Semi Final Draw

[Prestwick]

Well to be fair, Gloucester did score more points than Munster and thus have the advantage. Seeding would have done bugger all about your away Quarter Final. And Ireland doesn't have a stadium big enough in the hands of people agreeable enough to allow Munster to play in order to meet ERC requirements.

 

[Gavin]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from the top seeded sides, just seems a bit odd that the two previous winners of the Heineken Cup and the winners of the Challenge Cup are all put in the same pool.

All it means is that Munster will have to go on the road before lifting the trophy :bana:



On the Rugby Club tonight Will "The Great Commentator" Greenwood said about the seedings and that it was unfair, but I guess that's life.



Munster could play at Lansdown Road or even Croke Park, image the atmosphere with the whole county of Munster filling Croke Park, it was be completely amazing.

 

[An Tarbh]

well the ground won't be a problem from next season as Thomond Park would host a home semi final for the Irish teams, 26000 more than meets requirements and Munster will get away with using it cause Toulouse have set a precedent already.

As for the seeding well that's another thing entirely. It certainly worked out unfair for the Irish sides with Ulster who qualified as the 3rd Irish side getting the easiest draw while Leinster and Munster both got their own pool of death. Not to mention the top 2 English sides also getting a whore of a draw. Only Paris got an easy draw out of the top sides and they managed to make a balls of their pool.

I think that previous performances in say the last 5 tournaments should count towards seeding combined with the current system.

So let's take Leinster as an example, they finished last season as top Irish team, so that should see them allocated a number of points and their 5 previous efforts should also be counted with say 5 points for winning the tournament, 4 for the runner-up, 3 for semi-finals, 2 for the quarters and 1 for the pool stage. Given that there's more teams from England and France, the points allocated for league positions would have to weighted but I'm sure there's someone capable of coming up with a fair formula.

Would have been interesting to see what Greenwood had to say about it all, must catch the replay tomorrow.

 

[DonBilly]

Well the current seeding system can lead to inconsistencies for sure but what can be the fall-back? I guess kind of ranking like the one the IRB manages for the nation sides. The point is that it will be difficult to get this combined ranking based on the domestic leagues.

Maybe they should look to what the UEFA uses to set up the seeding of the Champion's League.

 

[Tnebreux]

Sure, the current system can be unfair. But a seeding system like the World Cup one can make pool matches quite boring (how did you like the matches in NZ's pool?). At least this way, you get some tension every week, if not in every pool.
But it is frustrating to see Clermont out for not having scored 1 point more against Munster!

 

[An Tarbh]

well I don't think anyone ever said the system in the world cup was fair either, in fact the world cup draw was pretty much a carbon copy of the HEC draw with the pools of death and the easy pools.

 

[Maz]

For me the best solution for the Hcup in the future for équilibrated the pool and up the Lv of the Hcup is to created a European best team classement same in football wiht the best 4 in the first group the team 5->8 in the 2... and limited the Hcup at 4 groups (4 best french/England team; italian champion ; last Hcup winner and the best 6 team of the celtic league !) after we have only 4 groups with 1 of the 4 best européan team 1 of the 5->8 best européan team... ) the winner of each group play 1/4 at home and the second play 1/4 away and the 3 of each group go in european challange same in foot.