2022/23 Champions/Challenge Cup

[Marylandolorian]

Only took 24' for Connacht to secure the TBP

Not surprising, Brive is 13th and might be relegate next season.

[SaintK]

La Rochelle v Ulster score sounds exciting!

[sockwithaticket]

Only took 24' for Connacht to secure the TBP

Top 14 clubs in the diddy cup innit.

[Slick]

Tuilagi ineffectual again, seems increasingly past it sadly

It just shows even more how fucking useless Eddie was. Tuilagi, May, Nowell, Youngs, all well past it and still his favourites. I fear England again with a proper selector, just haven’t for the last few years.

Still think we will win next month though

[sockwithaticket]

Pass looked fairly forwards.

[SaintK]

Exeter under the cosh now

[ASMO]

Red card for that? Fuck off

[Chilli]

That's a yellow.
He hits on the chest and it goes up.
No fucking way a red.

[SaintK]

Red card for that? Fuck off

Harsh

[_Os_]

Red card for that? Fuck off

Killed the game.

Still Bulls will be happy the lineout drive worked before that.

[sockwithaticket]

Given some of the hits that get given a yellow and aren't subsequently cited, there's no way that's a red. I'd put money on that being rescinded.

14 men at altitude for 25 minutes is going to be fairly grim you'd imagine.

[Torquemada 1420]

Another superb pick by PR following on from ASM to beat Leicester: Sale to beat Toulouse F**king clueless.

[SaintK]

Nasty head injury to Yeandle
Not sure the Bulls player didn’t lead with his forearm

[Torquemada 1420]

Well, I got this Bulls game badly wrong.

[Torquemada 1420]

Meantime, LaR v Ulster candidate for worst game ever.

[SaintK]

Hooray after 70 minutes the deadlock is broken
Ulster 3 0 ahead at La Rochelle

[OomStruisbaai]

Well, I got this Bulls game badly wrong.

Always safe to pick the URC teams.

[Torquemada 1420]

Given some of the hits that get given a yellow and aren't subsequently cited, there's no way that's a red. I'd put money on that being rescinded.

14 men at altitude for 25 minutes is going to be fairly grim you'd imagine.

Get fitter......

[Torquemada 1420]

LaR get out of jail. TKB must be the worst SH to come out of NZ in decades.

[sockwithaticket]

Given some of the hits that get given a yellow and aren't subsequently cited, there's no way that's a red. I'd put money on that being rescinded.

14 men at altitude for 25 minutes is going to be fairly grim you'd imagine.

Get fitter......

However fit you get a team of roughly comparable fitness that regularly plays at altitude is almost always going to have the edge in that environment.

[Paddington Bear]

What’s happened to SA club rugby? Just turned on the last five mins, I probably last watched a SA club game in the Super 12 era but my memory was full houses, stadiums rocking, and of course the cheerleaders. Now looks funereal.

[Paddington Bear]

Tuilagi ineffectual again, seems increasingly past it sadly

It just shows even more how fucking useless Eddie was. Tuilagi, May, Nowell, Youngs, all well past it and still his favourites. I fear England again with a proper selector, just haven’t for the last few years.

Still think we will win next month though

I don’t necessarily blame him for gambling on Tuilagi if he was the only one unfit/out of form, even the autumn of 21 he clearly scared the Boks for the 5 minutes he was on or so. But as a group yes we were clearly picking half a side who were probably number 5+ in their position in the country.
No idea what to expect this 6N tbh, but curious to find out.

[ASMO]

Tuilagi ineffectual again, seems increasingly past it sadly

It just shows even more how fucking useless Eddie was. Tuilagi, May, Nowell, Youngs, all well past it and still his favourites. I fear England again with a proper selector, just haven’t for the last few years.

Still think we will win next month though

I don’t necessarily blame him for gambling on Tuilagi if he was the only one unfit/out of form, even the autumn of 21 he clearly scared the Boks for the 5 minutes he was on or so. But as a group yes we were clearly picking half a side who were probably number 5+ in their position in the country.
No idea what to expect this 6N tbh, but curious to find out.

I suspect there will be very little change from Eddiecaust.

[Torquemada 1420]

What’s happened to SA club rugby? Just turned on the last five mins, I probably last watched a SA club game in the Super 12 era but my memory was full houses, stadiums rocking, and of course the cheerleaders. Now looks funereal.

URC rugby. Watched by 1 man and 3 dogs

[fishfoodie]

Only took 24' for Connacht to secure the TBP

Top 14 clubs in the diddy cup innit.

Finished 61 - 5

If the French don't want to compete, just exclude them, & anyone else who wants to opt out.

A smaller comp, would work better anyway.

[OomStruisbaai]

What’s happened to SA club rugby? Just turned on the last five mins, I probably last watched a SA club game in the Super 12 era but my memory was full houses, stadiums rocking, and of course the cheerleaders. Now looks funereal.

Soup killed our rugby.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinion ... er-bullet/

A document circulated to the South African Rugby Union (Saru) general council in late 2020 highlighted alarming attendance and viewership trends before the pandemic hit.

