This is badly needed.
Before the 2020/21 season, the Heineken Champions Cup was contested between 20 clubs that were split into five pools of four clubs.
Each team had six pool stage games – playing each other once home and away with the five clubs who topped each pool advancing straight into quarter-finals, along with the three highest-ranked runners-up.
Pretty simple right? And more importantly – incredibly exciting. You simply had to win those home games and generally pick up something on the road to stand a chance of qualifying.
Under the current format (which was only supposed to be temporary as a result of COVID), 24 teams compete for the Heineken Champions Cup, split into two pools of 12.
Each club plays four pool stage games against two of the other sides in their pool, with eight clubs qualifying from each pool for the Round of 16, with quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final following.
Pretty ridiculous right? And more importantly – incredible confusing. A team can now win one game, that’s right, one game, and qualify for the last 16.
Billy Burns of Ulster celebrates his side’s game winning try during the Heineken Champions Cup round 4 match between Ulster and Sale Sharks at Kingspan Stadium on January 21, 2023 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images for Sale Sharks)And that’s just absolute rubbish. The current format is nonsense and could absolutely destroy the competition if it’s not changed fast.
So is the solution to just go back to the format of 20 teams? Not necessarily. If you want to stretch back even further to before the 2014/15 season, we had 24 teams in the competition, split into six pools of four. The six pool winners qualified for the quarter-finals along with the two highest-ranked runners-up.
Those were the days when the competition was at its peak if you ask me.
As a Munster fan I can remember back to the days of the ‘miracle match’ against Thomond Park against Gloucester and more recently – David Wallace crashing over in the corner to secure that all important bonus-point against Sale Sharks in 06 on the way to our infamous first triumph in the competition.
As a journalist I miss the excitement of working out permutations to see what each teams needs to secure a home quarter final, or just qualification itself. Sure that’s still there technically, but did you feel it last weekend? I know I didn’t.
David Wallace of Munster scores the final try during the Heineken Cup match between Munster and Sale Sharks at Thommond Park on January 21, 2006 in Limerick, Ireland. (Photo by John Gichigi/Getty Images)URC CEO Martin Anayi, who is also an EPCR board member, thinks the current format is “too complicated” and I tend to agree. It has destroyed the very soul of the competition.
So what’s the solution? It’s pretty simple. Return to one of the previous two formats and give us back a proper home and away pool format. We don’t need a last 16, we need prestige, and we need pools that have meaning.
If you’re a Munster fan, and you’ve got Saracens and Montpellier in your pool. You want to be able to tune in to Saracens vs Montpellier the week after you’ve played the former or vice-versa, and be excited by the implications. Not tuning into Saracens taking on the Racing 92 the following week. It’s crazy.
Well, fear not. According to Gavin Mairs in the Telegraph, EPCR have heard our calls with a radical overhaul of the competition set to come into place as soon as next season after mounting pressure from key stakeholders.
What exactly this means for the future of the Champions Cup remains to be seen, but it can’t get any worse than what we have currently.
