I don't think the Welsh give a crap about the Heineken Cup, the Scots and Italians have nothing to lose so it's only Irish who will be pleading for them not to fuck off back up their own arses.

I doubt Heineken would be too happy sponsoring a European cup with potentially only 3 or 4 countries represented either.

I'm not great with poker terminology but what do you call a hand that isn't worth anything and everyone at the table knows it?

Wales have always seen it as a stepping stone to international rugby. We tore up a hundred years of club rugby tradition to be competitive in it (leaving vast areas of the country without a professional rugby team). Our whole new academy structure (that is producing fine fine players) is because of it.
Oh we care..

The French and English do not want "The Pro 12 aka Celtic Rugby" supplying 10 teams. You have completely lost me when you say it's fine as it is and go on to say. The Pro 12 aka Celtic Rugby doesn't say the competition has to supply 10 teams. If you think it's posturing to give yourself the option to leave if you can't negotiate an agreement then you are an idiot. You must be the kind of person who Bob Crow dreams about negotiating with.

When the French follow suit the ERC will have no choice to change. Its about the money after all.

They will either go to an 8/8/8 for T14, AP and Celtic.

Or 6/6/6 with the 6 Celtic been decided on positions in the Rabo. Which would be good for Rabo.

Expect a lot of bluster in the press over the coming 12 months, everyone saying their position is firm whilst int he background the politics will play out in a 1001 meetings till a compromise is found.

The other winners will be the press as this will provide a lot of ink for the paper!!

Change is a foregone conclusion.

There will probably be a reduction in teams but I think the Pro12 will still end up with more teams than the other two leagues. I know it's not fair but considering these things normally work with people asking for more than they expect to get an then moving to a negotiated position that is likely. All we can hope is the Por12 change their intransigent attitude and come to the negotiating table.

I'm sure BIV and the others would love it if the English and French did not give notice to quit and in two years time were forced to play keep playing under the current system because they foolishly did not give themselves the option to leave.

So first we were being told that the English clubs couldn't do this as it was up to the RFU. When that is shown not to be the case the same fellas are now hoping the IRB will somehow save them. Not gonna happen.

I wonder why the French clubs didn't announce their notice to withdraw at the same time?

Perhaps because they don't intend to withdraw ?

Generally I just decided I don't give a shit.
Not paid enough to care.
Can't be arsed to talk about this shit for what will be 2 fucking years (particularly if it means talking to anon - who seems all over this shit).
I am just a supporter - a consumer.
I pay (ok bit of a stretch)to watch a product not bicker about the behind the scenes negotiations and corporate shite from a position of complete ignorance.
I also consume toothpaste.
I am not going to go on colgate forum and do that..so why should I give a shite or do it with rugby?
I like the product as it is..but I will say the English supporters seem completely unaware of the servere implications for welsh scottish and Italian regional sides were they made to fight it out with the Irish tooth and nail to get into the HC - Welsh teams would go under in a couple of years (Welsh teams - unlike Irish teams just introduced a wage cap ffs)
But hey ho..I have no reason to discuss this with English supporters - who simply don't give a flying fuck about anything really..

RaboDirect Pro12 Final Attendance: 18,500
Top 14 Final: 79,612
Aviva Premiership Final: 81,779

Anything else need saying?

Promotion and Relegation are the cornerstones of competitive sport IMO. The whole reason leagues were set-up in the first place was for teams to find a level where they can compete. There was a suitable replacement for Newcastle in Bristol who easily won the league and recruited sensibly only to be stiffed by the farcial play-off system in the real rugby championship. Play-offs must be the worst possible way of deciding which team is most suitable for promotion.

Anon seems to be taking a lot of flak for simply pointing out that this is just the new salvo in discussions for a new deal. The English and French clubs obviously believe that the current compromise is skewed in favour of the celtic nations and want to pull the centre of the deal towards their position - I'm sure that the Celtic nations have a different viewpoint and want to pull the compromise towards their position. I'm sure it could have been done in a friendlier fashion but the clubs are using the leverage that they have.

The main difference as I see it is that with a couple of exceptions (Leicester, Toulouse, Saints, Perpignan) the English and French clubs budget for their seasons based mostly on league income (plus LV and Amlin assumptions) and any HC income is additional and very welcome. The majority of Pro12 regions can count on this extra income in terms of planning and recruitment. It's a small advantage but significant for the club owners.

I like the AP and watch a lot of Pro12 as well and there are good and bad games in each, too tar the AP (as is fashionable) as dull and negative is as daft as people claiming that the Pro12 is a low standard competition (Its a good competition at the top of the league IMO). Ok, The Rabo teams can rest players more often but that isn't always a good thing - consistency in selection can also be a good thing.

As to claims that English teams can't compete and this is sour grapes then that's also short-sighted nonsense based on one bad year. Okay we did badly in Europe this year but I can't help thinking that this years club game was a little bit of a false picture due to the RWC and clubs adjusting to the return of players. Leicester for instance were unmitigated shite until Christmas when the returning players bedded back in and I can't see them being that bad next season in Europe. Given a reasonable draw I can certainly see Tigers, Quins, Sarries and Saints all qualifying out of their groups next year.

Not true. We like it very much...we're just shit at it.

Another fucking 4 pages of this shit

Well you don't have to join in

It's a bored rule that jrp must post in every thread at least once.

Possibly. Or they might be staggering the announcements. Time will tell.

