Why delay the URC final and drag the season out?

F me, talk about a protracted competition. It feels like the URC just never comes to an end.

No one can follow it properly with so many interruptions. And when there are no interruptions, there are delays disguised as “rest” weekends. Yet another false stop-start moment is playing the quarter-final and semi-final on consecutive weekends, only to then have another week’s break before the final. Before the play-offs, there was also a break while everyone waited for the European Rugby Cup to finally come to some sort of end.

A league table works. I don’t get why we need all these play-off games.

On the evidence, none of the stadiums were full. Neither the Stormers nor the Bulls could pack their stadiums.

The same could be said of the semis. Both Lansdowne Road and Murrayfield looked full only in the lower tiers, with so many empty seats elsewhere. That doesn’t exactly scream “finals rugby” to me.

The local fans must be feeling serious fatigue by now, and I do wonder whether they can even fill Croke Park come Friday.

Friday. Not Saturday. Friday night. So much for a lekker Saturday braai and getting your friends and family together.

The URC and Europe need to rethink how they want rugby to be played. They are asking too much of the fans.

The URC and Europe have got it completely wrong, and Super Rugby did the same towards the end. They took the worst parts of the NFL and left out the practical parts.

The worst parts? Conferences, cross-conference games, a points system no one can properly follow, a stretched-out season, and too many weak teams.

The best part they are not delivering? World-class players on the pitch every week.

Back in the day, in Super Rugby, teams always had to put the best possible side on the field. Every match counted. The team sitting 12th could beat the number 1 team after 10 rounds.

You were never allowed to put out a second- or third-string team.

The fans got to see the best players.

With the URC, I don’t even know who half the players are. I know a couple from Ireland, and that’s about it.

The URC needs to become a 12-team league. In fact, I would almost go further and say 10 teams. It can’t keep being 16 or 18 teams. I would also introduce a minimum qualifying criterion: any nation participating should be able to field at least three professional teams. Scotland dropped their third team ages ago. Italy can hardly put two teams together. Wales have four teams, but only one made the top eight, and Wales used to be one of the great rugby nations.

The other part people forget is that rugby is a grassroots game. Build your academies. Connect to the schools, clubs, and universities.

So my solution would be to run a 10-team competition, not even 12. Home and away, no final. Winner takes all.

The English Premiership now has 10 teams, and it is actually better than before. So why not reduce the URC to 10 teams with relegation and promotion? Bottom two go down, and the top two from the second league qualify.

That gives you 18 games in the season, with nine home games. If you really must, add a semi-final and final, which brings it to 20 games.

You can also have proper promotion and relegation battles. The bottom six could go into a shootout round to see who survives, while teams finishing 7th and 8th stay safe. For the B league, you could have six teams playing 12 games, six home and six away.

Yes, the wallet will take a hit, but you could give relegated teams a parachute package to help them financially, retain good young players, and rebuild properly.

A team like the Lions, who are getting better every season, could have used their young squad to bring players through the ranks. Bigger teams could also loan out some of their players.

Here is my final point: you have 18-year-olds popping up in URC games playing against seasoned veterans. Some do well, others don’t. But as a spectacle for the fans, you just end up with lopsided games.

I would far rather watch a 10–9 game with one try and five kicks than watch a team have 50 points and eight tries put on them.

Unions will always rise and fall, but a cleaner, smaller, more competitive system would be far better for rugby.

No one can follow it properly with so many interruptions. And when there are no interruptions, there are delays disguised as “rest” weekends. Yet another false stop-start moment is playing the quarter-final and semi-final on consecutive weekends, only to then have another week’s break before the final.

I can follow it perfectly fine. Delays disguised as rest weekends?. So this two week gap between the semi and the final... Leinster have literally played 12 weekends in a row including last weekend.

A league table works. I don’t get why we need all these play-off games.

Because it's more popular. While a regular league is fairer it can result in the league being uninteresting if one team runs away with it and you can left with several nothing to play for matches. Also so far we would have had 3 Leinster wins, 1 Munster and 1 Glasgow.

On the evidence, none of the stadiums were full. Neither the Stormers nor the Bulls could pack their stadiums.

Given the nature of having few away fans, the Bull or the Stormers are not going fill their Stadiums unless it's the final. Which they did in the 2nd and 3rd years of the URC. The Bulls had 18,000 at their quarter, the Stormers over 30,000.

