The draw for the pool stages of the 2023/24 Champions Cup was made at lunchtime on Wednesday, June 21st which is the longest day of the year and given all the confusion surrounding the format being used for next year’s competition, if I try to explain it here I might end up making it seem even longer.
But I still think it’s important to do a video to try and put this whole format debate into the proper context since there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the reasons for doing it this way, and possibly, in my opinion anyway, maybe also a misunderstanding as to the merits of the way things used to work.
First a quick look at the history of the competition format. After the first few Heineken Cups saw varying numbers of teams and thus varying formats, the six pools of four everyone wants the competition to return to was first used in the 1999-2000 season, when Northampton Saints went on to beat Munster in the final.
This method was used all the way through to the 2013/14 season, when the whole governance of the competition was restructured mainly due to complaints coming from the Premiership clubs about meritocracy. But although the number of participants was reduced from 24 clubs to 20, the format was pretty much the same only now three runners-up made the quarterfinals instead of two. This remained in place up to and including the 2019/2020 competition, which as we all know got disrupted by COVID meaning the knockouts couldn’t take place until the autumn.
For the next Champions Cup, they went back to 24 teams, and this was the official reason given by the governing body European Professional Club Rugby :
I take that to mean that more clubs were given the chance to avail of Champions Cup money in an attempt to make up for what was lost during COVID, but this way also allowed for an equal allocation of clubs across the three main domestic competitions. Now here is where all the confusion was to begin, since the tournament now seemed to be adopting a version of what is known in soccer as “The Swiss model”. For this method we now had two pools of 12 clubs, with the top 8 in each pool qualifying for the knockout rounds.
But for me the critical change here is not in the number of clubs. it’s not in the number of pools. and it’s not even in the number of teams that qualify from those pools. It’s in the number of weekends available to the competition for the pool phase. All of a sudden this was reduced from six weekends to four.
Why was this? I can only assume it partly had to do with demands from the unions for test rugby windows during November, but more importantly from the domestic leagues, the newly-formed URC being one but I reckon the bulk of the pressure came from the more established Premiership and Top 14, with of course companies who have heavily invested in the game like CVC also having a big say.
For me, the significance of this switch from six weekends to four cannot be ignored, and those who think the EPCR can just snap their fingers and switch back to the old pool method aren’t fully aware of who is actually doing the decision making.
Anyway, this format got something of a free pass the first season because there were so many matches cancelled due to COVID that we didn’t really get a chance to see how the pools played out in real time. But the next two seasons were nothing short of a PR-disaster. You know something is wrong when there seems to be more online comment about a tournament format than about the actual rugby happening out on the pitch.
And so the EPCR decided to listen and make a change for 2023/24. But again it has to be pointed out that they still only had four weekends to work with, plus they seem determined to make sure teams from the same league won’t face each other in the pool phase, which to be fair does make some sense as it avoids teams facing each other as many as four times over the course of a season.
Which leaves us with the new format. Four pools of six clubs, with two from each league in each pool and everyone playing each other within the pool apart from that team from the same league. And they added one extra twist to the draw – while the four major trophy winners from the season just gone were kept apart, the remaining 20 were left unseeded which has resulted in a classic Pool of death involving both of last year’s Champions Cup finalists La Rochelle and Leinster as well as Leicester Tigers and the Stormers who won their domestic tiles the previous season.
Here’s my take on the whole thing – yes I agree this new way creates as many problems as it solves, especially what with the unfortunate financial demise of three Premiership clubs meaning a team finishing 3rd from the bottom qualifies for something known as a Champions Cup. There is no disputing that of all the formats this competition has used over the years, the six pools of four was definitely the best, especially with the back-to-back matches in December which was always an exciting spell on the calendar just before Christmas.
But as far as I’m concerned, even that was far from perfect. Like I’ve already said, it’s not ideal to be in a pool with a team you’re already up against in the domestic league, but another thing I didn’t like about the six pool format was that it was possible to face a team in the quarterfinals that you already met in the pool phase.
Still, those are just superficial things, and my biggest problem with the old way wasn’t actually the format rather how it played out on the European calendar. Imagine being coach of any team, knowing that once you’ve gotten your squad out of the pool phase of a major competition, the bulk of your best players would be taken from you to play for a completely different team in one of the most attritional tournaments the sport has to offer and, well, you’re just going to have to hope and pray that you’ll get them all back fit in time for the knockout phase.
No matter what way we slice the format of what is meant to be Europe’s elite club competition, the fact that the more important Six Nations takes place slap bang in the middle of the season is always going to have an effect whether we talk about it or not, and given things have been this way ever since the game went pro frankly I’m surprised that we’re only complaining about nonsensical formats now.
