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Champions Cup to re-run 2 pool, nine weekend comp for 2021/22 season

The Champions Cup trophy

The EPCR are to continue with the new, shortened format of the Heineken Champions Cup as seen in the pandemic hit 2020/21 iteration of the competition.

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The two pool, nine weekend format will kick-off in December instead of the normal October start point. There is also mention of the likely entry of the South African sides into the Challenge Cup, with the EPCR saying: “As previously announced, EPCR is currently putting the finishing touches to a new shareholder agreement, and discussions to finalise the Challenge Cup format for the 2021/22 season, as well as the formats for the Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup for future seasons, are ongoing.

“These discussions include the future participation of South African clubs in EPCR’s tournaments as referenced recently by the United Rugby Championship and no further comment will be made until the appropriate time.”

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    A EPCR statement reads: “Following the conclusion of the domestic seasons in England and France, EPCR is pleased to confirm the format and qualifiers for the 2021/22 Heineken Champions Cup as Europe’s elite club tournament is set to return with a highly competitive schedule of 71 matches.

    “The Heineken Champions Cup will once again be competed for by 24 clubs with eight representatives from the Gallagher Premiership, the Guinness PRO14 and the TOP 14 having secured their places. (See qualifiers and rankings below)

    “The clubs will be divided into two pools of 12 – Pool A and Pool B – by means of a draw and the tournament will be played over nine weekends with four rounds of matches in the pool stage starting in December when Stade Toulousain begin the defence of their title.

    “The eight highest-ranked clubs from each pool will qualify for the knockout stage which will consist of a Round of 16 on a home and away basis, quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final in Marseille on 28 May 2022. (See key dates below)

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    “The draw for the pools will be carried out on the same lines as last season with the clubs separated into four tiers, and clubs from the same league in the same tier will not be drawn into the same pool.

    “The number 1 and number 2 ranked clubs from each league will be in Tier 1, the number 3 and number 4 ranked clubs will be in Tier 2, the number 5 and 6 ranked clubs will be in Tier 3, and the number 7 and number 8 ranked clubs will be Tier 4.

    “The Tier 1 and the Tier 4 clubs which have been drawn in the same pool, but which are not in the same league, will play one another home and away during the pool stage, as will the Tier 2 and Tier 3 clubs which have been drawn in the same pool, but which are not in the same league.”

    The pool draw will be live-streamed on HeinekenChampionsCup.com and the date of the event as well as further details will be communicated shortly.

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    2021/22 Heineken Champions Cup qualifiers
    Gallagher Premiership: 1 Harlequins, 2 Exeter Chiefs, 3 Bristol Bears, 4 Sale Sharks, 5 Northampton Saints, 6 Leicester Tigers, 7 Bath Rugby, 8 Wasps
    Guinness PRO14: 1 Leinster Rugby, 2 Munster Rugby, 3 Ulster Rugby, 4 Connacht Rugby, 5 Scarlets, 6 Ospreys, 7 Cardiff Rugby, 8 Glasgow Warriors
    TOP 14: 1 Stade Toulousain, 2 Stade Rochelais, 3 Racing 92, 4 Union Bordeaux-Bègles, 5 ASM Clermont Auvergne, 6 Stade Français Paris, 7 Castres Olympique, 8 Montpellier Hérault Rugby

    2021/22 key dates
    Round 1 – 10/11/12 December
    Round 2 – 17/18/19 December
    Round 3 – 14/15/16 January 2022
    Round 4 – 21/22/23 January 2022
    Round of 16 (1st leg) – 8/9/10 April 2022
    Round of 16 (2nd leg) – 15/16/17 April 2022
    Quarter-finals – 6/7/8 May 2022
    Semi-finals – 13/14/15 May 2022
    Challenge Cup final – Friday 27 May 2022; Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
    Heineken Champions Cup final – Saturday 28 May 2022; Stade Vélodrome, Marseille

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    J
    JW 1 hour ago
    Northern sides would toil in Super Rugby? The numbers say different

    but Game Duration was over 112 minutes!

    No it wasn’t, I checked that and a few other 6N games. IrevSctoland was around that number. Oh, unless you include the 15min half time, year that’d be the right number.


    France still played, and were advantaged by, a very high tempo that game.

    FYI Opta doesn’t do work-rest because they believe ball-in-play is far more accurate and inclusive.

    It’s in their WRC media info sheets, but if you mean they no longer bother including it, I’d have to agree given it’s absence. Like I said, it was a bit of an eyesore and BIP just ‘looked’ much nicer.


    None of these if used as arguments for and against has any relevance to the worth of using ‘game duration’ (which I assume is what W2R was devided by the number of “plays"?), it’s pure science that expending energy over a shorter period is going to have you more fatigued. You can’t dispute that. If you were to argue that BIP correlates to the exact same data/stats/findings/concepts that I’m talking about, then that would be very interesting and I’d have to go back over the data to verify that.


    You should also note that the new injury protocol will worsen the ball in play stat, as they keep the clock ticking while theres no action, where in the past the ref would have immediately blown his whistle to stop the clock, then walk over to the injured play to see whats up. The clock would only have started again once teams are ready to restart, so each time they would have saved 10 or 20 secs of milling around and that goes back in to BIP time (roughly half right).

    62 Go to comments
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