The Times were bound to row in behind Sky, their sister company. PRL are a bunch of dishonourable double-dealers but they do have a lot of the leading players under contract, and are a large part of the commercial success of the competition. They will have to be accommodated in some way. It is unlikely that the RFU could set up a rival competition within the next two years, so bastards though they may be, PRL must be dealt with.
Ultimately this comes from one starting point - those uppity bloody Irish keep winning it and that cannot possibly be on talent. So it must be that we are cheating somehow to achieve that. Which must be because we finish bottom every year in our league while resting out players so that they only play HEC rugby. (Obviously we now need to ignore that this is ******** on the fronts of 1) we don't finish at the bottom and 2) our players wouldn't get any match practice if that's what we're doing and so we wouldn't win the HEC).
That's what this comes down to, they can't sell the competition in their own country because they can't win it because those dirty, cheating Irish keep winning it. It shows a total and utter disrespect that the reason those dirty, cheating, soft living, pampered Irish keep winning it isn't recognised as being because we have the best teams in the fecking tournament.
\"A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as Battlefield Earth.\"
tHey have a point on the Rabo though. Its not an elite competition with Zebre in it for example. Wont affect leinster and munster but it may been your front liners will play more often.Originally Posted by Evil Omer
Connacht Rugby
"Live to win. Born to lose"
They must indeed. However the line in The Times article about them thinking they had an ace but it being a joker instead kind of sums it up for me.
It's so true, what you say about The Times backing Sky. The piece reads like it could have been lifted out of a red top. A real whiff of Na na na Na na about it!
Sent from my Commodore 64
Ultimately, they will be only shooting themselves in the foot. A breakaway competition without the likes of Munster, Leinster & to a lesser extent Ulster (and possibly add to that the Scarlets at a long shot with their Welsh intls), will be the equivalent of the English/Italian/French football clubs saying the Spanish league (where Barca & Real finish top 2 every year) & the German league (where Bayern usually dominate) is too easy and gives them an unfair advantage and deciding to organise a breakaway competition. The 'Champions league' it certainly wouldn't be. Everyone would know deep down that Real, Barca & Bayern dominate their leagues because they are just sh*te hot and this is why they also dominate in Europe. And soccer, a much weaker team has a chance due to the nature of the game. In rugby, quality usually wins out.
Leave them organise a breakaway. It won't capture the imagination because the competition & winner will be devalued. It'll have a very hollow feel to it (that will be felt in the attendance figures). They'll come back begging Munster & Leinster to join and then we'll be in a much stronger position.
That said, I'm in favour of the HEC qualification being based on merit. At most, every nation in the Rabbo should be gurantied 1 place - 2 is way too much. Having qualification based on league position would really spice things up in the Rabbo.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again (like picking Gordon D'Arcy) and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
I think this will finish with 7 english, 7 french, 8 from the cl + the 2 cup winners. With a minimum of one team from each nation. I don't see how you can address the french need for fewer fixtures
...in what way will you feel more Irish if you force me to give up my feeling of being British? - David Ervine
I really don't see how the English, with **** results and having royally cocked up their negotiating to the extent they now have no Plan B are going to be rewarded for that with an extra automatic place at the expense of those lined up against them. I could see maybe two places going into a play-off pool to keep the French sweet, but England won't be rewarded for what they've tried.
Vorsprung durch Pfennig.
i cant see how an extra english or french team can benefit the comp they are simply not good enough. perhaps they are working on the idea of a double team from one country in a pool almost certainly guarantees qualification...unless of course you have one of the poor teams you want to substitute like connacht in that poolI watched Montpellier last night. gash. and they are one of the better teams
If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
The was a snapshot of bullet points on a word doc doing the rounds yesterday as to some of the proposels to change infront of the ERC...1 contained 24 teams like you have above, but to appease the French we go to pools of 3 teams, top team only qualifies.... The prl proposel also has a 3rd tier competition, with teams from emerging euro countries in it too....
Seas suas agus troid!
So- if the presence of a weaker team is your standard for a league's quality, do you think the presence of London Welsh or the Not-Nots (this season) is evidence that the PRL is crap? And every year there's a hopeless case in their division bumping along the bottom.
But this agrument is total BS anyway. It's not a competition between leagues: its a competion between the clubs of the countries. The Unions chose to allocate their places through existing leagues. But before there was a Celtic League at all, we had three teams in the ERC and one in the Challenge Cup.
Said it before and I will continue to make the point, the way to sort this is for the RFU to make it clear they will name eithr Championship teams or regional composites of these clubs. The PRL game is based on bulllying. Ye pay them off now; they'll be back for more!
