Anglo - Pro 12 league

[StrangeButBlue]

Having two leagues of 12 does not work well for the lower 12 clubs. It could be expanded to 14 to bring in Bristol and Worceter but the big issue is the fixture list would lose the Leinster / Leiceter glamour match for lower clubs. Edinburgh / Newport / London Irish / Sale would find it difficult to sell season tickets.

It is not possible to increase the top division to 14 or 16 as the IRFU and WRU would not like star players slogged for so many games

A solution is to combine the 2 leagues + 2 Eng teams - Bristol and Worceter currently into a THREE TIER structure

Tier 1 has 8 teams
Tier 2 also 8
Tier 3 has 10

Each tier play home and away within tier PLUS...
Tier 1 play 4 games with T2 and five with T3 making a 23 [(8-1)*2 + 4 + 5 ] match season
Tier 2 play 4 games with T1 and five with T3 making a 23 [(8-1)*2 + 4 + 5 ] match season
Tier 3 play 18 within tier + 4 from T1 and 4 from t2 for a 26 match season.
The games between tiers can be chosen for local rivalries so we still play connacht home and away every season - similarly Eng clubs still all get to play the local rivals.

I can post a picture of a sample season fixture list later if anyone is interested.

[blockhead]

I'd prefer (based on current form/status/potential)

Top 14 League of
Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Glasgow, Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff, Leicester, Northampton, Scaracens, Wasps, Bath, Quins and another PRL team.

The remainder play in the 2nd div.

Promotion a relegation of course.

[StrangeButBlue]

I'd prefer (based on current form/status/potential)

Top 14 League of
Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Glasgow, Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff, Leicester, Northampton, Scaracens, Wasps, Bath, Quins and another PRL team.

The remainder play in the 2nd div.

Promotion a relegation of course.

Where would you fit the extra 4 games into the schedule -
Why would AP teams agree
How many games would you expect heaslip / murray to play of the 26 ?
Why would anyone buy a connacht, dragons or london irish season ticket with 0 local derbies each year?

[blockhead]

I'd prefer (based on current form/status/potential)

Top 14 League of
Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Glasgow, Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff, Leicester, Northampton, Scaracens, Wasps, Bath, Quins and another PRL team.

The remainder play in the 2nd div.

Promotion a relegation of course.

Where would you fit the extra 4 games into the schedule
Why would AP teams agree-
How many games would you expect heaslip / murray to play of the 26 ?
Why would anyone buy a connacht, dragons or london irish season ticket with 0 local derbies each year?

Where would you fit the extra 4 games into the schedule - by reducing the heino
Why would AP teams agree- Because the French will rule all otherwise
How many games would you expect heaslip / murray to play of the 26 ? Whatever the coach of the day deems wise.
Why would anyone buy a connacht, dragons or london irish season ticket with 0 local derbies each year? Couldn't give a boll*x!

[suisse]

I'd prefer (based on current form/status/potential)

Top 14 League of
Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Glasgow, Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff, Leicester, Northampton, Scaracens, Wasps, Bath, Quins and another PRL team.

The remainder play in the 2nd div.

Promotion a relegation of course.

3 Welsh sides seems like a lot. But I guess you'll need relegation fodder in year 1. The rest can sit easy knowing Cardiff and Llanelli are in the top division.

[paddyor]

I'd prefer (based on current form/status/potential)

Top 14 League of
Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Glasgow, Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff, Leicester, Northampton, Scaracens, Wasps, Bath, Quins and another PRL team.

The remainder play in the 2nd div.

Promotion a relegation of course.

You've included Cardiff

[paddyor]

Just wait until the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup final. There is going to be some fun the moment the RFU don't need to play nice with the clubs

I wouldn't be so sure about this Dave. The RFU did well out of the BT/SKY debacle and have doubled the money from SKY for the AIs. If England win the RWC the press line will go that they owe it to the PRL and there'll be pressure for a harmonius legacy etc. They're in a good position at the moment where despite the injuries they have a good bit of depth in key positions.

[fourthirtythree]

Just stop. I feel dirty that this thread even exists.

[Fireworks]

An amalgamated league could not happen quickly but it may be a possibility in a few years in some form or other. There is always the NFL model of two conferences with playoffs between the top teams. Alternatively or possible in tandem is the strengthening of the pro12 league we have. I do not care which way we go as long as something is done to avoid the situation of us becoming a minor sideshow to the big leagues and losing all our best players to the big money.

