This new set-up can only be good for Scottish rugby
There was a radical shakeup of the Pro14 this week as it was announced that the big guns of South African rugby were going to join the competition from next season.
The competition will also be re-branded from the start of the rugby year and will be known as the United Rugby Championship (URC) when the current teams will be joined by the Sharks, Stormers, Lions and Bulls.
The format will also change and have implications for European Cup rugby, as the South African teams will be eligible to qualify for the European Competitions from 2022.
Instead of conferences, there will be a single league with 21 games – down from the current 24 matches.
The teams will be divided into four regional pools, with the four teams from Wales, Ireland and South Africa forming three pools and Edinburgh and Glasgow combining with the Italian teams to form the final pool.
Each team will play home and away fixtures against the teams in their pools and the other teams in the league at least once, either home or away.
Teams from the northern hemisphere will play two matches in South Africa, while the South African teams will have two threematch tours during the season in the northern hemisphere.
At least one team from each pool will qualify to play in the Champions Cup in Europe, with the remaining four places going to the four best-placed teams in the final league standings.
It is a qualification process that will require many slide rules and much deliberation as it doesn’t appear to be particularly straightforward!
At the end of the main season, the top eight teams in the league will go into the play-offs to determine the ultimate winner of the snappily-named URC.
The introduction of the four premier South African teams is very exciting.
Having withdrawn from the Rugby Championship which involved the New Zealand and Australian provinces, the South African teams found themselves in the wilderness again, with only each other to play.
For them, European competition makes much more sense, given there is only travel fatigue to deal with, not jet-lag.
Doubtless, the new format has more-attractive commercial benefits as well. No surprise given the ownership changes that have taken place with private equity company, CVC.
TV rights will be more expensive for sure. But it will be a better, more-challenging competition to be a part of, which has to be good for Scottish rugby.
Meanwhile, the British & Irish Lions touring squad have been preparing for the first match of their campaign by enjoying what the Channel Islands have to offer, while ensuring that they bond as a group of players and men.
They face Japan next weekend at Murrayfield, in front of a small, but passionate crowd.
The warm-up game should be a formality, given the abundance of talent amongst the ranks of the Lions. But you can be sure that the Japanese will ensure it is an entertaining, fluid game of rugby.
The Lions opponents have grown in stature massively over the past few years. They took the scalps of Ireland and Scotland in the most recent Rugby World Cup and who can possibly forget the incredible scenes in Brighton when they defeated the current World Champions.
They cannot be underestimated. Yet the power of the Lions ought to prevail.
Gatland will select players and combinations and, while the outcome will be important, he will want to learn how these players perform as team-mates, rather than as opponents.
It will also give him a chance to see the evolving style of this year’s squad of players – a style that is going to have to be wellhoned by the time they take on the Springboks in the test series.
Whatever the result, it is wonderful for fans to be back in a stadium, watching live rugby – and what an occasion it will be because of that alone.
n Benetton yesterday capped a remarkable Guinness PRO14 Rainbow Cup campaign by upsetting the odds to thump the Bulls 35-8 in the Final.
Having failed to win a single match during the regular PRO14 season, the Italian club end 202021 as Rainbow Cup champions after stunning the winners of the South African section of the tournament in front of 1,250 fans in Treviso.