EPCR failed yet again due to unnecessary meddling with its main competitor. Photo: AFP/Paul Ellis. As far as I know, there is no parable in ancient scripture about the “sports administrator who needlessly fiddles with the format of a successful competition”, which is a pity, since organizations like the European Professional Rugby Club do not seem to be able to learn from their mistakes
EPCR has promised to listen to feedback from fans, players and coaches who have shown a near universal dislike of the previous two mega pool format in the Champions Cup. But anyone who held their breath that EPCR could see the light of day and return to traditional, tried and tested pools of four teams that play each other home and away was left disappointed.
Instead, it's happened. with something even more complex and cumbersome than the previous iteration. There are now four pools of six teams, but as the 840-word explanation of the pool stages on the EPCR website shows, it's not exactly easy. And that doesn't seem particularly fair.
Unlike previous groups of team seedings, only La Rochelle, the winners of the competitions and the champions of the three national leagues (Saracens, Munster and Toulouse) are seeded. This led to Pool 4 becoming the type of Death Group that General Melchett of Blackadder was suspected to have had a hand in developing.
It consists of La Rochelle and Leinster, who participated in last season's final, Sale Sharks, Stormers, Leicester Tigers and Stade Francais. As a reminder, these are the teams that finished second and third in the Premier League, first and third in the Rugby United Championship and second and fourth in the Top 14. Meanwhile, Group 2 includes Cardiff (10th in the URC) and Bath (8th in the Premier League), while Group 1 includes Connacht (7th) and Bristol Bears (9th) .
The draw is so one-sided that you're worried the whole competition might be flipped.
La award -Roshel for winning the tournament last season? Getting into the death group Credit: Getty Images/David Rogers
Being in the death group is an occupational risk for a team in any sport. An additional danger in the EPCR format is that you don't play the same teams home and away, but play five matches against five different opponents. Teams' odds will be highly dependent on the vagaries of the match list, which appears to be determined by the algorithm. For example, the South African teams did not lose at home in Europe last season, but they could have been beaten away away.
Responses to the EPCR announcement on Twitter were scathing. “Omnishambly” appeared more than once. A personal favorite was a tweet that said, “I would like a kilo of drugs taken by the person who came up with this and thought it was a good idea.”
And these are usually hardcore rugby supporters. How do you bring new perspectives to a competition that even its own fans are turning down? As a general rule, if you need to take a breath explaining the format, then you need to simplify it.
Despite the sensational final that Leinster and La Rochelle staged, the European Cup is a shadow of itself. . One only has to look south at Super Rugby to see another elite competition that has died a slow death due to mismanagement. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it will be very difficult to go back, which is probably why Heineken refuses to be the title sponsor of the competition.
Nevertheless, returning to a clear format for every format was the easiest. victories, a victory that still proved elusive for the EPCR think tank.
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