Simon Massie-Taylor on GBR podcast confirmed the new format as above - four pools of six, where you play four of the five other teams - with final details to be worked out over the next week or so. Nothing really new there as PRL were presumably the source for the original stories, but it does mean that it wasn't shot down at the weekend, and the fact that he is saying it in interviews and not giving the usual <<nothing is agreed until everything is agreed>> suggests it's probably a runner.

So I'm going to go ahead and pick our pool:
Munster
Connacht
La Rochelle
Bayonne
Leicester
Harlequins

We beat Quins at home and Bayonne away and then beat Stade Francais away in the last 16 or something along those lines.

I was assuming the format change would be aimed at making it less batS#!+ as opposed to more ...
But this is EPCR so who knows.
I do have to admire the optimism of a Munster fan who feels entitled to play 3 of his 4 games at home
I would assume that whatever the details of the format each team would play one higher ranked and one lower ranked team from each of the other leagues.
And the one thing that you can say for certain is that everyone will play the same number of home games in the pool stage, I don't think even EPCR will go that far off the reservation.

pinky wrote: ... but isn't that effectively the exact same format as this season? Except that the pool is split in half. In the above case you would be guaranteed that two Pot 4 sides would make the playoffs (quite likely without winning any games).
I saw some references to an article in the (London) Times that said home and away was gone but didn't read the full thing.
Though in both cases these articles were written in advance of an alleged meeting over the weekend, so something entirely different could have been decided there!

Stole the below example from the Munster forum, if it is home/away v home and away, then potentially the lower Tier side only has 1 home game.

Let's take a hypothetical pool of:
Toulouse (Tier 1)
Saracens (Tier 1)
Munster (Tier 1)
Bayonne (Tier 4)
Bath (Tier 4)
Connacht (Tier 4)

Munster would play:
One of Toulouse/Saracens home, the other one away
Bayonne home
Bath home

Connacht would play:
Toulouse away
Saracens away
One of Bayonne/Bath home, the other one away

... but isn't that effectively the exact same format as this season? Except that the pool is split in half. In the above case you would be guaranteed that two Pot 4 sides would make the playoffs (quite likely without winning any games).
I saw some references to an article in the (London) Times that said home and away was gone but didn't read the full thing.
Though in both cases these articles were written in advance of an alleged meeting over the weekend, so something entirely different could have been decided there!

pinky wrote: Just saw this from last Friday's Telegraph.

It is understood that the new format will include 24 teams competing in four pools of six, and with the opening two rounds taking place in December. Each pool will comprise two clubs from each of the three competing leagues – the Premiership, United Rugby Championship and Top 14, drawn on a ranking basis. Clubs from the same league in each pool will not play against each other, resulting in four pool matches

Based on that it would seem to suggest that it won't be home and away, we would play two English and two French sides, one of each at home, but I could be reading that wrong, or they could have picked it up wrong.
Though it does suggest that we won't necessarily be playing all our games against finalists, with more of an even distribution of teams instead.


www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2023/05/...-format-next-season/

Best guestimate I saw from another forum was for example:

Connacht URC Pot 4 in with URC Pot 1 side, Pot 1 & 4 sides from T14 & Premiership. Connacht play Pot 1 sides from Prem and T14 home and away. No two sides in the pool of 6 actually play the same teams etc.

Just saw this from last Friday's Telegraph.

It is understood that the new format will include 24 teams competing in four pools of six, and with the opening two rounds taking place in December. Each pool will comprise two clubs from each of the three competing leagues – the Premiership, United Rugby Championship and Top 14, drawn on a ranking basis. Clubs from the same league in each pool will not play against each other, resulting in four pool matches

Based on that it would seem to suggest that it won't be home and away, we would play two English and two French sides, one of each at home, but I could be reading that wrong, or they could have picked it up wrong.
Though it does suggest that we won't necessarily be playing all our games against finalists, with more of an even distribution of teams instead.


www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2023/05/...-format-next-season/

So assuming we don't discover any more rules we've forgotten about, Connacht are seventh seeds for the Champions Cup draw, which if everything is the same as last year means we go into Pot 4 and play either Saracens or Sale and one of the French finalists, which is looking like Toulouse or La Rochelle but who knows maybe someone will upset Toulouse on the way and we won't have to go there again. I mean it's a nice spot and all but I'd say they're sick of the sight of us ...

