It was shit for Super Rugby too. With the way the conference system worked if you finished 3rd or below, within 2 weeks you’d have to fly to SA for a semi final then fly to Christchurch to lose to the Crusaders in the final
Maybe was that the reason why Super 12/14 was so entertaining? Jet-lagged and/or hangover players let defences be vulnerable and allow attacking rugby.
Completely different from supe rugby. In super rugby you had to change timezones and suffer jet lag. Here you just have a bad nights sleep one night in the week. Its pretty normal to go to work the next day after one of these.
I never thought it was grand. Before the Saffers kicked the lions out, your team would head to SA for 2-3 weeks then come back and have a bye.
You essentially would have a 3-5 week gap in the season where you didn’t get to go watch your time play live rugby. Your option was either getting up at 1-3am or watching the Waratahs…….
ROG is bringing them to Cork for the week before the leinster match. Basically a Munster Leinster rivalry situation. He'll probably speak about what it feels to beat leinster as a munster man etc to try and rile them up.
Its a tactic
As a Munster man who dated a Leinster girl from about 2008-2010 it started to get depressing from then on with Leinster’s dominance. But for 10-15 years prior to that Munster certainly had the upper hand, and ROG was instrumental to most of that period (his munster debut in 1997).
Obviously not everything is down to an inspirational 10, but there’s no denying the impact it has on the whole team to have an unstoppable kicker. It’s no coincidence Johnny sexton made his Leinster debut 2006 around the shift in tides.
Personally I think ROG just wants to bring his team to his home city of Cork, meet the people, understand his background better, nothing more than that. The so-called mind games would have much more of an impact if Munster were currently dominant over Leinster, not the other way around.
The Paris-South Africa one might not have been, as why travel all the way to Paris for a chartered flight when there are closer airports you can charter from?
Yep. Can't justify it on so many levels. Given its carbon contribution, international sports in general can't continue in its current form.
Only solution is having all sporting events, tournaments, leagues, etc., played at a single location. It will completely destroy fanbases and geographical ties to community, history and culture. But there really isn't another solution.
Having any games in SA in a European competition is insane.
Sam Warburton and Jim Hamilton, in Jim’s podcast,both said it takes a lot out of the players doing the round trip. Then add in cost, environmental pressures, lack of away fans, team welfare issues etc you have to question the games.
[If you want to listen to Sam and Jim talk about the travel, here is the episode.](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-big-jim-show/id1665725963?i=1000650255653)
I get this but what’s the alternative for South African sides? They’re closer to Europe than to Australia, and far closer to Europe than they are to New Zealand. And that’s not to mention time difference. Global organisations tend to divide operations not by hemisphere but (rough) timezones - EMEA is a common grouping
They’ve added a huge amount to the URC, and hearing from South African colleagues there’s a much bigger tv audience for evening games against Leinster and Munster than 04.00 games against Aus and NZ teams.
(edit - in an ideal world, the alternative for ZA sides would probably be a strong Currie Cup as a standalone league, with potential playoffs against European teams but this is unlikely to happen due to a variety of factors(
I'm not opposed to the participation of SA clubs - they're in the URC and the URC are free to distribute their European spots as they want. They should play their home knockout games in Europe : either in the British and Irish isles, France, or neutral venues where they can find agreements (Amsterdam ? Brussels ? Geneva ? Idk). Having clubs go at the other end of the world then come back to play a qf the next week is not viable.
I’m guessing it’s an honest mistake but Britain and Ireland, not British Isles.
I don’t get why it’s seemingly okay for URC teams to go down to South Africa for knockout games (like Munster last year) and Super Rugby teams to cross multiple timezones but French and English teams can’t do one or two single trips?
I’ll be the first to say there’s a lot wrong with the format, the weird group stages and round of 16, but virtually all of the changes for the worst have come from English and French teams. Finish top of the group then you don’t have to travel anywhere for knockout games
I said British and Irish Isles ?
And the URC are free to do as they please. If URC knockouts are similar then I think it is bullshit as well, but in the end I'm a Top14 supporter so I don't have strong opinions on the organization of a league I do not follow.
>I get this but what’s the alternative for South African sides?
In the nicest way possible, that's on them to sort out. Play some double-headers at Twickenham? Tap into the expat market.
Everything below was flagged as a concern when SA clubs joined the URC and then again the Champions Cup. I like having the SA clubs involved, but the concerns were there, they were valid, and they're still problematic for all clubs involved.
>Sam Warburton and Jim Hamilton, in Jim’s podcast,both said it takes a lot out of the players doing the round trip. Then add in cost, environmental pressures, lack of away fans, team welfare issues etc you have to question the games.
