Menu
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
Latest activity
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles and first posts only
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Help Support The Rugby Forum :
Forums
Rugby Union
Premiership Rugby / Premiership Cup
Questions from a noob
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Leonormous Boozer" data-source="post: 915705" data-attributes="member: 45598"><p>All of what BPM said is true but I'd like to add to it. Considering you're listening to eggchasers my advice would be to ignore almost anything they say about the pro 14, they don't watch it and basically everything they say about it is insulting and has no substance, this aspect of the podcast is also worse when Pro 14 sides are experiencing success over the Premiership sides. (According to that podcast when Pro 14 sides are doing well its because they rest their players, when they're doing badly its because they're not playing enough rugby)</p><p></p><p>A huge difference between the pro 14 and, the top 14 (France) and Premiership is that the unions who run the pro 14 sides - Italy, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and, less so, South Africa - all know that due to the smaller populations of their countries they need successful national sides to sustain rugby at club level whereas England and France don't. As a result the Pro 14 has become a semi-developmental league with teams regularly using 45+ players in a season. This doesn't mean that if you watch the pro 14 you're going to see academy sides week after week though, apart from the first couple of rounds each season and during international windows its rare that you'd see games without current internationals but instead you see a mix of up and coming fringe players and the clubs' superstars whoever they may be. Fans of the pro 14 genuinely love it, you get to see young products of your club playing in the first XV a lot sooner than you would if you followed an English or French club while still seeing high quality rugby most of the time as well as it helping the international sides. Understandably fans of other leagues aren't so enthusiastic about it because they usually see the stars of the pro 14 playing against their teams in Europe and if they switch over to the pro 14 they will see a team sheet with a handful or more names that they don't recognise.</p><p></p><p>The primary criticism that comes with this is that the pro 14 is less marketable because of it, this is true but it'd be a waste of time and resources for the pro 14 to try to compete with France's and England's television deals purely because of the population difference between the countries, attendance falls off a bit when a purely second string side is named but for the sake of maybe 8,000 more filled seats in a season it seems a bit pointless if it risks the success of the national side.</p><p></p><p>On the flip side it is often argued that the extra game time players in the English and French leagues play disadvantages their national sides, it might but there's no hard evidence to say so, from 2004 to 2011 France were the strongest team in Europe with the league set up being exactly what it is today, same with England in 2016 and 2017 by some distance. In years where these two haven't been the best its been due to other factors in my opinion, France's national union have serious problems with internal politics and ever since they won the world cup England have simply struggled to produce players that are world class, walk into any team in the world type players, and when they've had them they've often been extremely injury prone. Both have also had some truly horrendous coaches too.</p><p></p><p>So, I've gone off on a mad tangent here so TL;DR: Don't listen to eggchasers when they talk about the pro 14, they haven't the foggiest and any difficulty a national side has isn't any fault of their league, at best simply the leagues simply supplement core issues.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Leonormous Boozer, post: 915705, member: 45598"] All of what BPM said is true but I'd like to add to it. Considering you're listening to eggchasers my advice would be to ignore almost anything they say about the pro 14, they don't watch it and basically everything they say about it is insulting and has no substance, this aspect of the podcast is also worse when Pro 14 sides are experiencing success over the Premiership sides. (According to that podcast when Pro 14 sides are doing well its because they rest their players, when they're doing badly its because they're not playing enough rugby) A huge difference between the pro 14 and, the top 14 (France) and Premiership is that the unions who run the pro 14 sides - Italy, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and, less so, South Africa - all know that due to the smaller populations of their countries they need successful national sides to sustain rugby at club level whereas England and France don't. As a result the Pro 14 has become a semi-developmental league with teams regularly using 45+ players in a season. This doesn't mean that if you watch the pro 14 you're going to see academy sides week after week though, apart from the first couple of rounds each season and during international windows its rare that you'd see games without current internationals but instead you see a mix of up and coming fringe players and the clubs' superstars whoever they may be. Fans of the pro 14 genuinely love it, you get to see young products of your club playing in the first XV a lot sooner than you would if you followed an English or French club while still seeing high quality rugby most of the time as well as it helping the international sides. Understandably fans of other leagues aren't so enthusiastic about it because they usually see the stars of the pro 14 playing against their teams in Europe and if they switch over to the pro 14 they will see a team sheet with a handful or more names that they don't recognise. The primary criticism that comes with this is that the pro 14 is less marketable because of it, this is true but it'd be a waste of time and resources for the pro 14 to try to compete with France's and England's television deals purely because of the population difference between the countries, attendance falls off a bit when a purely second string side is named but for the sake of maybe 8,000 more filled seats in a season it seems a bit pointless if it risks the success of the national side. On the flip side it is often argued that the extra game time players in the English and French leagues play disadvantages their national sides, it might but there's no hard evidence to say so, from 2004 to 2011 France were the strongest team in Europe with the league set up being exactly what it is today, same with England in 2016 and 2017 by some distance. In years where these two haven't been the best its been due to other factors in my opinion, France's national union have serious problems with internal politics and ever since they won the world cup England have simply struggled to produce players that are world class, walk into any team in the world type players, and when they've had them they've often been extremely injury prone. Both have also had some truly horrendous coaches too. So, I've gone off on a mad tangent here so TL;DR: Don't listen to eggchasers when they talk about the pro 14, they haven't the foggiest and any difficulty a national side has isn't any fault of their league, at best simply the leagues simply supplement core issues. [/QUOTE]
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Rugby Union
Premiership Rugby / Premiership Cup
Questions from a noob
Top