I Would Love to see Regional Teams from England be formed by The RFU.
Unlikely to happen but if RFU is seriously interested in taking on the club owners that is what they need to do. The club owners are usually in conflict with someone - RFU or ERC.
Interestingly, the Irish provinces (which are owned by the IRFU) have become more popular with broader support bases than the national team. Afaik this is not the case in England despite the wishes of the club owners.
I wouldn't because within ten years the English team would be unbeatable for anyone including NZ.
perhaps pp. but we have to take on that challenge if it comes and adapt. Im not sure about the north east of england. but a cornish side is definately a must i think cornwall represented GB in an olympics once and although not in england would play under the auspices of the rfu. after the pasty eaters i would have west country with glaws worcester exe brizzle players jumping ship. then london, midlands and north. that would be 5 "super" provinces and more could be split from there if it proved successful. You would need defined areas where there is a regional feel. perhaps east midlands would be better than midlands and would then allow a west midlands outfit if and when. however they have such playing numbers they could have
1. London.
2. West Country
3. North West
4. Yorkshire
5. East Midlands
6. Cornwall
7. South
8. North East
9. West Midlands Cumbria could be added, an "east" team could be added and a lancashire one etc. They also could name teams like south west as "wessex" ...wessex warriors sounds good for example to give it a bit of pzazz as the names of the regions may be confusing to the county championship.
ah well whatever
If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
I don't agree to be honest. Its an absolute farce that the Governing Body dont have a universal qualifying standard for all the leagues.
Connacht Rugby
"Live to win. Born to lose"
Not if you recall that the reason was that the 6N unions wanted to improve the standard of italian rugby and nothing at all to do with the profits for English clubs.
It looks mad if you share McCafferty's priorities though.
For the over the hill and the past-it, nothing is impossible.
RWe are not going to agree on this- obviously; but do you not accept that if the purpose of the ERC is to expand the reach of rugby and that improvement is possible- a la Terviso giving us all we could cope with last night that a national union will pick a team that will improve their game? No one is hiding anything and the standard is plainly on an upward trend, except for the English clubs who because the Union does not have control of the clubs where the league is crap and full of short-termists.
Last edited by artaneboy; 16th-September-2012 at 13:48.
Treviso have more money behind them then most of the Rabo clubs. It cant be an elite competition if teams dont have to qualify.
They do not need to be handed a place in the tournament in my opinion. They will qualify most years in a top 7 situation from the Rabo.
The Rabo will never be taken seriously as a product in its current guise. A top 7 qualification process has no impact on the 3 Irish provinces. It might actually help my own province to pull the finger out and stop delivering the lilly livered performances we had yesterday and get HEC qualification off our own back.
I dont agree with the English on anything they have done except their view on the qualification process for the home countries.
Connacht Rugby
"Live to win. Born to lose"
i dont think its the money that has made a dramatic difference to treviso outlaw. sure it helps, but a lot of the players there we have seen before. money hasnt just made them better
If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Ah! An elite competition! Now what the hell is that? It's a REAL competition and as a fellow Leinster fan I think that it more than punches its weight in terms of competitive intensity. I'm not sure what you expect from a completion in comparison with an over blown english league and an over extended French one.
The Quality Argument is a Red Herring. The Skill's level in The Pro12 at Club 6 or 7 are superior to those actually higher up in The AP. The resting of Player's is a nonsense when the Budget's of some of the AP and Top 14 are considered along with the Playing Numbers. The Pro 12 has sought to expand the Game certainly with Italy, whilst the AP is as insular as an Old Boys Club, where Clubs who have gained valid entry have to resort to the Court's to enforce their Rights. PRL and BT are simply trying to gain control of The Premier Club Rugby Tournament in the World from SKY and ERC in a both egregious and aggressive manner that Robert Clive and The East India Company would have been proud of. Change is always Good, but under such threat's as these, it ought to be stoutly resisted. It's a fantastic Tournament. Treviso, Edinburgh and Connacht have all played their part and I have a sneaking suspicion that Zebre may surprise a few, more so than perhaps Exeter will.
Sorry, realise on re-reading you were talking about HC on "elite competition". However my point on the integrity of the Rabo remains valid. A look at the bottom clubs in both the English and French shows that talk of easy progression for the Rabo teams is kettle and pot stuff!
I dont but I expect a competition with a feckin qualification process. Now whether you like it or not the Rabo doesn't have one. that's the bottom line. But to qualify for the HEC in England and France you at least have to finish in the top 6-7 teams.
Now are you seriously suggesting to me that the Rabo will ever be taking seriously as a product when a team can finish 11th and qualify?
