by royc on Tue Jul 11, 2017 3:14 pm
Not wildly smitten with the rumoured version of a conference system. There are better ways of doing conferences which we already use in fact in a couple of our domestic leagues.
The expected first stage is fair enough, 2 pools of 7, play each competitor home and away =12 games.
But thereafter, big change: the top 4 from each pool go into a new Pool A, playing home and away against the top 4 from the other pool = 8 games, total 20. That would be a very competitive 'league' and command a high media price.
The bottom 3 from each pool go into a new Pool B, playing home and away against the bottom 3 from the other pool = 6 games, total 18. The advantage for the lower teams is that they have a much better chance of actually winning sometimes, rather than being thrashed weekly by the likes of Munster, Leinster, Glasgow etc.
In the first season, that bottom 6 would likely include the two Italian teams, most probably the two South African ones unless they recruit some big name players pdq, Dragons and one out of Connacht, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
Most of the derbies would happen anyway under this set-up, any that didn't could be played as standalone fixtures outside the league.
If two US franchises join the following season, then everyone would have 20 games, which is probably the optimum to reduce fixture congestion.
Would it effectively create two divisions? Well, for half the season, it effectively would, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
The other element I dislike is the pools being based on national allocations, as in 2 Irish, 2 Welsh etc. If you want equally competitive pools, you'd just allocate the teams in the order they finished last season. This would turn out as:
Pool A
1 - Munster
4 - Ospreys
5 - Ulster
8 - Connacht
9 - Edinburgh
12 - Zebre
+ - South Africa 1
Pool B
2 - Leinster
3 - Scarlets
6 - Glasgow
7 - Cardiff
10 - Treviso
11 - Dragons
+ - South Africa 2