European Club Rugby
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@Frye said in NH club rugby:
Munster are getting pumped by Scarlets in the Pro12 final.
29-3 after 30 minutes.
Highly enjoyable.
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The Top 14 Final next weekend will be played between Toulon and Clermont. Again!
While Toulon only narrowly beat La Rochelle 18-15 last night, Clermont dominated the second semi-final against Racing 92, despite playing the second half with only 14 men due to a red card to Flip van der Merwe for a high tackle. They defeated Racing 37 to 31.
Chris Masoe scored two tries for Racing during this game and converted the last try of what was his last game as a professional rugby player! Tameifuna scored the other try for Racing. Fritz Lee scored one of the Clermont tries, with Camille Lopez dotting down 2 and Damian Penaud one.
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So Exeter and Scarlets are two refreshing winners of their leagues that knocks over the hegemony of the bigger clubs that have dominated for a while.
Very pleased for Scarlets and can only hope this gives a boost to regional rugby in Wales next season and get more punters through the gates.
Don't know the injury count yet to see if it's affected any Lions tourists but a good end to the NH season.
Roll on September.
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@Stargazer and boy did they try hard to throw it away again. Always happy to see Toulon lose. The state of some of their players is a disgrace.
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Saw Ma'a Nonu's highlights from the final, looks like he had a bit of a day out with ball in hand, some nice offloads in contact as well
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@mariner4life said in NH club rugby:
Saw Ma'a Nonu's highlights from the final, looks like he had a bit of a day out with ball in hand, some nice offloads in contact as well
He was MOTM for me. Boy Toulon have some real fattys in their squad though.
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Francis Saili moves from Munster to Harlequins, where he's signed a "long-term contract". Not sure for how many years that is.
http://www.quins.co.uk/news/all-black-francis-saili-joins-harlequins/
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The two SA clubs being axed from Super Rugby - Cheetahs and Kings - are likely to join the PRO12 from this September. Negotiations have been underway with Martin Anayi, PRO12 CEO and SARU over the last number of months.
PRO12 have been planning to move to a two conference structure for the 2017/18 season with a new TV deal with Sky Sports up for negotiation. The SA teams will bring a €12m deal with them including travel costs and SA TV rights monies.
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@Pot-Hale I was gonna say it'll be interesting to see how the timing works - might see some players featuring in both comps perhaps?
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@Pot-Hale said in NH club rugby:
The two SA clubs being axed from Super Rugby - Cheetahs and Kings - are likely to join the PRO12 from this September. Negotiations have been underway with Martin Anayi, PRO12 CEO and SARU over the last number of months.
PRO12 have been planning to move to a two conference structure for the 2017/18 season with a new TV deal with Sky Sports up for negotiation. The SA teams will bring a €12m deal with them including travel costs and SA TV rights monies.
Based where?
Europe or SA?
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@MiketheSnow said in NH club rugby:
@Pot-Hale said in NH club rugby:
The two SA clubs being axed from Super Rugby - Cheetahs and Kings - are likely to join the PRO12 from this September. Negotiations have been underway with Martin Anayi, PRO12 CEO and SARU over the last number of months.
PRO12 have been planning to move to a two conference structure for the 2017/18 season with a new TV deal with Sky Sports up for negotiation. The SA teams will bring a €12m deal with them including travel costs and SA TV rights monies.
Based where?
Europe or SA?
I can't see any official news released about it,
I see the figure "12m" used as a description of the total current TV revenue (in £),
And the assumption seems to be teams would be based in SA.But yeah, every bit of news I can see about it is just quoting somebody else talking about the possibility - no concrete facts/confirmation.
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@Bones said in NH club rugby:
@Kruse ouch to SA pitches in summer.
Ooh - yeah, that could be nasty. Just looking at average temperatures/rainfall/rain-days - Port Elizabeth doesn't look like it would be that bad... but Cape Town could be a bit of a surprise to some Scots, at the least.