The same could be said of the semis. Both Lansdowne Road and Murrayfield looked full only in the lower tiers, with so many empty seats elsewhere. That doesn’t exactly scream “finals rugby” to me.

Neither of them are they regular home venues of both teams. Leinster play at the RDS, it's currently undergoing renovations, so was not available. Would of be close to capacity had it been held there. Murrayfield is in a different city to where Glasgow normally play never mind not being their regularly stadium. They had double the attendance hosting it there than they would of got had they been playing at their normal home venue.

The local fans must be feeling serious fatigue by now, and I do wonder whether they can even fill Croke Park come Friday.

Croke Park's capacity is 82,000. Zero chance of that ever been filled unless it was an Leinster-Munster game or possible a champions cup final.

Friday. Not Saturday. Friday night. So much for a lekker Saturday braai and getting your friends and family together.

Only date any of the Stadiums in Dublin was available that weekend.

The URC and Europe need to rethink how they want rugby to be played. They are asking too much of the fans.

Wait till you figure out the worlds most successful domestic rugby competition with larger attendance and larger TV audience plays 26 matches in their regular season, starts two weeks before the URC and is only now getting to its quarter finals!

The worst parts? Conferences, cross-conference games, a points system no one can properly follow, a stretched-out season, and too many weak teams.

What are talking about, the conference tables can be ignored if you want they are just there for local bragging rights. It's really quite simple. You play everyone once, but you play the local teams in your conference twice. This is done simply because 15 matches would be considered two short a season if you didn't play these 3 additional derby matches and because they are highly popular with the fans and money spinners for the clubs. But at the end of the day it's a straight league table. Everyone plays 18 games, the teams with the most points finish at the top.

The URC and Europe have got it completely wrong, and Super Rugby did the same towards the end. They took the worst parts of the NFL and left out the practical part

Actually this is the best format the URC has ever had (given the many guises it previously had). I argue yes Europe's format is abit crap but actually it's to do with 1 too few games being played.

The best part they are not delivering? World-class players on the pitch every week.

You have something of a point here. But you could argue the URC is better for developing players as a result. Super Rugby was always played on it's own, they never had to factor in the Champions Cup when managing players.

Back in the day, in Super Rugby, teams always had to put the best possible side on the field. Every match counted. The team sitting 12th could beat the number 1 team after 10 rounds.

I've looked at some of the tables for Super Rugby and see similar things to the URC, two or three teams at the bottom of the table with 1-3 wins, I even seen the Bulls listed have recording no wins in one season.

The URC needs to become a 12-team league. In fact, I would almost go further and say 10 teams. It can’t keep being 16 or 18 teams. I would also introduce a minimum qualifying criterion: any nation participating should be able to field at least three professional teams. Scotland dropped their third team ages ago. Italy can hardly put two teams together. Wales have four teams, but only one made the top eight, and Wales used to be one of the great rugby nations.

How about no. You don't just get to come in and order out long established teams.

The other part people forget is that rugby is a grassroots game. Build your academies. Connect to the schools, clubs, and universities.

Emm.. they try to do that.

So my solution would be to run a 10-team competition, not even 12. Home and away, no final. Winner takes all.

Enjoy Leinster winning it 4 out of every 5 years.

The English Premiership now has 10 teams, and it is actually better than before. So why not reduce the URC to 10 teams with relegation and promotion? Bottom two go down, and the top two from the second league qualify.

That gives you 18 games in the season, with nine home games. If you really must, add a semi-final and final, which brings it to 20 games.

I argue its the weaker league. URC on average has stronger teams. Newcastle are as weak as any team in the URC. Winning only two games same as Zebre. Sure Scarlets and Dragons won only 4 and 3 respectively, but Scarlets also got two draws and the Dragons 4 draws. I mean every team in the URC from 13th place Benetton achieved a higher number of wins over the same number of games in the regular season than the 6th to 10th place club in the Premiership.

But here's where you argument completely falls down. Both the Premiership and the URC play the same number of regular season games, the Difference is that the Premiership plays 1 game less than the URC as it does not have a quarter finals (because having 8 teams in plays from a league of just 10 would be a joke. However the Premiership is dragged out the same length as the URC, because the English teams also play up to 11 additional games in Premiership Rugby Cup. Hence even though both the Premiership and URC started on the same weekend. The Semi finals are only being played this week. Meaning the final will be on the same weekend as the URC final.

That gives you 18 games in the season, with nine home games. If you really must, add a semi-final and final, which brings it to 20 games.