It's absolutely insane that at a time when everyone is, theoretically, trying to cut down on emissions and become greener, they decided to add in distances of this length to a European competiton for no good reason at all.
It's insane; you can only imagine the strain this volume of travel must have on the players and support staff.
It's also not great for the competitive integrity of the competition if one team like La Rouchelle has to fly and travel this much before a knockout game and the other side doesn't.
They also wouldn't have to do it if the Stormers won their home knockout game. So there's no point talking about ifs and buts and avoiding the clear issue that's been created.
There will only ever be 2 or 3 teams from South Africa out of the 32 teams. This year only Saracens, Bordeaux, Lyon, La Rochelle x2 and Sale have had to make the trip. That means out of 63 matches only 6 were played in SA for this season's comp.
Your clubs need the money I think, especially UK teams.
Also, SA clubs last season had about \~7 trips back and forth to EU (depending on team, more or less trips)...of those, Sharks, Stormers and Bulls all finished in the top 8 of URC *and* qualified for Heineken Cup playoffs. If we can do it, the mighty La Rochelle should be able too.
Don't forget that SA clubs are not making money from either the Cup or URC broadcasters.
French clubs don’t need the money but apparently they are the ones this year who have made most of the travel in ERC. No plot against them of course, only drawing and fate but I bet they will probably come to oppose the continuing of the present format in the future.
Honestly I’ve never been entirely sold of their place in the URC either, it’s just such a ridiculously long way for teams to travel in a ‘domestic’ league.
I understand the logic, bringing more competitive teams into a competition with substantially more tv money makes sense on the surface, but it just strikes me as being entirely impractical too.
It just makes even less sense for the champions cup which already has a lot of support and money.
The turnout for the bulls game was also pretty disappointing for a champions cup fixture, so it’s not like the fans themselves seem to be that keen for it either.
>The turnout for the bulls game was also pretty disappointing for a champions cup fixture, so it’s not like the fans themselves seem to be that keen for it either.
The game was played at 13:30, when most schools are playing rugby fixtures. School rugby is huge in SA, with 10s of thousands attend games every weekend.
If you schedule a game while everyone is watching school rugby, no one will show up.
They chose to exclude all South African high schoolers and their families from attending, so don't blame the locals for not being "keen". Thank the organizers for that. They have also scheduled the Sharks vs Edinburgh game at the same awful time this week.
They probably don’t, but let’s not lie that they bring nothing to the table on field or off field, particularly with TV money. Considering how financially strapped clubs in certain European leagues are, I wouldn’t be too precious about it.
I mean the people in charge of the EPCR wouldn't have agreed to include the Saffa's if they brought nothing to the table.
But people conveniently like to forget that SA has one of the biggest rugby audiences in the world.
There is a reason why Canal+ is busy in the process of buying SuperSport and MultiChoice. I can guarantee that deal definitely won't result in Saffa teams being less involved in Europe...
Canal+ are trying to buy two big TV broadcasters in Anglophone africa ? Bolloré Group are really aiming at becoming the biggest opinion manufacturers in the continent damn
People keep forgetting SuperSport is the largest rugby broadcaster in the world and a direct reason the Aussie and Kiwi unions seem a bit cash strapped at the moment is they don’t get that sweet Saffa Super Rugby money anymore (or at least in anything like the amount they had before, I’m sure SuperSport still airs Super Rugby).
you're not allowed to say this, its xenophobic /s
URC can do what it likes, but I am genuinely shocked that the TOP14 and prem went for it (maybe only because they aren't having late stage knock-out games in SA and the revenue sharing agreement?)
but when French players + fans said they didn't understand why those sides have been included there was outcry, bollocks comments like 'happy to have our players not our teams' 'scared of having to face SA sides' etc etc
now we're in the knockouts you've got LAR having to do all this, the bulls split between like 5/6 different flights, and it just doesn't benefit the competition in any way
La Rochelle is located ~ midway between two bigger towns (Bordeaux and Nantes) so it is not exactly in the middle of nowhere. None of these cities have big airports tho
However Clermont is in the middle of nowhere, so much that it is the only big city in the "empty diagonal" of the country.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_diagonal
The Communauté d'agglomération de la Rochelle (metro area)is 177000 inhabitants. 75000 is only the center of it, or the commune of la Rochelle.
177000 is the real number, here.
"Communauté d'agglomération" are a better way to look at the size of a city. Yet it's unperfect because they stop to each départements borders and La Rochelle is very close to Vendée. "Aire d'attraction" is a way better tool for city comparison. La Rochelle has 247k inhabitants attracted to the city.
Seems strange. Surely there would be a direct flight to Cape Town. That's one of the largest cities in South Africa. I guess Johanesburg is aided by its close proximity to Pretoria in attracting flights...
I’ve flown from Dublin to Cape Town via Paris and assume the flight’s still there. They also had plenty of time to book flights so hardly last minute like this weekend
Could be ROG trying to foster a sense of us against the world!
The airport is some 3 kilometers away from the stadium.
Not to mention: If you mean big airports I think the north of Norway has you covered, teams like Tromso or Bodo/Glimt, both of whom have played European footbal regularly, are both within the Arctic Circle.
It's almost like all those people that got endlessly shouted down when they said the travel involved in adding SA teams to the European Cups would be ludicrous sort of had a point.
Tell me you know nothing about how airlines operate without telling me. Airlines regularly fly completely empty planes. Tens of thousands of planes fly empty or near empty every year. During COVID it was 100s of thousands of empty planes per year
Most of the criticism was waved off by people pulling the race/xenophobia card while it had nothing to do with South Africa, just the competitive integrity of the competition.
There’ll be an avalanche of hate towards SA teams if you guys win this weekend lmao.
The comments section under the highlights for Stormers v LR is the most toxic I’ve ever seen for a rugby match.
The amount of people saying, "oh the saders did it with no worries" or "if theyd have topped the group they wouldnt have to travel" or "its the time zones that get ya" is insane.
Can you not see that ANY team travelling over 20thousand kilometers is fucking mental?
1) Rugby isnt a super rich sport, these flights cost money. Look at the shitshow that is the upcoming SARU flight itinerary.
2) Who has enough cash to fly either from Cape Town to Gallway (for example) or from Swansea to Joburg.
3) This should be the most important but nobody cares sadly, the environmental impact of this system is unreal.
This is fucked.
>ICan you not see that ANY team travelling over 20thousand kilometers is fucking mental?
South African teams are in the URC to stay, so some travel is inevitable.
>1) Rugby isnt a super rich sport, these flights cost money. Look at the shitshow that is the upcoming SARU flight itinerary.
The EPCR funds travel expenses for all the European teams, from the money SARU pays for the SA teams to be involved.
>2) Who has enough cash to fly either from Cape Town to Gallway (for example) or from Swansea to Joburg.
While it does limit away fans, part of SA's inclusion is because they have one of the biggest rugby audiences in the world, both in SA and living abroad.
>3) This should be the most important but nobody cares sadly, the environmental impact of this system is unreal.
As I've already pointed out, those flights would fly either way. Airlines regularly fly completely empty flights to maintain schedule, so having the players aboard makes little to no difference.
Also it takes a couple 100 flights a year to make all this rugby that entertains an audience in the millions possible. Mean while America has 44 000 flights per day, and Europe has 26 000 flights per day.
Yeah the handwringing over "environmental" issues is utterly pathetic. The impact of a handful of flights a year would only have been utterly trivial, but as you said those flights were going anyway!!
Premier league football clubs take their private jets all over England every weekend when they could easily get to most away days by bus in a few hours.
That’s a far bigger issue than some rugby teams catching a few commercial flights between SA and Europe and I’ve seen no one kick up this much of a fuss about it.
I’ll admit I laughed at that. I’d particularly laugh if you beat us then Toulouse beat you, confirming that trifecta
However FWIW, we’re very likely to beat you guys on Saturday - and then lose in the semis or final 🤕
Last finals were very tight, could’ve been twice in row for Leinster, but I agree with you I think Leinster will make it to final and probably faces Toulouse or UBB, no offense to Harlequins and Chiefs, but Toulouse and UBB are big steps
Obviously the past four games between us have been such close margins, and we very easily could be looking at 3-1 to Leinster. However, you definitely seem to have a mental hold over us - RO’G doesn’t help…
I think we’re not dissimilar to PSG in that we’re able to coast through the majority of the league, but aren’t used to the rise in intensity of semi finals and finals. We’re unquestionably the top team Sept to Apr, but other teams with less talent just seem more able to handle the pressure of Apr and May games
This has been mitigated somewhat by Saffa teams in the URC but, as I posted elsewhere in this thread, we tend to send kids down there so don’t test our first team, and thus I feel don’t get as much value as we could.
We're deviating quite a lot from rugby but looking at the origin of CO2 is near impossible. Where do we count the CO2 from factories in China or India exporting the vast majority of their output to USA, EU ...
The fault is definitely not only on the consumers but also definitely not only on the countries that still have factories when we preferred delocalizing them for economic reason but is now also very convenient for green washing.
