HARD HITTING VIEW
It feels strange that, although we are into the second weekend of October, the United Rugby Championship is really only just getting started.
Both Edinburgh and Glasgow played their third matches this weekend, with both facing South African opposition.
Normally, October would see the first round of European Cup matches being played, usually on this weekend. But since Covid interrupted the calendar along with the new URC ,the schedule of games has been radically rescheduled.
What’s more, the normal and familiar competition is adopting the same format as last season, which took a while to understand.
For Glasgow, who will play in the Champions Cup, teams are in two pools of 12, with four rounds of matches being played on a seeded basis to determine which teams progress to the knock-out stages of the competition.
Glasgow face La Rochelle away from home first, followed by an encounter with their former team-mates Stuart Hogg and Jonny Gray in the Exeter team a week later.
These matches don’t take place until just before Christmas on the 12th and 18th of December.
Edinburgh on the other hand, play in the lesser Challenge Cup. But their opponents are possibly even tougher than Glasgow’s.
They travel to past European
‘It may require a few slide-rules to work out the final permutations
Champions, Saracens, for their first match in their pool of five which will be a daunting first game for Mike Blair’s team.
Edinburgh’s other opponents at the group stage are Brive, London Irish and Section Paloise from South West France.
The top three teams in each group progress to the knock out stage, along with the highest-ranked fourth-placed club.
They are also joined by six clubs from the higher-ranked Champions Cup to make up the last 16 of the competition.
It is hardly straightforward and may require a few slide-rules to work out the final permutations.
The final pool matches of the Challenge Cup don’t take place until April of next year, so the knock-out stages of the competition are likely to run well into May. With the finals of both competitions taking place on the last weekend of the month.
It makes for a very elongated season, which along with the URC matches, is going to be demanding for players, especially when you overlay the other domestic competitions and internationals.
No longer are there just three autumn internationals, but four.
Coupled with the Six Nations, it is shaping up to be a very demanding and long season for the players and squad depth promises to be tested extensively.
Doubtless, the commercialisation of the game is driving some of the pressure on the calendar but the welldocumented risk to player welfare cannot be ignored.
The balance seems to be moving the wrong way at the moment.