Anyway…that’s my two cents…this weekend sees the Irish Men’s 7s looking to qualify for the Olympics, the Irish Under 20’s kicking off their World Championship campaign and there’s also the Super Rugby final and we’ll be covering all of that in our pod recording this Sunday evening so please like, share, and subscribe to all our social media channels and in the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are, stay safe everyone, slán.
Earlier this week it was reported that Ireland skipper Johnny Sexton has been accused of three disciplinary breaches on the day of the Champions Cup final at the Aviva Stadium, and that an independent panel was going to convene to discuss the possibility of a sanction.
With online reporting being what it is these days, naturally the story was originally broken using this heading : “Exclusive: Sexton could be forced into early retirement with 24-week ban”. Obviously it’s the most basic formula being used there, namely choosing a headline that mentions the most extreme possible outcome to attract the most clicks and reaction. And I have to give extra points to the City AM team for including a perfectly teed up photo with the article, we can only assume Johnny here is saying something like “fine display of refereeing there Jaco!!!”.
Anyway if a reaction is what they wanted, then that’s definitely what they got. Well, first, let me give you mine.
I know there are many who will assume since I’m a Leinster supporter then I’ll somehow choose to defend these allegations, but assuming they’re true and he did say those things at different times, well, I can’t defend them. Of course there’s no excuse for saying anything to officials on the day of a match unless you are the nominated captain on the pitch while play is still going on, and even then it needs to be done respectfully.
We all understand the disappointment of any kind of a loss and that goes double when it’s a major final and possibly triple when a match goes the way that one did. But it should go without saying that we expect more from our leaders and all the way down to school children we want them to show respect to both opposition and officials especially in defeat.
But when it comes to the discussion over what kind of ban he’s going to receive, maybe we should all just back up a little. For one thing, reports of this incident started breaking within hours of it happening and before we had any actual details, in several corners of the internet he was proclaimed guilty from the get go. And I don’t just mean corners of the internet from countries outside of Ireland like the ones we’re due to face in the World Cup either.
Look, Johnny Sexton has always been a polarising force within the Irish bubble. And even when he’s wearing the green jersey, a lot of supporters find it very difficult to acknowledge his contribution to Ireland’s success over the years and only seem to speak up when he makes the wrong kind of headlines. And that’s fine, like I’ve said many times before, different people follow rugby for different reasons.
So while the online media have their own motives for suggesting this ban could rule him out of the World Cup, many seem to think there’s no chance he’ll get a ban simply because he is who he is and that the World Cup couldn’t do without him.
OK, well all of that speculation is fine, I guess, but I wonder if there’s any other method we can use to help us work out what kind of ban he could get for doing something like this? How about precedent? Have rulings been issued before for not respecting officials? And is there any way we can link those involved in previous rulings to this particular case?
Why am I bringing that up here? Well first of all, I have to point out that I don’t argue with that sentiment at all – I think ROG has done extremely well as a coach and definitely should be on the IRFU’s radar, if just a long-term one for now, only a fool would argue otherwise.
In November 2021, O’Gara was banned for two weeks for “showing disrespect to the authority of an official” during a match against Toulon.
He was then suspended for two weeks in April 2022 for “indiscipline” and “challenging the decisions of officials” in a game against Racing 92
Then in September 2022 it was six weeks for “lack of respect” and “action against an official” at Lyon.
Finally this fourth ban in November 2022 was for 10 weeks for “harming the best interests of rugby”
Am I comparing his four offences over the space of a year to Sexton’s three in one day? Maybe a bit, and maybe they are different circumstances in their own right, but while the incidents may not have happened in the same actual ball-park, they are definitely in the same topical one.
So I have to say I’m baffled as to why neither the online entity that originally broke the Sexton story, nor the Irish supporters that are so happy to point out the possible consequences, are able to at least offer the O’Gara situation up as a comparison, I mean even without the fact that they were on opposite sides that day at the Aviva Stadium, you could say their career paths have crossed a few more times over the years.
If it took four hearings for O’Gara to be banned for 10 weeks, then the case against Sexton will need to be really, really bad for his first to get him anything close to that. I’m not saying it’s impossible, and I’m not saying I’m at all happy about these reports and I wish he hadn’t done it, I just want to be sure that when we’re talking about it we’re using all the relevant information, and I’d say this was pretty relevant.
One thing I’m sure all Irish supporters agree on is that we hope that whatever the outcome of this matter, the effect on our World Cup chances is minimal. We’ll just have to wait and see.
We’re planning to go back to our Sunday night pod recording times this coming weekend, for now we’re going to look at the Irish Under 20s as they prepare for the Junior Rugby World Championships down in South Africa so don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to all our social media channels and in the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are, stay safe everyone, slán. JLP
We’ve been taking a couple of weeks off since the end of the 2022/23 season, obviously as a Leinster fan it didn’t exactly end up the way we wanted but overall as our first season with our new podcast based format we still had a lot of quality rugby to harp on going back to the beginning of last September and we look forward to getting back to it soon.
But I just thought I’d check back in with a TikTok today because there has been a lot of debate on Twitter over the past 24 hours or so since news broke that Jean Kleyn might be returning to the South African squad after being pretty much out of the Irish test picture since the 2019 World Cup.
Look. One thing I’ve learned doing this over the years is that while we all share a love of rugby, the fact remains we all love it for different reasons. We’re all looking for something different from it. And that doesn’t necessarily mean any of us is right about what we want from it, it’s just different. For me, yes, I’m a Leinster supporter, I’m happy when we win, disappointed when we lose. But I’m also an Ireland supporter, also happy when we win, also disappointed when we lose. And to be an Ireland supporter I believe you have to be able to put the provincial stuff behind you, it’s an absolute necessity.
Now when it comes to Kleyn, of course I appreciate that there’s a fear among Munster fans that if he ends up taking advantage of the new rules to play for the Springboks, there’s a chance he might not be able to play for the province again. And no team wants to lose their best players, especially one that played a large part in their winning their first trophy in over a decade. That’s totally understandable.
You can probably tell I’m about to say but, right? So here goes….BUT….
What exactly are we trying to say is happening when Kleyn is left out of the Irish training squad ahead of the World Cup? Does it mean Andy Farrell thinks he’s not up to test standard? Does it mean Farrell has something against him? Does it mean he’s blaming him for Ireland’s performance in 2019? Does it serve as further proof that there’s an anti-Munster or pro-Leinster bias in the Irish coaching ticket?
OR…could it mean that going back to the squad he picked ahead of the 2021 Autumn Nations Series it seems perfectly obvious that he is a coach that knows the way he wants play, selects the players he wants to fit that style regardless of what province they hail from, and since that time, has only been on the losing side twice, once in Paris against a French side on its way to a Grand Slam, and next in Auckland against an All Black side he went on to beat twice in the following weeks?
Just to be clear….I am aware that just because you win a bunch of games in a row that doesn’t guarantee you success in the immediate future, if you’ll recall I already mentioned I’m a Leinster supporter so I know this all too well.
But seriously….what does a test coach have to do to get a bit of leeway when it comes to his decisions? We all know that no matter what squad he picks, someone is going to be left out, right? We all know that those players who don’t quite make it are going to hail from one of the four provinces no matter what, right? And we all know that a test coach probably shouldn’t make his decisions based on whether or not that means a player is going to stay at a particular province, right?
I could go into a defence of the players who have made the squad ahead of Kleyn, I could also go into a defence of Farrell’s tendency to go for more versatile position players on the fringes of his squad, but really it’s not about that. If this was just about a debate over the composition of the squad I wouldn’t be doing this video because we’ll always disagree on selections. It’s just that there’s an extra element to this Kleyn debate that goes too far and probably would have if it involved a player from any of the other three provinces too.
It’s perfectly natural for Munster fans to still be on a high after their win in Cape Town, I know I would be if Leinster had found the extra points needed to turn our last couple of results around. And like I already said, it’s perfectly natural to be concerned about losing a key player. But I guess all I’m saying here is that maybe those two factors are leading some people to conclusions that are ignoring a lot of other facts.
The Irish test squad is in a really really good place right now. And from what I’ve seen it really looks like one of the many things Farrell is good at is giving the players he does select the belief they need to overcome pretty much any mental obstacle that can be thrown at them, from the whole “never won a test series in New Zealand” thing to the whole “no matter who he picks one set of provincial fans is going to complain” thing.
So this has me wondering…since the URC doesn’t kick off again until the World Cup has just four nations left, maybe we can take a break from the provincial stuff for a few months and just be Irish supporters?
Anyway…like I said, a lot of us seem to want different things from following rugby but just so you know, here at Harpin’ Manor we’ll be taking another week or two off from the regular content, I mean there’s still a lot going on like the Irish sevens in both genders taking part in the European series, the Top 14 and Super Rugby playoffs, but we won’t be going back into full swing until Irish Under 20s start their Junior World Championships and then it will be all about the World Cup so be sure and stay tuned to all our social media channels and in the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are, stay safe everyone, slán. JLP
Normally we do an 80+ column on Tuesdays but we thought we’d take a few days off here at Harpin Manor so to keep the content train rolling for now we’ll share not only this week’s bonus clip from our weekly pod, but also some of the most popular ones from over the course of the season. Do enjoy and maybe even share if the mood takes you.
The column will be back next week where I’ll review the URC final, cover a few more topical Harpin points including all the online nonsense since the HCC final, as well as tying up a few other loose ends.
PS – yes, we do note the irony of the “Stormers rivalry with Leinster” video, we would of course love to be having another crack at them this season but still wish Munster all the best in Cape Town this weekend!
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 