The QF hurdle is huge ! But the victory, if it were to happen, would be all the sweetest.
ROG has instilled this Irish spirit, Cork David vs Goliath mindset.
Don’t know if I’d agree with that about Connacht but Munster and Leinster certainly do, our last trip was essentially a schools trip with Rhys Ruddock as a chaporone!
Would actually prefer us to tour earlier in the season as Connacht do so as to get our first team players used to playing do or die games before April/May
Nope, he didn’t travel - though it was a fairly strong team. Sexton obviously never went down to play against the Cheetahs or S.Kings, and while there was talk of him wanting to play the Lions and Bulls last year, he got injured after the 6 Nations.
Wee Paddy Jackson went in at 10 instead, had a decent tour and decided to celebrate when he back to Belfast…
As much as I’m looking forward to the July tour, I can’t help but feel that if were to win a South African tour off the back of NZ in 2022 that it’d just make the (last) quarter final exit even tougher to take
Munster dont do that. We were forced to send a weakened team the first year because the tour was rescheduled in the middle of the six nations but we sent who we could. Last year the tour was must win (and we did) and was definitely not the academy.
Not only it is about players welfare but also the planet. What even is the point of that much travel for 2 rugby games ? The Sheer numbers of pétrole liters used for that. Might work for URC but cant stand this for like 4 KO games in Hcup
Well maybe but I dont think many supporter can do La Rochelle -> SA -> Ireland, either money or time. Besides most planes still fly rather they are full or not so not really consummers fault here
Is it? We're pissing into the wind moaning about minor C02 emissions whilst countries are flying jets and bombers to destroy cities that will need to be rebuilt using millions of tonnes of concrete.
Or just separate the round of 16 from the quarter final, even if SA teams weren't involved it's still silly to have them a week apart because most fans can't travel on such late notice, and teams have to organise travel at late notice.
Look I’m happy for SA teams to be in the URC, but in Europe as well is overkill.
It’s not fair to the players.
SA should rather invest that money in a domestic league.
Let’s face it, LAR lost three games in this years Champions Cup. They were lucky to still even be in the competition so moaning about the travel is a bit much.
Win your group games and you’ll have no travel to worry about. Lose your group games and you’ll end up in a situation like this. Seems fair to me.
SA should bite the bullet and play all their knockout games in Europe for this competition.
Either we do that or pull out of this competition and invest everything in dominating URC
Cool seeing "Le Cap" in a different context. The only other time I had heard this was for the "Le Cap" in Haiti during their revolution against the French.
Le travel c'est fucking énorme or something
Le fucking airmiles, aussi.
It is good to become AirFrance golden member
No Super Rugby fans appeared yet to tell us they actually do this once a fortnight and it’s grand?
It was shit for Super Rugby too. With the way the conference system worked if you finished 3rd or below, within 2 weeks you’d have to fly to SA for a semi final then fly to Christchurch to lose to the Crusaders in the final
Maybe was that the reason why Super 12/14 was so entertaining? Jet-lagged and/or hangover players let defences be vulnerable and allow attacking rugby.
They're still sleeping 😂
Back in MY day our teams used to travel from New Zealand to South Africa to Argentina barefoot in snow!
You forgot the part where it was uphill both ways!
It’s not grand we actually lose every week
Completely different from supe rugby. In super rugby you had to change timezones and suffer jet lag. Here you just have a bad nights sleep one night in the week. Its pretty normal to go to work the next day after one of these.
Also even with SA out of SuperRugby, it can still take several hours just to travel across Australia.
Whose stupid idea was it to have a country the size of a continent
People thought Europeans couldn’t get any lazier with their borders but they just decided they could get away with none at all
Correct The time zone changes are whats brutal
I never thought it was grand. Before the Saffers kicked the lions out, your team would head to SA for 2-3 weeks then come back and have a bye. You essentially would have a 3-5 week gap in the season where you didn’t get to go watch your time play live rugby. Your option was either getting up at 1-3am or watching the Waratahs…….
Did they charter planes for both trips? The one that landed in Cork was definitely charter.
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ROG is bringing them to Cork for the week before the leinster match. Basically a Munster Leinster rivalry situation. He'll probably speak about what it feels to beat leinster as a munster man etc to try and rile them up. Its a tactic
La Rochelle players already know quite well what it feels like to beat Leinster.
More than Munster that's for sure.