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@Kruse said in NH club rugby:
@MiketheSnow said in NH club rugby:
@Pot-Hale said in NH club rugby:
The two SA clubs being axed from Super Rugby - Cheetahs and Kings - are likely to join the PRO12 from this September. Negotiations have been underway with Martin Anayi, PRO12 CEO and SARU over the last number of months.
PRO12 have been planning to move to a two conference structure for the 2017/18 season with a new TV deal with Sky Sports up for negotiation. The SA teams will bring a €12m deal with them including travel costs and SA TV rights monies.
Based where?
Europe or SA?
I can't see any official news released about it,
I see the figure "12m" used as a description of the total current TV revenue (in £),
And the assumption seems to be teams would be based in SA.But yeah, every bit of news I can see about it is just quoting somebody else talking about the possibility - no concrete facts/confirmation.
They couldn't say anything about it officially for legal reasons until the cull meeting was held in SA on 7 July.
From The Scotsman:
*The move was as good as confirmed by the chairman of the Welsh Rugby Union, Gareth Davies. “There are discussions going on, which people are aware of, between the Pro12 and South African rugby union and the franchises down there,” Davies told the BBC in Wales. “There is a desire from the South African teams I think to join the Pro12 and I think the Pro12 would like them to join. “The Pro12 itself is a cross-border competition already and this just extends this. It makes for a promising and exciting future, if it did happen. “At the moment it looks like the two teams from Super Rugby that will not be in the competition next year will join [the Pro12]. I suspect there will be interest further afield from South African teams as well. “It just expands the tournament and I think it’s an opportunity to develop the game within the northern hemisphere. “There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of the legal complexities with issues such as broadcasting, commercial and, most important, player welfare with all the travelling that has to be done and the logistics associated with that.” Ever since two Italian teams were invited to join the competition in season 2010-11, the old “Celtic League” has lacked any geographical integrity and the open borders policy has just been further extended.
As Davies’ concedes, the logistics are horrible, especially at a time when player welfare is at the top of everyone’s agenda. The flight time from London to Jo’burg is 12 hours and you can probably add two more flights at either end for almost every team in the league. The return journey will feel twice as long with all the bruises a modern players picks up although there was a suggestion that the two African franchises may play some “home” games in London. It will be interesting to see English Premiership Rugby’s reaction to the Pro14 parking tanks on the their lawn."*
It's unlikely that the English Premiership rep body, PRL, or the English RFU would be enthused by the idea. But Saracens is being rumoured as a possible 'home ground' to play some of their games, and other games would be played in SA with probably teams travelling south to play.
There's a rumour around that PRL got in touch with PRO12 when the news first broke about the SA teams suggesting that maybe a British & Irish league might be a good idea after all. (It's been touted for a long while with Welsh lips salivating at the prospect, but the Premiership have never seen a reason to consider it until now.).
Discussions got started and everything was going grand until certain club chairmen suggested that the way it would work would be the PRO12 teams would form a second division to the Premiership. Talks ended abruptly after that.
Nigel Wray, owner of Saracens, has strong SA business interests in the club and has been looking for ways to bring SA teams into the picture with English and French teams, potentially to create a European/Global comp of some sort.
If the PRO12 wants this idea to succeed, then I'd advise them staying well away from Wray and Saracens who have no interest in seeing the PRO12 develop any financial or audience clout, but are very interested in seeing how the SA development could be turned to their advantage.
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so who pays for it? Where do the players come from? How does the sides still existing fix any of the problems that the reduction of Super Rugby was supposed to fix? So the SARU still has to pay the extra 60-odd players, and those players are still diluting the talent pool in SA. And they still have to travel. And the league is played over summer.
And then they are supposed to compete in a league where everyone else is getting paid Euro, but they are getting paid in South African dirt money?
I assume they now get a cut of the Pro12 broadcasting revenue.
This can't end well for someone.
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Not sure that having the two worst SA teams added to the mix strengthens the PRO 12/14s value to the broadcasters.
