Good riddance to Italy’s free pass into Champions Cup
NEXT season will be the last time that the pool stage of Europe’s premier club tournament features what often amounts to a walkover.
From 2018-19 the Champions Cup will be contested by the continent’s 20 best teams, or at least as close to that vision as any multi-league qualification formula can deliver.
The Italian safety net has been removed. There will be no quota in deciding which teams from the Guinness Pro12 make the cut.
Yesterday’s announcement by EPCR revealed that the 20 would be made up of the top six clubs from the Aviva Premiership, the top six from France’s Top 14, and the top seven from the Pro 12, irrespective of nationality.
The final place will go to the winners of next season’s Challenge Cup, which will galvanise that event and end the current farcical play- off process, which begins tonight when Stade Francais face Cardiff Blues.
By removing the guarantee that ensured one team from each of the nations involved in the Pro12 — Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales — must be involved in the Champions Cup, an injustice will end.
No longer can an Italian side who come 11th go into the blue-riband competition ahead of a rival team who finish four places above them.
The Italians have too often provided opponents with walkovers, the upshot being that the pool draw goes a long way to deciding progress to the quarter-finals. More often than not, two sides advance from the pool containing the Italian team, having filled their boots in those mis-matches.
But what this means is that the map of European rugby will shrink. Europe will mean the home nations and France, and even the Gallic presence is fading due to the decline of Toulouse. Add in the fact that the Celtic challenge amounts to Leinster and Munster, and there is a distinct lack of variety.
In the short term at least, this qualification reform won’t do wonders for Conor O’Shea’s Azzurri salvage operation.
The Champions Cup will be stronger, but narrower. It’s a strange sort of progress.