Can't be bothered aptrawling through all of this thread but surely someone has pointed out that the RBP12 doesn't provide any teams for the HEC as such - IRFU provides 3, WRU provides 3, SRU provides 2, FIR provides 2.

Given that RFU and FFR get 6 - twice as much as any other Union - and the performance of many of their teams is shit, what exactly is the fuss about? If the top premiership clubs can't perform, how is the competition improved by the removal of competitive teams at the expense of uncompetitive ones?

Interesting new and relevant perspective

The funny thing about this thread is that amidst all the 'not this shit again' eye-rolling from certain quarters, there's actually some reasonable discussion being had. I hate to say it but as far as the PR discussion goes, there's only one 'side' of this argument being petulant.

Is this going to be like last time? England and France take on the playground hard-nut but when England look around we're mysteriously on our own as France remembers an important appointment elsewhere.

It's certainly not new but is the most relevant post of all the shite spouted on this subject.

Maybe someone can mail it to every English hack dribbling nonsense about this subject in your national papers.

QED

I thought this was all about money. The qualification method is a smokescreen. The tiddley nations (Irish, Italians etc) get disproportionately large sums don't they?

Snigger.

Exactly this. I really can't envisage the IRFU reducing its quota from 3 to 2 teams to appease the French or English. Same can be said of the Welsh and Scots.
Fine kick the Italians out and put European Rugby back a decade.

I agree with this. The AP clubs and the T14 clubs get very little out of the HEC/ Amlin in financial terms (less than the LV cup) and that is always going to the affect their decisions. They will want to negotiate better commercial terms and ultimately the Pro12 teams will have to compromise or they will be left with no tournament.

Complete rubbish of course.....

The NFL, NBA, S15, AFL, NHL, MLB etc etc. The NFL is the most successful pro sport in the world and operates on a franchise model. The AFL has the 2nd highest average attendance in pro sport, Franchise model....

There are 4 Unions involved in the Pro12, and 6 in the HEC. Four out of six represents a majority does it not ?

Hence the English wailing I suppose.

If English and French clubs are genuinely more interested in their domestic competition and bemoaning being over burdened with fixtures

I suggest we ignore leagues totally go purely on International basis with three teams from Ireland wales, england and france and two from scotland and Italy

The innovation here would be that we could just give a transferable licence for a permanent place to Leicester Wasps and Northamton from England
and to Toulouse Biarritz and Clermont from France as the only clubs that seem to give a shit.

Those clubs could then choose at any stage to auction their participation to any club from their own country.
This would encourage teams which could capitalise off a larger fan base to bid more than an existing licence holder if they saw room for success as well as rewarding standard bearers who take the competition seriously.

Therefore you wouldn't have too many teams from either the premiership of the top 14 over burdened by unwanted Heineken participation and we would be spared the disinterested minor french and english clubs who undervalue the competition.

Meanwhile the Heineken cup continues to act as a catalyst for the development of the game outside England and France.

As I said in the other thread I don't mind a few tweaks in qualifying and wouldn't mind seeing the ML get additional rewards/incentives for performance. I can't see the Italians and Scots going for it though, would say they would be far more opposed than us and the Welsh.

I can't see the ML teams accepting a combined representation equal to what England and France get individually, that's absurd. As someone else pointed out England and France already get double the teams anyone else does. What they are complaining about is more their own domestic arrangements than anything else and nobody controls those but them. The argument that it should be based on a proportion of top-flight teams is dumb because France (for example) could end up with 20 teams in their top division in 5 years.

The other thing I'd hate to see changed is the number of teams in the HEC or the tournament format, I think it works brilliantly.

A load of horse trading will happen over the next couple of years and something will be worked out.

It looks like they have:

In a statement released earlier today, Premiership Rugby said: "Following recent media interest, Premiership Rugby confirms that it has given notice, effective 1st June 2012, under the terms of the European Rugby Cup (ERC) Accord and understands that notice has also been served by other parties to the Accord. Such notice period expires at the end of the 2013/2014 tournament at which time, therefore, the Accord will terminate."

It would be helpful, to stop Camroc's wailing, if everyone just stated what they want.

Have English or French clubs actually got a proposal? Then people can comment on that rather than just saying "English teams are shit" which doesnt really address anything much.

I might be wrong but I'd imagine nobody is willing to state what they want at the moment.

I guess it's naive to think that we, as the ones who pay everyones wages, should ever find out wtf is going on.

Well it does address the fact that the current shitness of English teams means that any suggestion by English league should be dismissed out of hand as it is almost certainly aimed at dragging the quality down to their level.

England should get it's own house in order rather than looking to fuck with the best not test level competition in the world.

I'd like English Clubs to win the HEC more often - there, I said it. Happy now Sam?

How does any of that invalidate my opinion? WTF does attendances have to do with anything in this conversation either?

The point of leagues is to find your correct level. Franchise systems and ring fencing only achieves one thing and that is to destroy the quality in the levels immediately below. Why shouldn't the Bristols, Leeds, Pirates, Bedford push on to attain the highest level they can through sporting endeavour rather than through the power of a chequebook or because some daft administrator decides that Birmingham needs a rugby union team at the top level because there isn't one there already.

It must be said that with the draft systems the Yanks have come up with an alternative way of levelling the playing field by spreading the talent around. Too me it seems like its created a false situation.

That's a really poor point imo, but I guess it suits a number of you to make it.