The competition goes out of the league very early in my opinion. We arent going to agree on this. But Edinburgh took the piss last year with the Rabo and got away with it. And somebody else will do the same this year.
That devalues the Rabo.
Connacht Rugby
"Live to win. Born to lose"
Ironically I read a piece some years ago stating the opposite, the biggest target in most of the Aviva Prem teams' during august of every year is to avoid relegation! They play to stay up first and foremost. On our side we don't have that issue, treviso have been patchy for a few years but theyve started superbly this year, if they'd been the same experiment in England theyd have gone the way of Bristol or any other side that bobs between 2 league levels and never makes a sustained fist of either.
I'm glad we don't have relegation, if it gives smaller teams valuable time to actually work on long term planning to improve organically than that's a huge asset in my book.
Marrying the league and the cup should never happen. They are massively different competitions and both have incredible merit in their own rights. There is a place for both. Just because England and France have a certain requirement to entering the HEC doesn't necessarily mean it's the only way nor the right way.
Connacht as a for instance have had huge occasions in their fledgling HEC career (Toulouse and Quins anyone)
Galway was bouncing after the Quins result. And it showed that any team should be afforded the chance of the big stage once in a while.
It's all about money at the end of the day, additional Eng or French clubs in the Heineken won't make them any more likely to win the cup on current form (it's always the same 4 or 5 in the semis and final) and their leagues haven't the dominance they think they do.
I am the million man.
There's another reason we don't have relegation, a very simple one, we can't. We're struggling to fund the league we have, there simply isn't the money for a pan Western Europe 2nd division which is what the Rabo D2 would need to be. Who would fill it? Semi pro Welsh, Scottish, Irish and Italian outfits? In 2 cases, outfits from Wales and Ireland, that are technically feeders for the pro outfits. Simply won't work and that's a fact that the English and French deliberately chose to ignore. Likewise they chose to ignore the reality when stating we can rest out best players. The rested players are the internationals who are on central contracts with playing quotas. So key guys for us like Coughlan (as one example) aren't subject to that.
Also the argument that relegation produces a better league is spurious. It produces some seriously dire safety first rugby. The quality of rugby in England's top level isn't that great. They have had a preponderance of big lumps bashing it up, simple, straight forward rugby that means a flair player like Geordan Murphy stands out a mile. Also the dominance of English rugby, until salary controls, was worse than the current dominance of Rabo by the top Irish/Welsh sides. On which point - that blows out of the water the idea our league doesn't matter to us. Why do the likes of Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Ospreys continually end up fighting for the title year on year if we're just treating it as a squad run out?
On the HEC front, they do have a qualification, they allow x number from each country and told each union to decide how determine it. The English have a single nation league, the Rabo is a multi nation league. Therefore for so long as the qualification is a country based allocation you cannot have it on position within the Rabo. Again a fact the self interested ones deliberately ignore. They also ignore that within the Rabo's countries position is how it is decided. Top 3 from Ireland (who would have qualified and therefore won all those 5 tournaments on standard qualification anyway), top Welsh etc. So again it's a myth there's no qualification for the sides they have an issue with, specifically the Irish sides.
All this is about is with a league based qualification in Rabo they could say a league that size doesn't deserve that many places and grab a couple to hand to themselves and that's all it is really about. They want more for themselves and **** the likes of Italy. It's just a selfish attitude born out of resentment that their sides aren't owning the competition any more, hence the wave of misrepresentation and outright lies to "support" their claims.
\"A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as Battlefield Earth.\"
Let’s not complicate the issue. This nonsense about the HC is simply about greed and nothing more.
An extra English or French team in the competition wouldn’t make much of difference if the net profit from the HC was divided up according to the respective split in the total number of clubs. I have to believe that the contract signed between the Unions is success based i.e it is ‘prize money’. The more successful unions get a bigger piece of the pie. This would make sense at all levels and, I think, is fair. However, I suspect the English and French are saying fop that – the Irish don’t have a league so they focus entirely on the HC – that’s not fair. We want money. So, I suspect the current proposal is that they make share the loot according to the number of clubs present in the competition and make the Celtic nations fight for qualification. Jiggery-pokery I tell you!
Disclaimer: I am a complete and utter cynic.
I am Flsghujslkuo, and I approved this message.
Have been away this last week or so, so playing catch up. Seems that a lot of this is simply a power play by the English clubs to bring in more money from somewhere, anywhere, as they are generally haemorrhaging cash for years now, since the likes of the Halls at Newcastle and the money boys at Wasps opted out. The English club game, with the exception of Tigers, Exeter and possibly Quins, loses money unless owners pour cash in.
