Originally posted by Club Delegate:
Does the Heineken Cup matter that much outside of Ireland

Originally posted by glasandbán:
French and English teams have to work to avoid relegation and I think play more matches as it is so they don`t get to focus on the Euro cup as well as the Irish teams. Or the Welsh, but they`ve been poor historically.

Originally posted by Yojimbo:
In contrast, the English clubs always seemed to be `well up for it`

Originally posted by sam:


That flies directly in the face of Keith Woods review of the recent rout of Leicester by Ulster, where he said Leicester looked half interested. The French are always fielding weakened teams, i think outside the top French clubs you over-rate the depth they have available.

Originally posted by Club Delegate:
Looking at the Cardiff and Edinburgh matches yesterday in half empty stadiums it was hard to credit that both were actually chasing    (and were ultimately successful   )    in getting qualification for knock out stages.

Its only the Irish provinces who regularly seem to sell out their games. French teams bar Toulouse don`t seem interested in the tournament and field weakened teams away from home.

English sides seem to place priority on their domestic league.

Welsh despite outperforming Ireland at international level have never seemed to embraced the tournament and have only ever provided a finalist once, in the very first year of the tournament.

This message has been edited - 23-jan-2012 @ 16:08

Originally posted by sam:
He said it on the radio, think it was the day after that match, so the full context was pretty unmistakeable, as in - I don`t want to take anything away from Ulster BUT ...

Originally posted by loughcurraman:

The Irish teams have an advantage in this competition imo cos they are regional teams not club teams + so have a much wider fan appeal. That was a really smart move by the IRFU cos if they had gone the club route and given Heino representation to the top 3 of the AIL, crowds would be tiny + rugby would not have the mass appeal here that it has today.
That`s where the Welsh + Scottish clubs are hamstrung imo. First of all soccer is way more popular in Scotland than rugby but regardless, what appeal would Edinborough have for a rugby fan frm Dundee or what appeal would Glasgow have to a rugby fan from the Highlands?. Similar in Wales I would say with Cardiff and Ospreys. Probably would have as little appeal as Shannon or Garryowen would for a Waterford man or Lansdowne or Clontarf would have for a Kildare man.
Whatever about the English the domestic league is the No. 1 priority for the French. For both it`s a valuable revenue stream though

Originally posted by theface2010:


The Welsh teams are, in effect, regional teams. Neath-Swansea Opreys are an amalgamation of clubs. Cardiff are a regional side as are the Dragons. The Celtic Warriors were an amalgamation of Bridgend and Pontypridd before they were disbanded. The low attendances at Ospreys and Cardiff matches baffle me as rugby is the No. 1 sport in Wales and both of these teams are usually competitive enough. You get 80000 Welsh at every national game yet p1ss poor attendances in the Magners and HC-they are obviously not doing as good a job as the IRFU at marketing the games.

Originally posted by theface2010:
You get 80000 Welsh at every national game yet p1ss poor attendances in the Magners and HC-they are obviously not doing as good a job as the IRFU at marketing the games.

Originally posted by T_de_B:


I think you`ve got that árse about face   (begging your pardon  )  .

It is obvious that serious rugby nations differentiate between real rugby competitions and what is in reality just a glorified pub competition, which ironically enough is sponsored by a beer company.

Marketing has nothing to do with it.

It`s all about self respect.

Originally posted by loughcurraman:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Club Delegate:
what appeal would Edinborough have for a rugby fan frm Dundee or what appeal would Glasgow have to a rugby fan from the Highlands?. Similar in Wales I would say with Cardiff and Ospreys. Probably would have as little appeal as Shannon or Garryowen would for a Waterford man or Lansdowne or Clontarf would have for a Kildare man.

Originally posted by cowpat:


what appeal does Liverpool have for a man from Limerick?

This message has been edited - 23-jan-2012 @ 17:45

This message has been edited - 23-jan-2012 @ 18:34

Originally posted by Rufty:
Playing rugby over here in England I can indeed vouch for the fact that the Heineken Cup does have quite a large following over here. It`s covered hugely in the papers, especially the Metro here in London. As stated above, if a club had to choose between staving off relegation and progressing in the HC then they`d take the former however, that is not very often the case. People seem to think the French teams have no interest as they don`t do well in their away European games however, traditionally, even within the Top14, French club teams are awful away from home. They came from a culture of, "win the home games and that`ll be enough to see us through to next season, anything else in a bonus that`ll have us in the running at the end of the season". That culture is still in the French game today and has followed them into Europe. Simply stated, the answer the question: yes it does have a serious impact outside of Ireland. It`s just the usual Irish begrudgers that always let on it`s not.

Originally posted by c:
it`s something that bewilders me in professional sport - that home advantage can have such a big role. two sets of highly paid sportsmen playing against each other in a completely different fashion depending on where the pitch is.

Originally posted by Yojimbo:

I know he features regularly on Newstalk, and I may have heard him refer to the particular game.
I think he might have said something along the lines of this Leicester side not being the force they once were, so I suspect their resolve was probably broken early on, particularly when they could see that Ulster were clearly the better side, even if the final score flattered them.

This Ulster side might well be their best ever side in the professional era, even better than their Cup-winning side, when the competition wouldn`t have been as strong

This message has been edited - 24-jan-2012 @ 00:51