Super Rugby additions to Pro12

[biffer]

Of course, Leicester could have a trip to Nelspruit on the cards

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugb ... n-13338801

[biffer]

It's official now.

http://www.pro12rugby.com/2017/08/01/st ... mpionship/

SA teams not eligible for EPCR competitions, at least for the first 3 years.

They will have a difficulty in that season tickets had been sold on the assumption of 11 home games, but some teams will only have 10. I'm not a fan of the odd number of games, or the 3 games Edinburgh will have v Glasgow, seems overkill.

Overall though I'm looking forward to it.

[LondonRich]

Fair point about the overkill of particular games/rivalries. It happened last year too, I think Glasgow got beaten by Munster 4 times last season due to the Champ Cup pools.

I really like the premise, although I'm worried it feels just a little rushed. The conference format keeps things changing each year in terms of fixtures, it truly rewards league positions (top team gets a rest week) and the league position solely dictates the Champ Cup qualification, rather than a quota per country.
One issue I see is the 4th placed conference side with the higher points total getting the 7th Champ Cup spot, and considering the teams fixtures aren't entirely comparable it's not a fair playing field there.

On the whole I'm looking forward to this competition and seeing how it pans out.

[biffer]

Fair point about the overkill of particular games/rivalries. It happened last year too, I think Glasgow got beaten by Munster 4 times last season due to the Champ Cup pools.

I really like the premise, although I'm worried it feels just a little rushed. The conference format keeps things changing each year in terms of fixtures, it truly rewards league positions (top team gets a rest week) and the league position solely dictates the Champ Cup qualification, rather than a quota per country.
One issue I see is the 4th placed conference side with the higher points total getting the 7th Champ Cup spot, and considering the teams fixtures aren't entirely comparable it's not a fair playing field there.

On the whole I'm looking forward to this competition and seeing how it pans out.

Yeah, it was definitely a rush, but waiting for a year would've been impossible as it would have meant Cheetahs and Kings folding as they're out of Super Rugby next season. It's an extra €6million from South Africa into the coffers, and frankly it makes it a bit more attractive to Sky / BT in terms of a deal as well (the anticipation is being able to lever about another €6 million across the piece in TV money, then additional sponsorship rights on top of that). Not on the scale of the AP or T14, but every little helps.

I agree entirely about the fixtures not being comparable, but in all honestly they never were - strength of schedule in the Pro12 has always depended masssively on who you play during international windows - all of the teams are more affected by international call ups than the English and French teams.