Goodbye PRO14 - A New Name And New Challenges Beckon

 

FAREWELL then PRO14, hello United Rugby Championship, as the South African invasion begins in earnest. Today's announcement of the new format for our top level of the professional club game certainly gives us food for thought.

Basically, instead of the two, seven club pools which we have had over the past two or three seasons, we now see an additional two South African teams added, giving us 18 clubs, who will initially play in four pools:

• Irish Pool – Connacht, Leinster, Munster, Ulster

• Scottish/Italian Pool – Benetton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Zebre

• South African Pool – Bulls, Lions, Sharks, Stormers

• Welsh Pool – Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys, Scarlets

In the regular season, each team will play the other three teams in its pool home and away, and play each of the other teams once. At the end of the regular season, this will produce one league table, ranked one to sixteenth.

The top eight teams in the table will then play down to the Grand Final, the result of which will produce the annual Champion team.

The top team in each pool will qualify for the following season's Heineken Cup, except, in this first season, the four South African teams will be unable to qualify. However, in season 2022-23 and subsequently, the South African sides will be able to qualify for the two European Cup competitions. In season one, the top eight non South African clubs will qualify for the Heineken Cup, with the other European-based sides qualifying for the Challenge Cup.

One other change will end the situation whereby league games clash with international weekends, these weekends will now be kept free from club games.

The arrival of the “big guns” South African sides from the former Rugby Championship in the southern hemisphere will certainly challenge the two Scottish clubs to a greater degree. But, against this, the end of playing league games on international weekends certainly helps us, with our smaller player pool.

The Saffer invasion will make things harder for us, but, if our two teams rise to that challenge, it will surely benefit Scottish Rugby in the long run.

Just a thought, with this closer integration with the South Africans, how long before South Africa enter the Six Nations?

WHEN the Scotland squad for the Summer Tests was announced, there was wide-spread disbelief at the absence of Rory Hutchison of Northampton. Regular viewers of BT Sport's coverage of the Gallagher Premiership had grown used to seeing young rory pulling-off some wonderful stuff on a weekly basis, and questioned his absence from the squad.

Now, however, he has been brought into the party and will hopefully get a chance to strut his stuff in navy blue over the next month.

But, if the call-up was good news for Rory, there was disappointment for Matt Fagerson, who will miss the summer frolics as he recovers from surgery on the arm he broke in Glasgow's final game of the season, against Leinster. This will side line the younger Fagerson for three months.