The much criticised pool stage format of the Investec Champions Cup and the Challenge Cup, are to stay as they are until 2030 according to reports in the UK media.
The pool stage of the current competition ended this past weekend with jeopardy in some games but also, as has been the case across all four rounds played so far, too many games where it was effectively full strength teams against development teams. Or, as was the case in the Vodacom Bulls’ away game against Pau, two teams that were both under-strength.
Sale Sharks went to Toulouse with a team that was without rested players and were hammered 77-7, while Edinburgh did the same for their trip to Bath and lost 63-10. In both instances the teams that lost had already qualified for the round of 16 and would have been resting players to prioritise their league games this coming weekend - for instance Edinburgh have an important Vodacom URC home game against the Vodacom Bulls up next.
There were other under-strength games this past weekend - the Leicester Tigers team the DHL Stormers beat 39-26 was missing 12 first team regulars and the Clermont-Auvergne team that shipped 50 points to the Hollywoodbets Sharks in Durban was effectively a B team. The Sharks too were far from full strength for that game.
The previous week the third round also saw some lopsided matches, with the Stormers and Sharks both effectively sending under-strength teams to Harlequins and Sale respectively, and it has been a trend across all four rounds of the competition for teams to go under-strength when they travel.
TOULOUSE STAR RAMOS HAS HIS SAY
It is a situation that has prompted a view that some teams take the Champions Cup seriously but others just aren’t engaged, and clearly that is not good for the competition. France and Toulouse fullback Thomas Ramos has given the overseas media some indication of what the players involved might think with some fairly forthright comments on what he thinks of the competition format and the effect it is having.
“Year after year, some teams play it, others don’t; some give players vacations (while the competition is being played), others don't, “ said Ramos.
“If you really want to count how many clubs actually play in this competition (meaning are out to do well), you could easily count them on two hands. I think that is a problem.”
Ramos is right. The Leicester coach was speaking after the Cape Town game about dropping into the Challenge Cup after his under-strength team was defeated and didn’t seem particularly concerned about that.
His team could have lifted themselves had they beaten the Stormers at DHL Stadium and had a strong seeding going into the round of 16, but instead he was talking of how proud he was of his players in a game they had lost by 13 points.
The next day of course everything changed when La Rochelle were shocked at home by Harlequins, thus allowing Leicester to sneak into the last 16 even though they won only one of their four pool matches.
That, and a similar thing happening with the Bulls, who had lost every game before their narrow win over Pau, has been rightly criticised overseas. On the other end of the scale, teams like the Stormers and Bristol Bears won three out of four games but only finished third in their pools so have to travel in the last 16.
DROPPING OUT CAN HELP TEAMS IN THEIR PRIMARY LEAGUES
The way it works currently is that the top four teams in each of the four six team pools advance to the round of 16, the fifth placed team drops to the secondary Challenge Cup, and the sixth placed team drops out completely.
Sometimes it is better for a team to drop out of the competition completely, as happened to the Stormers, who went on a winning run when only committed to the URC, considered their primary competition, in the second half of the last season and managed to finish fifth after being well out of it in January.
The Sharks won the Challenge Cup in 2024 when they had to use it as an entry to the Champions Cup but when they dropped to the Challenge Cup after the pool phase last year they showed what they thought of the competition by fielding a second string team in their away round of 16 game. Instead, they focused on the Champions Cup.
However, the EPCR organisers don’t appear to see a problem and have told The Times (UK) that they are convinced that the format delivers “jeopardy, drama and improved viewing figures” and claim that there were no “dead rubbers” in the final round played last weekend.
It is true that there were more upsets to the predicted finishing order this season than in seasons past, most notably the URC team Glasgow Warriors finishing top of their pool after wins over both Toulouse and Saracens.
Six time competition winners Toulouse, who hadn’t lost a pool game since 2022, found themselves in the unusual position of having to beat Sale in the last game to get to the round of 16 as apart from losing to Glasgow they also lost their other away game against Saracens.
The EPCR are selectively highlighting those gains and perhaps forgetting the many games that were distorted by the team selections (the Stormers have yet to play a game in the competition where either they or their opposition aren’t under-strength) and have pointed to increased viewership as justification for continuing with the current format.
MOST COMPETITIVE POOL STAGE IN RECENT YEARS
“It was the most competitive pool stage in recent years from a sporting side, and we just had a high-stakes weekend,” said the EPCR chief executive Jacques Raynaud.
“Whatever the team line-ups, the injury rate, the overriding impression is that we have test match rugby in club colours, and unpredictable, superb rugby on the pitch.
“I know there are opinions it could be more elite, but the truth is it’s still delivering fantastic rugby on superb stages. Maybe not the entire 20 matches (including the Challenge Cup), but we can measure with fan engagement. I am not sugar-coating it, the data points are out there.”
Of course there will be a wider viewership now than there was before because of the addition of the South African teams, but the on day match attendances in South Africa have been poor, with the 24 000 that pitched for the Stormers/Leicester game by far the biggest crowd to watch Champions Cup rugby in the country this season.
The Sharks game in Durban drew a third of that number and ditto the Bulls when they played the champions Bordeaux-Begles in December.