The way to get more cash is to draw in their fellow 'big boys' in France, and to gain joint full control of the premier European competition. The statement by the BT Version(?) Vision(?) who are pouring a lot of money into the English club game over the next few years is easily seen as a bid to wrest the competition from non-English hands. They say that in two years time, when the present ERC deal is over, the H Cup ceases to exist and that they will provide a 'new' tournament - obviously to protect their investment in English club rugby, such a 'new' competition which they propose will have to give those English clubs a better chance of winning, verstehen?
Personally,IMHO a few more lumpen sides from England or France will not radically improve their chances of winning the H Cup, but would reduce the opportunities for Italy and Scotland to improve. The IRB needs act, and do so in the interests of the spread of rugby. But their record there is not encouraging.
Last edited by isola ciarrai; 18th-September-2012 at 01:33.
Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch! "Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!"[Wolfgang Pauli]
Anybody who sees a psychiatrist would want their head examined.*&nb sp;Henry Ford
Showdown in Dublin for Europe’s powerbrokers
By Simon Lewis
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
After weeks of posturing over the future of the Heineken Cup, European Rugby stakeholders will all meet face to face for the first time in a Dublin hotel today to begin thrashing out a way forward for the continent’s premier club competition.
The last five days have seen tensions rise considerably since the announcement last Thursday by Premiership Rugby Limited, the body representing the English clubs, that they had sold not only the TV rights to their domestic competition to BT Vision but also to their clubs’ European games from 2014.
This despite PRL’s assent in June as a board member of European Rugby Cup, the organisers of the Heineken Cup, to a new, collective four-year extension of the competition’s television rights with Sky running from 2014 to 2018.
The year 2014 is crucial to the rift between PRL and stakeholders from the other five countries in the ERC board — France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales — as well as its own governing body, the Rugby Football Union.
That is when the current ERC accord expires and PRL jumped into bed with BT Vision on the premise that a new one will not be signed, leaving it free to negotiate its own, independent TV rights deal.
It was an audacious solo run to embark on by PRL’s chief executive Mark McCafferty, who was brought back to earth with a bump 24 hours after trumpeting his €189 million deal with BT Vision when the RFU ruled its contract with the Premiership did not give PRL clubs to sell the rights.
Which brings us to today’s meeting at Dublin’s Westbury Hotel, at which whoever represents PRL will be expected to be one of the first to take the floor and explain what the hell has been going on.
ERC sources maintain that even if the RFU and PRL had entered today’s meeting, which is not a formal board meeting, with a united front, their fellow stakeholders would have rejected the Premiership’s gambit out of hand.
Not only did it fly in the face of numerous IRB regulations which allowed the six unions to give ERC the sole mandate to sell the rights on a collective basis, but PRL’s member on the ERC board signed up to the new Sky deal for Heineken Cup rights at a board meeting in June before embarking on its separate deal with BT Vision.
Today’s meeting will not be specifically about the TV rights issue but is seen as the firing of starter’s gun on the bid to find common ground for the next shareholders’ agreement for 2014 and beyond.
How strong the alliance between PRL and its French counterparts, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, remains after the English solo run is a matter for some debate but may be revealed today. Earlier this summer the LNR joined forces with PRL to call for changes to the structure of the Heineken Cup, which the English feel favours RaboDirect Pro12 teams from the Celtic nations and Italy.
The PRL argument was that its teams have to fight tooth and nail just to qualify for Heineken Cup while Pro12 teams, without the threat of relegation, can afford to rotate personnel through the campaign and reserve its best players for Europe. The French are understood to have been happy to go along with that argument, spotting an opportunity to gain extra places in the competition in a new accord.
This latest development could well see more distance between the two as the English will arrive in search of a fairer distribution of TV money and a change in structure while what the French really want is for the Amlin Challenge Cup and Heineken Cup finals to be moved from May to April so their clubs can have a concentrated run at the Top14 title in May and June rather than be fighting on two fronts.
The LNR does not appear to be in any rush to jump ship with PRL but rather to improve the existing competition and if the French do not really want to leave, who will the English clubs play? Today’s meeting therefore promises to be a very interesting exchange of views indeed.
Irish Examiner
4 Feb 2011 - Gilmore on the General Election
"Frankfurts way or Labours way."
28 Feb 2012 - Gilmore on a yes vote for the fiscal treaty
"A vote for economic stability and a vote for economic recovery."
woohooo......
Let´s Get Ready to Ruuuuuuummmmmbbbbbllllllllllllleee........
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote