Leinster sell out 82,300 capacity Croke Park within hours

Was trying to say that you can’t know whether to book the stadia for the first leg or second, that far out, so you have to secure it for both weekends. I’d imagine.

It is indeed supposed to be a home venue for Leinster, because they finished second back a month ago in the pool stages. The only reason EPCR award them the game in their ‘country’ and not specifically their city or stadia, is because they can’t guarantee it is available that far out (but somewhere in their country theyll be able to find a venue at least. We were wrong to call it a neutral venue, it was only neutral in regards to operation costs/profit.

The thing is about advanced warning of ground requirements, I’d imagine. I would suggest thought goes into better ranking the top 4 winners, maybe 2 wilds, so then awarding the top 2 the semi final, how it does now. So that’s just a different finals format, where the top 4 or six play ‘last chance’ knock out games, maybe home and away, and Toulouse is not simply awarded top rank because they had the easiest pool etc. No H/A for pool play I wouldn’t advise.

Not sure if I’ve understood your point on booking QF stadia properly but if it’s a two leg QF then each team would play at their own ground once and the away team ground once. Now the team playing away second would be at a disadvantage but a lot less disadvantage than a single knock out away tie. For SF it should be a decent enough draw to call the venues well in advance, thereby largely eliminating shams like Croke being a neutral venue for Leinster, but if that turns out not to be the case then I would prefer to sacrifice a chunk of ticket revenue in order to protect the sporting sanctity of the competition.

In an ideal world, the comp would be 9 match days comprised of 4 group games from the 8 groups of 3 teams (2*h&a), 2qf (h&a), 2sf (h&a) then neutral final. That seems to me to be the closest to a perfect balance between commercial and sporting criteria. Provided of course that there is at least 2 weeks between each stage…

The tournament was at its best under the old format of 6 groups of 4 then straight into the QF. La Rochelle proved last year that if you are good enough you will win wherever the game is played. They also proved this year that if you are not on it in the pool stages then you’ll have to hit the road later on. People complain about dead rubber group games. Well there you go. The tournament plays out the same for everyone. If you are good enough you will win it but just take it back to the original format for excitement, quality and meaning in almost every game. Too much tinkering has been part of the problem.

Look I didn’t even know what the format was until I looked up how they did the seeding for who hosts the Semis. I like your format though, but I might not have thought quite hard enough about the point of it? Here, we are talking about this QF SF hosting.

To be honest, I’ve been OK with QF hosting of the 4 winners. That hasn’t been a thing well liked in SR, but that’s because the ‘pools’ are nations in SR. I doubt the EPCR has that problem. Your format has avoid the worst sticky point in regards to this unfairness imo. Certainly, going straight into playing a QF the following week is tough, and should be avoided if poss (it never could in SR, even despite improvements teams obviously flew somewhere, got an upset, and had to fly back) with a week in between or 2 legs. But you didn’t win the pool (even travelling back home from SA can leave you far worse off than the other team). When you win the pool, and home/away is determined by something like points differential, that exclude the most important knockout games from the calculation, is where 2 legs would shine instead.

So I didnt realise they still ‘earn’ a home Semi, and this is where the problem (“debate”) starts. The reason EPCR would be taking over, and having this ‘home’ country compromise, is due to booking grounds. Teams take a punt they’ll get through to the knockouts and book the grounds in the offseason. It would be expensive I’m sure to then not make those knockouts, teams obviously run into problems trying to book later games on short notice, so it’s easier for an outside body to come in and book your local rivals ground for you 😅

The compromise is probably extending the seeding rank to include ALL games, and book a stadium in each country. Your solution unfortunately extrapolates the problem, raising the booking requirement of a single QF game, to 4 weekends (youd have to book the ground for both the home and away match). No team’s going to do that on an outside chance, and massive CC matches at your backups backup stadium is not a good look!

You are obfuscation last years Final with seeding. It doesn’t help prove anything, like that sides can go to aviva and win, that is just obvious.

It’s not “as simple as that” John, for instance, you have to worry about more than just winning your group games. As per the many problems raised in this article and comments section, you have highlighted how each pool winner will be competing with the others for bonus points, and all against different strength teams (no one plays the same teams), for the two SF locations of the 4 winners.

There is simply a lot of room for improvement, but yes, that is in part because it was created very quickly with the post covid changes in the rugby scene. That does not mean it should not be changed, or even critiqued here.

No, I didn’t know the detail of the commercial trajectory but I fully expected that there was a negotiated path already in place and have commented as such already. As for conspiracy, you are putting words in my mouth that I haven’t said. At no point have I referenced and nor do I believe that there is a conspiracy. What I do believe is that the current situation around the SA teams has simply brought into very sharp relief, the inherent sporting bias on a number of elements around how EPCR competitions are set up. The acid test on that is to look at the ko tie track record and you will see that it’s pretty close to such a heavy advantage for the home team as to eliminate any semblance of a fair and balanced sporting contest. It’s actually similar, to a slightly lesser extent in the groups, which is why an 8 group set up of 3 teams playing home and away would help significantly to achieve a fairer balance. If you disagree then explain why the home tie winners are so prevalent. Winning the group should NOT mean a free pass to the SF or final is already secure, yet that is almost always what is happening.

Then you know full well that from next season the SA teams become shareholders in the competition and QF/SF will be played in SA from then on. There was no conspiracy there and the SA teams agreed to it. The rules state that if you finish high enough in your group you play a QF at home and a SF in your home country. They always have. La Rochelle won the final in Dublin against Leinster last year. They couldn’t beat them at home this year so ended up back in the aviva and lost. It’s not rocket science. There is no obfuscation. Win your group games and you don’t have to worry about it. Simple.

Yes, it’s VERY evident you don’t know what I’m on about. Many others however very much do know. The rules evidently do NOT say that teams can play home QF & SF if you win the group, as SA teams are denied this. The competitions are evidently biased against some teams, offer extended bias to others from the group stages and as a result, are close to no contests at the ko stages. The facts and track record of results over years clearly demonstrate this. Despite your attempted obfuscation and denials.

Well that’s the contracts for RG and Jordie bought and paid for. Now, what are the chances we can persuade Antoine to hop over with all the extra dosh we’ll have from living at the Aviva & Croke next season…??? 🤑🤑🤑

Wow, that’s incredible. Great for rugby.