





down here for example the NRL has 16 teams so you should have 30 games home and away but there is only 26, i was suggesting that for the magners, i.e we have 12 teams 22 games but maybe only have 17 rounds.





I personnally dont agree with it a league is either play every team once or every team twice but thats what they do here for the good of the international game maybe we should do the same, have 24 magners assuming you win it and 9 heinken cup assuming you win it 33 in total is way way too mcuh when compare dwith the southern hemisphere teams

Only comparable change I could see would be a return to the
old A and B pools that produced the knockout stages. So no
league, just 2 pools of 6 producing a top 4.

[mikerob]

Only comparable change I could see would be a return to the

old A and B pools that produced the knockout stages. So no

league, just 2 pools of 6 producing a top 4.



However with this format, each team only gets a minimum of 5 home games a
year (assuming the pools are home and away) compared to 11 with the current ML. Losing 6 home games would be a big loss of money for the clubs.

Additionally, the best attended ML games for all countries are the local derbies - the rest tend to be pretty poorly attended, so the problem with a pool system is that it may deny teams of their biggest games of the year.

It may be possible to come up with a hybrid system where a team plays against all the teams in their own pool and some of the teams in the other pool ensuring that derbies are preserved.