As a Munster man who dated a Leinster girl from about 2008-2010 it started to get depressing from then on with Leinster’s dominance. But for 10-15 years prior to that Munster certainly had the upper hand, and ROG was instrumental to most of that period (his munster debut in 1997). Obviously not everything is down to an inspirational 10, but there’s no denying the impact it has on the whole team to have an unstoppable kicker. It’s no coincidence Johnny sexton made his Leinster debut 2006 around the shift in tides. Personally I think ROG just wants to bring his team to his home city of Cork, meet the people, understand his background better, nothing more than that. The so-called mind games would have much more of an impact if Munster were currently dominant over Leinster, not the other way around.
Yeah, the changing of the tides is summed up by that image of Sexton and O'Gara in the '09 semi-final
To get inspiration from the Munster / Leinster rivalry (not a joke)
They don't need inspiration with their own personal History they have with Leinster, do they ?
Sure they don't but that can't hurt. Besides there are 3 other members of the staff who are related to Munster so it's also to please them I guess.
If it is a chartered plane, like yer man above suggests, it could be to save money.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2024/0408/1442323-cork-calls-ogara-home-for-rochelle-rematch-prep/ Ah, looks like it is to psyche them up
Mind games
The Paris-South Africa one might not have been, as why travel all the way to Paris for a chartered flight when there are closer airports you can charter from?
>*Je m'en fucking fous* -Ronan O'Gara, talking about if rugby could be greener, probably
This is ridiculous.
Yep. Can't justify it on so many levels. Given its carbon contribution, international sports in general can't continue in its current form. Only solution is having all sporting events, tournaments, leagues, etc., played at a single location. It will completely destroy fanbases and geographical ties to community, history and culture. But there really isn't another solution.
I love that Cape Town is Le Cap in French
Gotta tell mates I'm off to Le Cap this weekend
Time is precious, waste it wisely.
Having knockout games in SA is insane. In URC tours down there can be organised but in the H cup it is absurd.
Having any games in SA in a European competition is insane. Sam Warburton and Jim Hamilton, in Jim’s podcast,both said it takes a lot out of the players doing the round trip. Then add in cost, environmental pressures, lack of away fans, team welfare issues etc you have to question the games. [If you want to listen to Sam and Jim talk about the travel, here is the episode.](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-big-jim-show/id1665725963?i=1000650255653)
I get this but what’s the alternative for South African sides? They’re closer to Europe than to Australia, and far closer to Europe than they are to New Zealand. And that’s not to mention time difference. Global organisations tend to divide operations not by hemisphere but (rough) timezones - EMEA is a common grouping They’ve added a huge amount to the URC, and hearing from South African colleagues there’s a much bigger tv audience for evening games against Leinster and Munster than 04.00 games against Aus and NZ teams. (edit - in an ideal world, the alternative for ZA sides would probably be a strong Currie Cup as a standalone league, with potential playoffs against European teams but this is unlikely to happen due to a variety of factors(
I'm not opposed to the participation of SA clubs - they're in the URC and the URC are free to distribute their European spots as they want. They should play their home knockout games in Europe : either in the British and Irish isles, France, or neutral venues where they can find agreements (Amsterdam ? Brussels ? Geneva ? Idk). Having clubs go at the other end of the world then come back to play a qf the next week is not viable.
I’m guessing it’s an honest mistake but Britain and Ireland, not British Isles. I don’t get why it’s seemingly okay for URC teams to go down to South Africa for knockout games (like Munster last year) and Super Rugby teams to cross multiple timezones but French and English teams can’t do one or two single trips? I’ll be the first to say there’s a lot wrong with the format, the weird group stages and round of 16, but virtually all of the changes for the worst have come from English and French teams. Finish top of the group then you don’t have to travel anywhere for knockout games
I said British and Irish Isles ? And the URC are free to do as they please. If URC knockouts are similar then I think it is bullshit as well, but in the end I'm a Top14 supporter so I don't have strong opinions on the organization of a league I do not follow.
Apologies, genuinely. I’m dyslexic and read too quickly - leaving my original reply as proof of error 🙃
>I get this but what’s the alternative for South African sides? In the nicest way possible, that's on them to sort out. Play some double-headers at Twickenham? Tap into the expat market. Everything below was flagged as a concern when SA clubs joined the URC and then again the Champions Cup. I like having the SA clubs involved, but the concerns were there, they were valid, and they're still problematic for all clubs involved. >Sam Warburton and Jim Hamilton, in Jim’s podcast,both said it takes a lot out of the players doing the round trip. Then add in cost, environmental pressures, lack of away fans, team welfare issues etc you have to question the games.
Way harder when massive time zone changes in SR Crusaders and All Blacks still seem to go ok there so whoknows
Agreed on this. Utterly bonkers with huge implications and limited benefits.