A div2 in the pro12 would take years to build but it might work and the longer you wait to start it the longer it will take to work. I like these discussions as long as everyone realises it is for fun and if you think an idea will not work please have an alternative.

[JB1973]

An NFL type play off series between the top 4 in the pro 12/Aviva would be a brilliant alternative to a Anglo-pro 12 league and shouldn't require that much of an adjustment to the season.

If all the home unions agree to limit the summer test match tours to 2 games or 3 ai games we would be pretty much there

[COYBIB]

This would have been unthinkable a few short years ago, but we really do need to face up to the commercial reality of the game and the direction it is going.

I saw an interesting graphic recently of the top 10 richest football clubs in the world, a bar chart of who earns what, with each teams bar colour coded into match day income, merchandising and commercial revenue, and for all of the teams, match day income was the smallest slice of the pie with commercial revenue being the lions share.

We can draw bigger crowds than just about every team in Europe week in, week out (as the average attendances reflect), but we could be filling lansdowne road 5 or 6 times a year and it would still barely make a dent in the sort of money clubs are getting from the French TV deal for example.

The problem with UK & Irish league would be the normalisation of fixtures. It would take away massively from the European Cup if only 6 French teams were the difference in day to day league and the glitzy European trophy.

One way around this would be the total restructuring of the European competition, with two major leagues UK&I and T14 - but an even more super dooper DOOPER Heineken Cup style tournament with either Currie Cup sides or SA Super Rugby sides. It's been floated before, it's a very exotic idea, but it has been discussed (the "rainbow" coalition when the Welsh were briefly expelled from the Celtic League) and it would be another great money spinner, but my biggest problem is we are in a commercial vice at the moment and the gap is only going to widen year on year, so we're at the point where we only have maybe 3 or 4 more years before it would become uncompetitively lopsided and potentially too late to figure something out.

One major concern right now would be that the English would have absolutely zero interest in the idea, they're getting very smug about their own league now and I don't think the increased competition, and more importantly revenue sharing, would be a welcome development. Remember, their clubs are "for profit" enterprises. Why would they want to jeopardize their chunk of the tv money, their prize money for placing in the league and their european cup money from their new strangle hold status quo.

We're not stupid like the Welsh, we would only be pawns.

Speaking of the Welsh, if they could get their sh*t together and have three teams as competitive as the Irish teams and get some fans through the gate, the league wouldn't have the sort of "mickey mouse" stigma it is so gradually trying to shake, and the ironic thing is that the welsh are the main driving force behind this stigma whilst also being the main cause of it.

[artaneboy]

Just wait until the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup final. There is going to be some fun the moment the RFU don't need to play nice with the clubs

That won't do us any good though. The time we needed the RFU to hang tough was on the continued existence and share ownership of the ERC. That ship has sailed.

[Dave Cahill]

Just wait until the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup final. There is going to be some fun the moment the RFU don't need to play nice with the clubs

That won't do us any good though. The time we needed the RFU to hang tough was on the continued existence and share ownership of the ERC. That ship has sailed.

They couldn't then - that was the problem. They needed to keep the clubs on side in order to get the various agreements in place for the RWC, but at the time it was whispered that the humble pie the RFU were being forced to silently swallow would be regurgitated once the World Cup was over.

[Flash Gordon]

I think something like this has to happen. As it stands we just cannot compete with the elite French clubs in Europe and English resources vs France are probably lacking. We could face a situation where Toulon or ASM win the European Cup for 8 or 9 times out of 10. The only way we can get competitive is to increase our revenues and the only way to do that is to earn more via TV and sponsorship. The Irish TV market will always be tiny compared to UK and French mega channels so the only way to go after them is to equalize the market. For me, a British and Irish league has some merit but the bigger play is a European League.

[olaf the fat]

I think something like this has to happen. As it stands we just cannot compete with the elite French clubs in Europe and English resources vs France are probably lacking. We could face a situation where Toulon or ASM win the European Cup for 8 or 9 times out of 10. The only way we can get competitive is to increase our revenues and the only way to do that is to earn more via TV and sponsorship. The Irish TV market will always be tiny compared to UK and French mega channels so the only way to go after them is to equalize the market. For me, a British and Irish league has some merit but the bigger play is a European League.

Something has got to give. The French get more TV money, The Celts are pretty much either owned or controlled by their Unions and the big money the international game draws. The mega bucks being spent in France cant be matched by english clubs and they could not compete with us when we were allowed/funded to attract big name players.