Couple of interesting match-ups in the last round in France. If Bayonne can pip Lyon, they might squeak past them into the Top 6, where they'd play one of the Parisiens. But the reward for winning that would be an effective home semi-final as they're in Donostia / San Sebastián. Still a long shot but I'd love to go back to Bayonne. If Lyon win, they could get a home barrage as the three above them are all away.

Good point. The quotes from Martin Anayi's recent interview also suggest the format isn't yet agreed. But he might be talking about the following season.

pinky wrote: Ah rats.
It says the same thing on the URC tournament rules page now that I read them again. The dates on that page are all last year's (nice work URC) so not sure if they changed or we just never noticed last season because all the home teams won the QFs so it was a moot point.
So Connacht are Pot 1 if we win tomorrow and Pot 4 if we lose. And Ulster are Pot 2 unless it's a Connacht Munster final (which it definitely will be) ...
You couldn't make these rules up without psychedelic assistance ...

Ulster are locked into Pot 2 as they came 2nd in the league. If you had a Connacht Munster final it would be:

Pot 1 Connacht, Munster
Pot 2 Leinster, Ulster
Pot 3 Stormers, Glasgow
Pot 4 Bulls, Cardiff

Limerick would be handy for Connacht fans for such a final.

Ah rats.
It says the same thing on the URC tournament rules page now that I read them again. The dates on that page are all last year's (nice work URC) so not sure if they changed or we just never noticed last season because all the home teams won the QFs so it was a moot point.
So Connacht are Pot 1 if we win tomorrow and Pot 4 if we lose. And Ulster are Pot 2 unless it's a Connacht Munster final (which it definitely will be) ...
You couldn't make these rules up without psychedelic assistance ...

According to Mr Adam Redmond from the URC on twitter, it is the URC finalists, then on league position.

This is a change from last year if this is the case.

Adam Redmond
@AdamRedmond
·
May 8
Replying to
@CaolanSRugby
and
@andymcgeady
Hi Caolan, so the teams which reach the URC Grand Final will be seeded 1 and 2 for Champions Cup (depending on who wins) the other teams are then seeded based on league position.

[strike]Premiership all finished so if we beat Stormers we'll play Bath or Exeter and if we lose it'll be West London to play Quins or Irish.
[/strike]

EDIT: As per below, this is not actually the case

Is it too Early to start hoping who we get next season for away trips @Pinky
Hoping that Leinster do us a favour this weekend. Normally the other provinces don't come through when we actually need their help with a result....
I suppose we could just win the URC outright and then we wouldn't have to worry about any of these scenarios #Notions (CC)

So a fairytale end to the season for Sharks is the only thing that can deny Connacht a Champions Cup spot.
[strike]Beating Ulster would give us at least a second seeding in the draw assuming we do qualify[/strike]. Lose and we're playing two of the finalists.
In theory we could lose to the Sharks in the final and still miss out. Though we'd have home advantage so reckon we could take them ...

Thanks to everyone for refraining to point out that the flowchart was an abject failure. The key "Did Munster win?" decision should have included the draw.
I have let you all down.

It's all a bit simpler now though. Even I can't get this one wrong ...

Connacht qualify for the Champions Cup UNLESS
Sharks win the URC
OR
(Scarlets/Benetton win the Challenge Cup AND Connacht don't win the URC)

Bookies have Sharks as low as 14-1 to win the URC so apparently they can't be completely written off. I would have expected a bigger price but I suppose Leinster are potentially a bit vulnerable the week after the Toulouse game.
Scarlets have a very good chance against Glasgow at the weekend though, which would potentially set up a nailbiter of a final against Toulon. Of course if Treviso win as well, we need to win the URC (which will be inconvenient but good craic).

Nice one Pinky ( or is it SkyNet:P )