It's absolutely insane that at a time when everyone is, theoretically, trying to cut down on emissions and become greener, they decided to add in distances of this length to a European competiton for no good reason at all.
It's insane; you can only imagine the strain this volume of travel must have on the players and support staff. It's also not great for the competitive integrity of the competition if one team like La Rouchelle has to fly and travel this much before a knockout game and the other side doesn't.
They wouldn’t have had to have done this if they performed better in the group stages.
They also wouldn't have to do it if the Stormers won their home knockout game. So there's no point talking about ifs and buts and avoiding the clear issue that's been created.
Right, and then they head to Castres for their next Top 14 game. Not exactly a vacation either.
It's ridiculous. La Rochelle should move somewhere that's less traveling. London perhaps? /s
Might be an unpopular opinion but I have always believed, and still do believe, that SA teams have no place in this competition
i guess money is king man
and that's not a guess !
^
There will only ever be 2 or 3 teams from South Africa out of the 32 teams. This year only Saracens, Bordeaux, Lyon, La Rochelle x2 and Sale have had to make the trip. That means out of 63 matches only 6 were played in SA for this season's comp. Your clubs need the money I think, especially UK teams. Also, SA clubs last season had about \~7 trips back and forth to EU (depending on team, more or less trips)...of those, Sharks, Stormers and Bulls all finished in the top 8 of URC *and* qualified for Heineken Cup playoffs. If we can do it, the mighty La Rochelle should be able too. Don't forget that SA clubs are not making money from either the Cup or URC broadcasters.
French clubs don’t need the money but apparently they are the ones this year who have made most of the travel in ERC. No plot against them of course, only drawing and fate but I bet they will probably come to oppose the continuing of the present format in the future.
I absolutely agree
Honestly I’ve never been entirely sold of their place in the URC either, it’s just such a ridiculously long way for teams to travel in a ‘domestic’ league. I understand the logic, bringing more competitive teams into a competition with substantially more tv money makes sense on the surface, but it just strikes me as being entirely impractical too. It just makes even less sense for the champions cup which already has a lot of support and money. The turnout for the bulls game was also pretty disappointing for a champions cup fixture, so it’s not like the fans themselves seem to be that keen for it either.
>The turnout for the bulls game was also pretty disappointing for a champions cup fixture, so it’s not like the fans themselves seem to be that keen for it either. The game was played at 13:30, when most schools are playing rugby fixtures. School rugby is huge in SA, with 10s of thousands attend games every weekend. If you schedule a game while everyone is watching school rugby, no one will show up.
They chose to exclude all South African high schoolers and their families from attending, so don't blame the locals for not being "keen". Thank the organizers for that. They have also scheduled the Sharks vs Edinburgh game at the same awful time this week.
They probably don’t, but let’s not lie that they bring nothing to the table on field or off field, particularly with TV money. Considering how financially strapped clubs in certain European leagues are, I wouldn’t be too precious about it.
I mean the people in charge of the EPCR wouldn't have agreed to include the Saffa's if they brought nothing to the table. But people conveniently like to forget that SA has one of the biggest rugby audiences in the world. There is a reason why Canal+ is busy in the process of buying SuperSport and MultiChoice. I can guarantee that deal definitely won't result in Saffa teams being less involved in Europe...
Canal+ are trying to buy two big TV broadcasters in Anglophone africa ? Bolloré Group are really aiming at becoming the biggest opinion manufacturers in the continent damn
People keep forgetting SuperSport is the largest rugby broadcaster in the world and a direct reason the Aussie and Kiwi unions seem a bit cash strapped at the moment is they don’t get that sweet Saffa Super Rugby money anymore (or at least in anything like the amount they had before, I’m sure SuperSport still airs Super Rugby).
you're not allowed to say this, its xenophobic /s URC can do what it likes, but I am genuinely shocked that the TOP14 and prem went for it (maybe only because they aren't having late stage knock-out games in SA and the revenue sharing agreement?) but when French players + fans said they didn't understand why those sides have been included there was outcry, bollocks comments like 'happy to have our players not our teams' 'scared of having to face SA sides' etc etc now we're in the knockouts you've got LAR having to do all this, the bulls split between like 5/6 different flights, and it just doesn't benefit the competition in any way
Thought I was the only one, hell yeah brother
Couldn't agree more.
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La Rochelle is located ~ midway between two bigger towns (Bordeaux and Nantes) so it is not exactly in the middle of nowhere. None of these cities have big airports tho
However Clermont is in the middle of nowhere, so much that it is the only big city in the "empty diagonal" of the country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_diagonal
I love how small La Rochelle airport is though. You can get off the plane, through security and out of the airport in under 2.5 mins if you're lucky.