All your doing there is reducing the number of knockout matches by one round and potentially making more games in the regular season less meaningful with fewer teams in the last weekends of the regular season having anything to play for.

You can also have proper promotion and relegation battles. The bottom six could go into a shootout round to see who survives, while teams finishing 7th and 8th stay safe. For the B league, you could have six teams playing 12 games, six home and six away.

So basically you want too leagues of 10 and 6. Sorry would you fuck off this nonsense. That potentially kills derbies. and reduced crowds for the B league. It's not going work and you are effectively creating a conference system.

Here is my final point: you have 18-year-olds popping up in URC games playing against seasoned veterans. Some do well, others don’t. But as a spectacle for the fans, you just end up with lopsided games.

Except the results have been shown the URC to have a lower average winning margin French league or current Super Rugby.

I would far rather watch a 10–9 game with one try and five kicks than watch a team have 50 points and eight tries put on them.

In the URC there has been only 1 game with a winning margin greater than 50. Just 7 greater than 40 (including the one greater than 50). That's in about 754 matches. The average winning margin is 11.5 points. There has never been blows out like the Crusader 96-19 Waratahs.

This whole post just seems like moaning for the sake of moaning.

Total anti climax to have the final 2 weeks after the semis. Silly stuff from the old Jocks in suits.

Gives them more time to sell ticket and also for logistics in case one team has to cross continents.

But these logistics and ticket sale issues aren’t a concern for the semis….seems a bit naive.

Tx for the headsup KC ... here wus me planning a sumptuous breakfast & kickoff 6.30 am Sunday

C'mon u Bulle

Prediction ... Bulls 28 Leinster 17

I'm sure, to be sure that both teams appreciate the two week break.

I'm digging the URC. I wish both the lower SA and Irish sides can improve but I don't really have complaints otherwise.

SA need to exit Champions Cup though

SA need to exit Champions Cup though

No.

It's too much rugby dude.

It would offer the South African an unfair advantage, they would effect get at least 4 and potentially up to 8 weekends of rest compare to their rivals.

Anyway it ain't going happen.

They should rather cut the double derbies...this will save 3 matches.

If The WC final can be played a week after the semi so can this final.

Well, I have one eye on the test matches starting next weekend. You have a club final and a Springbok match on the same day. Another year of to. much rugby and half of the games being frustrating to watch.

SARU thinks that throwing slop at the masses will satisfy them as long as they can cart us off to the market to turn us into silly sausages.

I for one would far rather have less games, but games I'm invested in rather than catching the odd games. People use to plan their weddings around games or try to watch on the day. Now, it is like, oh, I'll catch the next one.

Oh we lost a game, but we still number one, losing 2 games but we won like 12 and some by a big score. So everything is good.

Rugby is a limited pool, an arm wrestle of who is the most dominant force.

We are going to see 75 players being used this year, all in the name of preserving players careers, but why is actually happening is the dilution of the quality of rugby. The standards of play is dropping, more mistakes, more ping pong battles, more human centipede and aimless kick and chases and the odd well strung together tries.

We had some great matchups back in the super rugby days, watching the Cheetahs throw everything at the Crusaders to beat them or the lions come from nowhere to beat a top Kiwi team. Stormers going to NZ winning all their games in NZ, 3 in a row. Some seasons our teams took a dip and in some cases a hiding, but the guys came back the next year stronger and a point to proof.

Now, most of the URC are boys against men, when the European cup is on and the top teams don't want to risk it. There is now travel factor for the, as they only have 2 games in the republic which means they can now rest their best player and send a youth squad and bag carriers to play with their best players taking a break. Even when our boys do travel, they still send out a weaker team because they know the SA team is now on their 6 trip abroad and that they have no gas left in the tank.

They. need to trim the URC to 12 teams and reduce the amount of games, create a promotion and relegation and copy the French league with proper structures and intrigue in investing in your teams.

Valid points KC. I personally miss Super Rugby.

"Well, I have one eye on the test matches starting next weekend."

Huh?

I suspect you're going to be disappointed next weekend, KKKC.

Our first test this year is 4 July against England.

There playing the BaBa's... speaking of pointless matches.

Well a) that's not a test match and b) he said "test matches" . . . plural.

The springboks vs the Babarians has its validity. It's a longstanding tradition and it's a low-stakes warm-up to get the unit moving as one again.

Zero pressure, express yourself, shake off the rust before the real stuff. That's the point.