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Author Topic: CVC Pro 14  (Read 619 times)

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Maggiephilquin

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CVC Pro 14
« on: Friday 22-May-2020, 12:28* »
With the recent news about CVC buying a stake in Pro 14, the likelihood of a UK and Ireland becomes more of a reality. Likely structure would probably involve - 3 Irish teams, 2 Welsh, 1 Scottish and either 4 or 6 from England.
If this is the case would Quins be one of the English teams, presuming we would like to be ?

J Scott

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #1 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 13:22* »
The club would want to for finance, however I would rather the Pro 14 teams keep their league to themselves.
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never sleep

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #2 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 13:31* »
I would be supportive of England joining with Scotland, but not the rest.
England and Scotland have clubs.  The other have regions and provinces.  Basically, as soon as you include these, then you get an imbalance.
For example. with Quins, you need a squad that has both high quality players to win and depth enough to cover injuries.  So you are always balancing.
On the other hand, a province such as Ulster can take players from any club in the province to cover injuries.  So, they can concentrate more on getting the best first-15.  Provinces are also part of the national setup whereas clubs are not.
While I am happy for us to play them in a Euro-cup competition, I don't want us to be playing them every week as it is not sustainable.
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Fearless Fred

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #3 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 13:38* »
How about three pools involving all the current Pro14 bar the South Africans, and all the current Prem clubs. 24 teams, in three pools of 8. Every team plays the teams in their pool home & away (14 games) and some formula to play 8 teams in other pools (4 home, 4 away). That's 22 games. Take the top team from each pool for knockout stage. Highest ranking team on points goes straight through to the final. The oher two teams play the semifinal, with the winner going on to the final.

You could use the top 12 teams (top 4 in each pool) to qualify for the Champions Cup, along with 7 teams from France and the Challenge cup winner, making 4 pools of 5 or 5 pools of four. The remaining teams go into the Challenge cup.

Every team would get 11 home fixtures, so roughly equivalent to what both current competitions have, along with a proper final.

MadMax

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #4 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 14:33* »
I would be supportive of England joining with Scotland, but not the rest.
England and Scotland have clubs.  The other have regions and provinces.  Basically, as soon as you include these, then you get an imbalance.
For example. with Quins, you need a squad that has both high quality players to win and depth enough to cover injuries.  So you are always balancing.
On the other hand, a province such as Ulster can take players from any club in the province to cover injuries.  So, they can concentrate more on getting the best first-15.  Provinces are also part of the national setup whereas clubs are not.
While I am happy for us to play them in a Euro-cup competition, I don't want us to be playing them every week as it is not sustainable.

Hmmm Scotland have regional teams - Edinburgh and Glasgow - as well as clubs in much the same way as Wales and Ireland.

never sleep

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #5 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 15:19* »
Hmmm Scotland have regional teams - Edinburgh and Glasgow - as well as clubs in much the same way as Wales and Ireland.
Fair enough - I didn't realise that they were regional too.  I thought they were more like English clubs - but now you say it, it does make sense.

finknottle

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #6 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 16:39* »
I was discussing the regional team model with Quins friends recently and wondered whether it could become the outcome in England with the current financial problems. ie - Exeter become Cornwall, Quins/Sarries/Irish become London, Bath/Bristol/Gloucester become the West Country, Tigers/Saints/Worcester/Wasps becomes the Midlands. Reduce the number of games in the season and play at WHL/Twickenham, Ashton Gate, Ricoh etc.

Most of the Premiership clubs have been losing money for ages. The current situation must mean some of them are close to going to the wall without something drastic happening.

never sleep

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #7 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 16:46* »
I don't think I would be that bothered about supporting a London franchise team. I would definitely switch to supporting Richmond as my primary team.

MadMax

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #8 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 19:43* »
I don't think I would be that bothered about supporting a London franchise team. I would definitely switch to supporting Richmond as my primary team.

Me too. You'd then get the benefit of supporting a rugby club with a full range of teams from veterans down to minis including five men's, a women's, an under 21, an academy plus multiple youth teams.
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MadMax

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #9 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 19:48* »
Fair enough - I didn't realise that they were regional too.  I thought they were more like English clubs - but now you say it, it does make sense.

It's actually even more complicated than that in Scotland because this season they set up an additional tier of six so-called regional franchise clubs sitting between Edinburgh and Glasgow and the traditional clubs like Watsonians, Hawick etc. (I say so-called regional because despite that being the supposed aim Edinburgh has three and Glasgow none!).

Mayor West

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #10 on: Friday 22-May-2020, 20:22* »
The regions in Wales have been a disaster as the Welsh won’t support any team unless it’s from their “valley”. They won’t talk to anyone who goes on to play for a bigger team somewhere else. The regional team that was nominated, ie. Cardiff would not be supported by the Supporters of  teams that were amalgamated Into the regional team. Also,  the Cardiff supporters Would no longer support Cardiff as it was no longer just Cardiff. Hence big turnouts for International games but dismal ones for their league. I fear this would be the same elsewhere as we rugby fans are a bunch of traditionalists. That and the 150 years of history that would be gone.
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Banstead Quin

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #11 on: Saturday 23-May-2020, 09:39* »
Can't see the Irish teams going for it for 2 reasons. 1. There's no guarantee that they'll qualify for the European Cup, as they have now.
2. They'd have to play their strongest 15 in league competition and wouldn't be able to save their bigger players for Europe/Internationals, like they do now.

Yareet

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #12 on: Saturday 23-May-2020, 14:40* »
The regions in Wales have been a disaster as the Welsh won’t support any team unless it’s from their “valley”. They won’t talk to anyone who goes on to play for a bigger team somewhere else. The regional team that was nominated, ie. Cardiff would not be supported by the Supporters of  teams that were amalgamated Into the regional team. Also,  the Cardiff supporters Would no longer support Cardiff as it was no longer just Cardiff. Hence big turnouts for International games but dismal ones for their league. I fear this would be the same elsewhere as we rugby fans are a bunch of traditionalists. <b>That and the 150 years of history that would be gone.</b>

No more gone than the history of Richmond or London Welsh. Or Neath, Blackrock College or Watsonians.

The clubs all still exist

Mayor West

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #13 on: Sunday 24-May-2020, 08:40* »
Fair point Yareet.  Maybe I should have worded it differently.  How would people feel if Harlequins became an amateur club playing on Sundays if a London region team was formed with Irish, Salarycens and us. Ditto for the other clubs.

honkytonk

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Re: CVC Pro 14
« Reply #14 on: Sunday 24-May-2020, 08:51* »
Fair point Yareet.  Maybe I should have worded it differently.  How would people feel if Harlequins became an amateur club playing on Sundays if a London region team was formed with Irish, Salarycens and us. Ditto for the other clubs.

Would be a terrible decision for me if it happened.  I would prefer ringfencing the prem.  No relegation means teams can have smaller squads, bring through youth without the fear of going down.  DR agreements with Championship clubs (most of whom will be part time).
The problem will be who makes up the prem.  Who from the Champ would really be able to step up. Ealiing have money, but they also have an academy set up now which will be useful for them.  Not too sure about the rest of the sides, who could be viable options.  I expect quite a few have no real interest in  being in the prem.

 

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