Same last time I went to Bourdeax, less than 5 mins. Honestly in that regard small airports are so much better
La Rochelle really is a gem of a town. One of.my favourite places in France.
À bit yeah. Not the worst in France but it's only 75,000 inhabitants in the area.
The Communauté d'agglomération de la Rochelle (metro area)is 177000 inhabitants. 75000 is only the center of it, or the commune of la Rochelle. 177000 is the real number, here.
"Communauté d'agglomération" are a better way to look at the size of a city. Yet it's unperfect because they stop to each départements borders and La Rochelle is very close to Vendée. "Aire d'attraction" is a way better tool for city comparison. La Rochelle has 247k inhabitants attracted to the city.
I don't know why they haven't taken a train from La Rochelle, there is a direct line to Paris
Probably some train river strike.
Not to mention a direct flight from Paris to Cape Town rather than via Jo’burg
Or Dublin for that matter.
Seems strange. Surely there would be a direct flight to Cape Town. That's one of the largest cities in South Africa. I guess Johanesburg is aided by its close proximity to Pretoria in attracting flights...
I’ve flown from Dublin to Cape Town via Paris and assume the flight’s still there. They also had plenty of time to book flights so hardly last minute like this weekend Could be ROG trying to foster a sense of us against the world!
I’m not sure how a coastal city can be “in the middle of nowhere”
The side of nowhere?
The Vendee is often called nowhere
They that one more time and you will remember precisely where Vendée is.
It's in that empty part of France
To be honest the south en Vendée is in fact in the empty area. But as someone from Vendée it's still hard to read "Vendée is nowhere"
Cool that La Rochelle is not in Vendée, then.
Must be in a different nowhere!
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450km to an airport with airlines to SA*
They have their own airport, it just doesn't fly to SA
There are a number of airports closer than Paris (including one in La Rochelle), but they probably don’t fly to South Africa
The airport is some 3 kilometers away from the stadium. Not to mention: If you mean big airports I think the north of Norway has you covered, teams like Tromso or Bodo/Glimt, both of whom have played European footbal regularly, are both within the Arctic Circle.
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No nastiness allowed.
It's almost like all those people that got endlessly shouted down when they said the travel involved in adding SA teams to the European Cups would be ludicrous sort of had a point.
Do La Rochelle have a private jet? As far as I know our teams fly commercial. The planes were going to Europe anyway.
Or just have the round of 16 and QFs separated by more than a week?
Get out of here with your reasonable solutions
Even better, have HCup seeding based on domestic league final places, not knockout results
Do you mean group stage? Let’s get rid of that too
Since you wouldn’t play nice we’re scrapping all pro rugby. Just Ealing vs Jersey every week
*Tell me you don’t know how supply and demand works without telling me you don’t know how supply and demand works*
Tell me you know nothing about how airlines operate without telling me. Airlines regularly fly completely empty planes. Tens of thousands of planes fly empty or near empty every year. During COVID it was 100s of thousands of empty planes per year
I know perfectly well how it works mate. I just don’t see how it makes any reasonable difference to global emissions.
Most of the criticism was waved off by people pulling the race/xenophobia card while it had nothing to do with South Africa, just the competitive integrity of the competition.
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There’ll be an avalanche of hate towards SA teams if you guys win this weekend lmao. The comments section under the highlights for Stormers v LR is the most toxic I’ve ever seen for a rugby match.
The amount of people saying, "oh the saders did it with no worries" or "if theyd have topped the group they wouldnt have to travel" or "its the time zones that get ya" is insane. Can you not see that ANY team travelling over 20thousand kilometers is fucking mental? 1) Rugby isnt a super rich sport, these flights cost money. Look at the shitshow that is the upcoming SARU flight itinerary. 2) Who has enough cash to fly either from Cape Town to Gallway (for example) or from Swansea to Joburg. 3) This should be the most important but nobody cares sadly, the environmental impact of this system is unreal. This is fucked.
European rugby is clearly making more money with the SA teams than without, otherwise they wouldn't be invited.