A change in the NIQ rules and you could have a RCC last 8 of 4 French, 3 Pro12 and 1 English.
I am not sure if the new RCC is the long term answer, sooner or later PRL will realise that teams like Leinster, Munster, Ospreys, Toulouse, ASM and Toulon are worth more to them than London Irish, Newcastle, Exeter and the like. They are the teams people will pay to see playing each other.

[Lar]

Just wait until the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup final. There is going to be some fun the moment the RFU don't need to play nice with the clubs

That won't do us any good though. The time we needed the RFU to hang tough was on the continued existence and share ownership of the ERC. That ship has sailed.

They couldn't then - that was the problem. They needed to keep the clubs on side in order to get the various agreements in place for the RWC, but at the time it was whispered that the humble pie the RFU were being forced to silently swallow would be regurgitated once the World Cup was over.

I still doubt you are right. The World Cup coming around every four years means the RFU always has to keep the English Clubs friendly. Admittedly a World Cup in England is more important than one anywhere else but the RFU will not be keen to burn bridges post RWC2015.

[Flash Gordon]

I think something like this has to happen. As it stands we just cannot compete with the elite French clubs in Europe and English resources vs France are probably lacking. We could face a situation where Toulon or ASM win the European Cup for 8 or 9 times out of 10. The only way we can get competitive is to increase our revenues and the only way to do that is to earn more via TV and sponsorship. The Irish TV market will always be tiny compared to UK and French mega channels so the only way to go after them is to equalize the market. For me, a British and Irish league has some merit but the bigger play is a European League.

Something has got to give. The French get more TV money, The Celts are pretty much either owned or controlled by their Unions and the big money the international game draws. The mega bucks being spent in France cant be matched by english clubs and they could not compete with us when we were allowed/funded to attract big name players.

A change in the NIQ rules and you could have a RCC last 8 of 4 French, 3 Pro12 and 1 English.
I am not sure if the new RCC is the long term answer, sooner or later PRL will realise that teams like Leinster, Munster, Ospreys, Toulouse, ASM and Toulon are worth more to them than London Irish, Newcastle, Exeter and the like. They are the teams people will pay to see playing each other.

You're right in my opinion. Toulon win it a couple more times in a row driven only by sugar daddy money and people could lose interest. Not sure I'd be that interested in a season where the best we could hope for is the possibility of a quarter final. I said 3 years ago that Leinster needed to lead the next stage in our development when we could legitimately claim that a european tournament without us had no value or credibility and instead we just sat back and waited for the English and French to beat us up and feed us scraps. We shouldn't make that mistake again.

[hugonaut]

I said 3 years ago that Leinster needed to lead the next stage in our development when we could legitimately claim that a european tournament without us had no value or credibility and instead we just sat back and waited for the English and French to beat us up and feed us scraps. We shouldn't make that mistake again.

Explain how this might happen, please.

[rooster]

You're right in my opinion. Toulon win it a couple more times in a row driven only by sugar daddy money and people could lose interest. Not sure I'd be that interested in a season where the best we could hope for is the possibility of a quarter final. I said 3 years ago that Leinster needed to lead the next stage in our development when we could legitimately claim that a european tournament without us had no value or credibility and instead we just sat back and waited for the English and French to beat us up and feed us scraps. We shouldn't make that mistake again.

Interest in it could fall rapidly from sponsors if it becomes a "same old teams" competition each year, the HEC had a diversity in which the underdog could get a lucky break and there is nothing to get people noticing a competition as an underdog taking on one of the big lads, especially in the eyes of neutrals. At least when Leinster were top of the pile there were different opponents pushing each year, if it becomes the same semi final sides or even 3 of them a year it will die sooner rather than later, 2 or 3 French finals and BT and Sky will only have it as a filler programme and sponsors will do likewise.

[artaneboy]

Just wait until the final whistle of the Rugby World Cup final. There is going to be some fun the moment the RFU don't need to play nice with the clubs

That won't do us any good though. The time we needed the RFU to hang tough was on the continued existence and share ownership of the ERC. That ship has sailed.

They couldn't then - that was the problem. They needed to keep the clubs on side in order to get the various agreements in place for the RWC, but at the time it was whispered that the humble pie the RFU were being forced to silently swallow would be regurgitated once the World Cup was over.

Hey- I don't doubt the truth of what you say. The thing is- what can they usefully do now that will help us- Ireland, Celtic clubs, lovers of the sport. They may get a satisfying clatter or two on the Nigels and Craigs, but feck all good that's likely to be to us. Unless you can think of something specific....?