No South Africa trip for Ulster as Rainbow Cup format revealed
ULSTER and Dan Mcfarland will not be travelling to South Africa in the Rainbow Cup after the format of the new competition was confirmed yesterday.
Viewed as something of a dry run for the inclusion of the four South African ‘super franchises’ into what will become the PRO16 next season, the initial proposal had involved two eight-team conferences with each side playing seven games including one cross-continent away trip.
However, in light of travel restrictions still in place, such plans have been shelved and instead each team will play only six games, three of them ‘derbies’, with the South African sides coming to the northern hemisphere for rounds four through six.
Ulster will begin by hosting Connacht on the weekend of April 24, before making trips to both Munster and Leinster.
Having played among themselves for the first three weeks, round four on May 29 will therefore represent the first clashes that the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers will have against their new northern hemisphere league-mates, pending approval from the relevant authorities and governments.
Despite the uneven fixture list, the two sides compiling the most points from their unique six-game slates will then contest a final to round things off.
The reason that today’s PRO14 final comes so early in the year and without preceding knockout games, there had been doubts that the Rainbow Cup could be facilitated at all given the ongoing pandemic.
Such a scenario, with a season unnecessarily brought to a close in March, would have left competition organisers with egg on their face but yesterday the PRO14’S tournament director David Jordan said he was pleased to belatedly bring at least a degree of certainty to proceedings.
“Everyone is glad that we can now put some certainty into the rugby calendar in what has been an unpredictable period,” he said.
“Planning for a cross-hemisphere competition where the situation has been so fluid has provided many challenges, but we believe we have found a solution that is practical and safe to deliver a unique competition that supporters can get excited about.
“Throughout the Guinness PRO14 season, we have liaised with our unions and their governments to ensure we are meeting the conditions set out for elite sport to operate.
“We are very grateful for that support, without which a cross-border competition such as ours could not have taken place.”
Quite how teams approach the seemingly one-off competition at the end of a long season will be interesting to monitor.
Given the negative impact upon what became a significantly curtailed league season, there was an obvious financial imperative to see the plans for these games come to fruition, while home-based Springboks may appreciate the added game time ahead of the still-planned Lions tour. However, the sides who have already taken part in the league will essentially now have a 12-month campaign having started pre-season last June.