Attendance figures at Super Rugby matches had dipped massively. In 2015, the Stormers’ average home crowd was almost 33,000 and, by 2019, it was 16,000 — more than a 50% decline in four years. The Lions were averaging 23,300 in 2015 and, by 2019, only 13,400 fans were attending home games. The Bulls and Sharks attendances fell by nearly 3,000 people per game.

Even more alarming was the decline in TV audiences. The Stormers were, unsurprisingly, the most-watched team on TV, in line with their status as the team with the best attendance figures.

In 2015, the Stormers averaged 635,000 TV viewers per Super Rugby game. By 2019 that had declined to 261,100. The Bulls went from an average of 591,000 viewers in 2015 to 253,000 in 2019 and the same trend followed the Sharks (534,550 to 257,000) and the Lions (494,000 to 218,000).

Clearly, fans were falling out of love with Super Rugby. It was a major factor in Saru seeking alternatives in the northern hemisphere when New Zealand broke away from their Super Rugby alliance midway through the pandemic.

The change from Newlands to CT Stadium and change of season also hurt. Our schoolboy rugby attracts lots of Paarl Stellenboch (Paarl Boys,Gimnasium, Paul Roos) supporters. to schools around Newlands (Bishops/Rondebosch/Sacs/Wynberg) playing on Saturday mornings and would attend Newlands afterwards. Now it's different season and Greenpoint is a distance away from the boerewors curtain.

Still CT Stadium attrack the biggest crowd (30,000)in URC in December.

Playing in the big stadiums also don't help.But we are getting there

[OomStruisbaai]

Some schoolboy mathes in Cape Town get up to 10,000 supporters.

Paarl Interschools get 40,000

[_Os_]

What’s happened to SA club rugby? Just turned on the last five mins, I probably last watched a SA club game in the Super 12 era but my memory was full houses, stadiums rocking, and of course the cheerleaders. Now looks funereal.

After Super 14 the format of Super Rugby got too difficult to understand and that got a lot of people out of the habit of going to the stadium. Covid has been another habit changer. I also think the economy is playing a role maybe not directly in the form of ticket prices but something closer to "mom and dad worked really hard all week, can't be fucked with basically another day of work on Saturday will watch on TV".

That said Stormers always had the highest average gate in Super Rugby, their supporters definitely aren't fair weather. Sharks after them and Bulls after them, but the supporters of both are more fair weather and will refuse to turn up if they think the side isn't good or the opponent isn't worthy. The Bulls were a poor Super 12 side and had crowds much smaller than today (9k attendance today). The other SA teams don't match the support of those three unless it's a really big match. From memory out of the Aus/NZ sides only the Waratahs had an average gate in the same ballpark as the bigger SA sides.

There is a lot of interest in the URC, as people can directly relate it to Super Rugby and SA teams have been challenged. But comps in this format with a long and competitive knockout phase are entirely new to most SA fans, not many will remember the Lion Cup (an SA provincial comp before Super 10, that had a similar format and was very popular in its day). At the moment (pre-knockouts) it's being understood as basically "same as the URC but with different teams", I'm not sure casual fans understand the comp yet.

[Torquemada 1420]

Only took 24' for Connacht to secure the TBP

Top 14 clubs in the diddy cup innit.

Finished 61 - 5

If the French don't want to compete, just exclude them, & anyone else who wants to opt out.

A smaller comp, would work better anyway.

Not like I've not been pointing this problem for 25 years. To repeat
- other than the minnows, no-one should get participation money except based upon results. No points, no money.
- sides should be permitted to opt out with no compromise to participating, if they choose, next season

[sockwithaticket]

Only took 24' for Connacht to secure the TBP

Top 14 clubs in the diddy cup innit.

Finished 61 - 5

If the French don't want to compete, just exclude them, & anyone else who wants to opt out.

A smaller comp, would work better anyway.

Especially with teams dropping down from the Champion's cup into Challenge for the knock outs. It means a lot of the pool stages are pretty irrelevant.

If we must keep it at a certain size, let clubs from elsewhere in Europe get involved. Not that anyone wants an away trip to Siberia to play Enisei like in the old days, but I'm sure a team or two from Portugal, Spain, Georgia etc. would love to be involved and they could hardly provide worse opposition than these completely disinterested lower tier Top 14 sides.

[Tichtheid]

kinell, some try from Daly

[sockwithaticket]

Haven't seen Daly cut through a team like that for a long time.

[Tichtheid]

kinell, some try from Daly

and again

shite from Lyon, though

[SaintK]

Lovely rugby from Sarries

[Tichtheid]

hat trick

[sockwithaticket]

Lovely rugby from Sarries

It's really annoying that they've decided to play really nice attacking rugby this season, makes it more difficult to dislike them.

[ASMO]

Goode showing Farrell how to play 10.

[Paddington Bear]

I’m sure we’ll slow down but there’s little stopping this being a ton at this rate, Sarries look slick and Lyon look awful.

Os/Oom - thanks for the responses, interesting stuff

[sockwithaticket]

I’m sure we’ll slow down but there’s little stopping this being a ton at this rate, Sarries look slick and Lyon look awful.

Os/Oom - thanks for the responses, interesting stuff

Sarries vs. the clock. Lyon are pish.

[Tichtheid]

Glasgow leading 12 - 28 in Perpignan on 35 mins