Dec 17,2024
Round two of the Champions Cup provided some contrasting results last weekend.
There were some heavy defeats – Toulouse being the standout team with their demolition of Exeter – while there were also close encounters with Toulon edging Glasgow in a thriller at the Stade Mayol and Benetton catching a rotated Bath team late on.
I'm not normally one to pine for the past, but the current format of the tournament is an inferior product compared to what we had in the classic Heineken Cup days.
Back in the day the six pool games, playing sides home and away, brought a better flow than four pool games where you play each side just once.
I appreciate that six pool games is a lot in the current calendar. French domestic rugby, for example, has always been very challenging. However, that is offset by healthy budgets and the depth in their squads.
The URC welcoming South African teams into the domestic league has been a strong move, but it comes with its logistical challenges.
With the lucrative nature of Test rugby and such a focus on the Autumn International Series, a reduced Champions Cup format was the consequence.
There have ben some well-placed misgivings.
When you consider the added knockout round of 16, then the net result is really only one game less in the current structure.
Two thirds of the teams progress to the knockout stages, so the tension that made the old format such compelling viewing has been watered down significantly.
With an easier qualifying pathway, we’re seeing far more player rotation, which spells trouble for the integrity of the competition.
It’s supposed to be a tournament for the strongest teams in Europe and South Africa, yet we’re seeing teams being chopped and changed on a constant basis.
Undoubtedly the current rugby and economic landscape has added to the financial challenge facing clubs.
Every team is under pressure to cut their squad numbers in an attempt to survive the post-Covid economy and the financial deficit that it created. We’ve seen it with our Irish provinces in recent seasons. My gripe isn’t with the teams doing the rotation, it’s with the competition structure.
The dense rugby calendar means that internationals weren’t fully available for the first round of Champions Cup, and even at that, coaches have decided themselves to pick off some easier wins and rotate their squads for games that they feel they’re fighting a losing battle in anyway.
The South African teams are at a particular disadvantage considering their international team are caught between two hemispheres.
They play their summer international season in line with southern hemisphere teams in the Rugby Championship, followed by the Autumn International Series, while playing in a league and cup competition that lines up with the northern hemisphere.
When you say it out loud, it sounds mad.
Their inclusion in the northern hemisphere competitions has brought another dimension, but we’re not able to see the best of them in a cup competition that is logistically unable to cater for their needs.
The old structure gave us more rivalry in the repeated fixture, especially the back-to-back game at either side of Christmas.
The close turnaround between games made the rivalries much stronger, and any events within the game itself weren’t quickly forgotten. Revenge would be sought in just a matter of weeks.
It just so happens that the structure of the competition was much easier to follow as well, and for the casual follower, there was little reason to be turned off.
There’s a comparison to this in the All-Ireland league.
Fixtures are played out in nine rounds from October to December, and then you reverse the fixtures in the back nine, so that the games either side of Christmas are similar to the old Heineken Cup format.
It’s a 10-team league so it’s a bit different, but the return fixture is very comparable and adds an interesting dynamic to the first games in the new year.
Maybe we’re beyond any discussion surrounding the return of the old structure. Perhaps it’s childhood nostalgia, or maybe it’s because we’ve lost the truly magic moments of the early stages of the Champions Cup.
I just can’t but feel the old product was far superior.
European musings can be put to the back burner now again as we return to domestic action now for the Christmas period before two more over-complicated rounds of Champions Cup action in January.
