Rugby Union 2013-14

[lovejoy]

Well the annual Gloucester Harlequins trip ended in the usual defeat but Glos played much of the game with 14, the front 5 held their own and Johnny May was the best player on the pitch. Chin up!

[UK Redsox]

All you Glos fans need to turn your attention to 20 miles down the A48 where the Mighty Lyd won again yesterday to cement their place at the top of SSE a National 3 SW.

Another Thing to keep an eye on in Gloucestershire is the positions of Hartpury and Zindyferrrd. If Hartpury get promoted, then that might be it for Zindy's period of artificial success.

[spangley1812]

Ireland 22-7 New Zealand after 36 mins of 1st half

[taylorsworkrate]

Ireland 22-7 New Zealand after 36 mins of 1st half

How? Ireland are woeful

[spangley1812]

Ireland 22-7 New Zealand after 36 mins of 1st half

How? Ireland are woeful

Not today apparently I do think the All Blacks have made a few changes from last week

[spangley1812]

Sir Clive Woodward, Former England coach and BBC Sport expert

Ireland have played quicker than New Zealand. They've scored three first-half tries, and it's brilliant.

[l_mckay]

Unbelievable game that,Ireland were so unlucky to loose at the death

[paul_e]

Watched Bath vs Wasps yesterday rather than the Ireland game, Bath have a lot of quality but I will never understand teams kicking for territory when they have a 20 point lead and 3 tries on the board, that's surely a case where you take the long approach and keep the ball in hand to nudge your way to the line and try to get a bonus point, it was as if they really didn't care and just wanted to get to the end.

[PaulWinch again]

Bloody hell Wade and Yarde out of six nations, that's a huge blow.

[paul_e]

Bloody hell Wade and Yarde out of six nations, that's a huge blow.

Should be a massive blow but I'm not convinced either of them would've got a chance anyway.  The brave thing to do to replace them would be to call up Jack Nowell and Anthony Watson, I half expect to see Monye.

[lovejoy]

If Moyne plays I'm supporting Italy.

[Ger Regan]

So, this whole Heineken Cup thing with English clubs. What's the alternative viewpoint on it, other than the clubs looking to power (or possibly more accurately money) grab?

[paul_e]

it's a tough one because getting more money is clearly part of it but the undeniable issues are:

The RaboDirect gets 11 places for 12 teams, with the 1 missing place shared between Ireland and Wales, England and France get 6 guaranteed places between 12 and 14 teams respectively.  The key argument here is that, from a qualification point of view, league placing is irrelevant, add on that there is no relegation in the rabodirect and league placing becomes even less of an issue.  That means those teams can hold players back for european games whereas the english and french sides can't afford to do the same.  Ireland having the strongest sides in the rabodirect coincided well with it's formation to give them a disproportionate amount of wins in recent years.

Financially the commercial revenue is split by union rather than by league so again, club by club, the french and english clubs get less of a share in the revenue than the rabodirect sides.

Finally the structure of the Heineken and Amlin cups is doing nothing to help the developing nations in europe as the amlin in particular is totally dominated by english and french clubs.

The best proposal I've seen was 3tiers of 20 teams with the heineken cup giving 6 places per league, with an additional place for the winners of both the Heineken and Amlin cups.  Then the Amlin has 5 teams per major league and 5 spots for 3rd tier leagues, with the finalists both guaranteed a spot.  The 3rd tier would then be made up of the top teams from the developing leagues, such as romania, russia, georgia, etc.  The 1 issue is that if both of the top tiers are won by clubs from the rabo direct or the english league then they'd be given 13 places for 12 teams but it'd be pretty easy to have some kind of pre-season playoff between the other league and french league for that spot.

[UK Redsox]

Great explanation Paul. Many thanks

[Ger Regan]

it's a tough one because getting more money is clearly part of it but the undeniable issues are:

The RaboDirect gets 11 places for 12 teams, with the 1 missing place shared between Ireland and Wales, England and France get 6 guaranteed places between 12 and 14 teams respectively.  The key argument here is that, from a qualification point of view, league placing is irrelevant, add on that there is no relegation in the rabodirect and league placing becomes even less of an issue.  That means those teams can hold players back for european games whereas the english and french sides can't afford to do the same.  Ireland having the strongest sides in the rabodirect coincided well with it's formation to give them a disproportionate amount of wins in recent years.

Financially the commercial revenue is split by union rather than by league so again, club by club, the french and english clubs get less of a share in the revenue than the rabodirect sides.

Finally the structure of the Heineken and Amlin cups is doing nothing to help the developing nations in europe as the amlin in particular is totally dominated by english and french clubs.

The best proposal I've seen was 3tiers of 20 teams with the heineken cup giving 6 places per league, with an additional place for the winners of both the Heineken and Amlin cups.  Then the Amlin has 5 teams per major league and 5 spots for 3rd tier leagues, with the finalists both guaranteed a spot.  The 3rd tier would then be made up of the top teams from the developing leagues, such as romania, russia, georgia, etc.  The 1 issue is that if both of the top tiers are won by clubs from the rabo direct or the english league then they'd be given 13 places for 12 teams but it'd be pretty easy to have some kind of pre-season playoff between the other league and french league for that spot.

Cheers for that. I'm certainly no expert on rugby but it's interesting to see the opposing side of things. The 3 tier proposal seems to have merit to me anyway.