phatguerilla wrote: Is that by the ruan pienaar? might lend more credence to the rumour if so.

Here's what the real Ruan Pienaar thinks

rugbyrocks.com/pienaar-positive-cheetahs-will-stay-in-pro14

From the mood of the SH media in general, it does sound as if Super Rugby is more or less toast, pretty much as of last March, so a lot of teams are currently in limbo.

And unfair.

Home and away Pro12 or more balanced Pro16 would be welcomed.

I didn't even spot the Ruan Pienaar name, but given that it's really just rehashing a report from another source, anyone with basic Afrikaans should be equally credible (the Rapport article required some registration so I didn't even bother).

It wouldn't require significantly more travel, arguably less. European teams would still require one trip south per season, but for two games (if four SA teams) or three (if six) rather than one or two at present. And SA teams would have more derbies therefore less travel to Europe.
The particular advantage for this season would be that you could front-load the derbies so the SA teams wouldn't need to come here this calendar year (assuming a six team SA conference, that's ten games before they need to come north) and based on the prevailing situation at the time, if they decide that it's still not feasible in the new year, they can withdraw without major disruption and let the others continue as a home and away Pro 12.
Personally I think a temporary reversion to 12 teams is the most likely outcome anyway. The current 14 team format is highly unsuited to a potentially disrupted travel environment.

Is that by the ruan pienaar? might lend more credence to the rumour if so. Personally think its a bit mental and while its not exactly the main factor in sports planning, rugby surely has one of the worst carbon footprints per participant at this stage, which this will just exacerbate.

Alleged rumours of Super Rugby sides from SA in the league from as early as next season.
www.news24.com/sport/rugby/pro14/report-...hs-or-kings-20200706
Of course we've heard it all before and it's all very vague but with Aus and NZ having gone their own way, SA teams could find themselves at a loose end and keen to play somewhere.

We don't care about Challenge Cup, wer're higher (as we should, home play-off would have been ok vs Dragons)

Should be straightforward enough to resolve the bye-week thing if you just synchronise the fixtures so all the teams from the same league are free at the same time, that way the free teams just play a round of domestic fixtures. Of course that means that the Challenge Cup has to follow the same format, which would mean that would have to consist of six pools of three (since we can't have two French teams in the same pool), therefore they would need six lower tier teams instead of the usual two (or else offer one French team the opportunity to not be in it - I'm sure they'd have plenty of applicants!).

The update from a Guardian article is 8 groups of 3 with home and away QFs. 8 game tournament for a club etc. No mention of the bye week issue.

Sounds like EPCR had that meeting but no mention of format for the next instalment ...
www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jun/24/en...se-players-for-tests

you have 2 Welsh, 2 Scots 4 Irish and 0 Italian

So it could work out to have 1 derby on neutral venue for every team with 2 pools of 12

2 home and away
1 neutral game


Scarlets vs Dragons at the Millenium
Edinburgh vs Glasgow in Murrayfield (opened fully to Glasgow fans)
2 Irish interpros again in the Aviva
4 French derbies in big stadiums used in Top14 neutral Semi Finals (Bordeaux, Marseille, StEtienne, etc)
4 English derbies in Twickenham, Wembley, Ashton gate...


Would be interesting

Given the distribution of Pro14 teams, it would be possible to structure (read: rig) the draw to ensure each Pro14 team is in the same pool as another team from the same country (as opposed to the opposite as is currently the case), which would make salmson's neutral venue proposal more workable and indeed more lucrative (if selling tickets ever becomes a thing again).
On the other hand there were proposals for two-legged semis even before CoVid-19 so that could make neill_m's idea more on the money
www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/dec/16/ch...o-legged-semi-finals

neill_m wrote: If you do 4 Groups of 6 sides, could have 2 Pro 14, 2 Prem and 2 T14 in each group and you don't play from a Connacht pov the other Pro 14 side. 2 home games v an Prem side and a T14 side and then 2 away games v the other Prem and T14 sides......

Pretty sure they're looking at 8 weeks with 3 rounds of playoffs, so that means 5 group games. So what about your suggestion but with an extra game against the other team from your league at a neutral venue. Like I said, it looks like EPCR are starting at crazy and working out from there.

If you do 4 Groups of 6 sides, could have 2 Pro 14, 2 Prem and 2 T14 in each group and you don't play from a Connacht pov the other Pro 14 side. 2 home games v an Prem side and a T14 side and then 2 away games v the other Prem and T14 sides......

Do we have more revenue from EPRC/IRFU being in Champions Cup, on TV rights distribution?
If not, if it's only a matter of stadium extra-filling, only 2 home games would suck

That's the format that was used when Connacht made their great entrance onto the European stage in the 96/97 Challenge Cup (ah memories - oh wait I wasn't there).
I suspect what they might do is something a bit more bat***t like each team only plays four out of the other five teams, which corrects the home/away imbalance while ensuring no bye weekends.

One format that meets an eight week program (5 week pool stage, q/fs, s/fs, final) is 4 teams of 6, with each playing against the other just once. That would mean two from each league in each group, with the lower seed from each league getting only 2 home games while the higher seed gets 3.

That's kind of batsh*t and the alternatives get weirder from there.