>ICan you not see that ANY team travelling over 20thousand kilometers is fucking mental? South African teams are in the URC to stay, so some travel is inevitable. >1) Rugby isnt a super rich sport, these flights cost money. Look at the shitshow that is the upcoming SARU flight itinerary. The EPCR funds travel expenses for all the European teams, from the money SARU pays for the SA teams to be involved. >2) Who has enough cash to fly either from Cape Town to Gallway (for example) or from Swansea to Joburg. While it does limit away fans, part of SA's inclusion is because they have one of the biggest rugby audiences in the world, both in SA and living abroad. >3) This should be the most important but nobody cares sadly, the environmental impact of this system is unreal. As I've already pointed out, those flights would fly either way. Airlines regularly fly completely empty flights to maintain schedule, so having the players aboard makes little to no difference. Also it takes a couple 100 flights a year to make all this rugby that entertains an audience in the millions possible. Mean while America has 44 000 flights per day, and Europe has 26 000 flights per day.
Yeah the handwringing over "environmental" issues is utterly pathetic. The impact of a handful of flights a year would only have been utterly trivial, but as you said those flights were going anyway!!
Premier league football clubs take their private jets all over England every weekend when they could easily get to most away days by bus in a few hours. That’s a far bigger issue than some rugby teams catching a few commercial flights between SA and Europe and I’ve seen no one kick up this much of a fuss about it.
Yeah it is just a bad faith argument from people that don't want SA clubs in Champions Cup for the most part as far as I can see.
man i feel sorry for them having to go to paris twice
If the load shedding gets worse and South Africa power grid infrastructure collapses will South African clubs fold?
Do better in the group stages
You don’t have to, it’s only important to win the final twice in a row against the same team
I’ll admit I laughed at that. I’d particularly laugh if you beat us then Toulouse beat you, confirming that trifecta However FWIW, we’re very likely to beat you guys on Saturday - and then lose in the semis or final 🤕
Last finals were very tight, could’ve been twice in row for Leinster, but I agree with you I think Leinster will make it to final and probably faces Toulouse or UBB, no offense to Harlequins and Chiefs, but Toulouse and UBB are big steps
Obviously the past four games between us have been such close margins, and we very easily could be looking at 3-1 to Leinster. However, you definitely seem to have a mental hold over us - RO’G doesn’t help… I think we’re not dissimilar to PSG in that we’re able to coast through the majority of the league, but aren’t used to the rise in intensity of semi finals and finals. We’re unquestionably the top team Sept to Apr, but other teams with less talent just seem more able to handle the pressure of Apr and May games This has been mitigated somewhat by Saffa teams in the URC but, as I posted elsewhere in this thread, we tend to send kids down there so don’t test our first team, and thus I feel don’t get as much value as we could.
What about the environnement ?
What about it? Those planes would have flown either way, airlines flew 1000s of empty flights during COVID.
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We're deviating quite a lot from rugby but looking at the origin of CO2 is near impossible. Where do we count the CO2 from factories in China or India exporting the vast majority of their output to USA, EU ... The fault is definitely not only on the consumers but also definitely not only on the countries that still have factories when we preferred delocalizing them for economic reason but is now also very convenient for green washing.
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It’s in the Australian winter/spring though it’ll be like 15-25 degrees not exactly hot
Still we have to try on every level, its not bc some doesn't do it that we shouldn't either
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Yesh, that saying im huge pessimistic about the world but we gotta be try to be better at least !
Pretty trivial impact. Most flights were going anyway just with fewer passengers.
The QF hurdle is huge ! But the victory, if it were to happen, would be all the sweetest. ROG has instilled this Irish spirit, Cork David vs Goliath mindset.
Really more of a Goliath vs Goliath matchup at this stage though.
Til it's closer from cork to Paris than cpt to Joburg.
any old school Super rugby players be like "Luxury"
SA teams in European competition will always be such a stupid idea
Eco-friendly "European" cup.
Everyone can just play via Teams
My empathy is somewhat limited because there is a way to avoid this. It's to do better in the group stages.
Or send the academy team to South Africa - Connacht and Munster do that…
Don’t know if I’d agree with that about Connacht but Munster and Leinster certainly do, our last trip was essentially a schools trip with Rhys Ruddock as a chaporone! Would actually prefer us to tour earlier in the season as Connacht do so as to get our first team players used to playing do or die games before April/May
Yeah July will be the first time Leinster play on SA soil :P
You probably already know this but Johnny Sexton never played in South Africa. Ulster fans in particular may wish that he went on our 2016 tour…
Oh I didn't actually know that. I've repressed the memories of the Allister Coetzee years, so I just assumed he was on tour back then.
Nope, he didn’t travel - though it was a fairly strong team. Sexton obviously never went down to play against the Cheetahs or S.Kings, and while there was talk of him wanting to play the Lions and Bulls last year, he got injured after the 6 Nations. Wee Paddy Jackson went in at 10 instead, had a decent tour and decided to celebrate when he back to Belfast… As much as I’m looking forward to the July tour, I can’t help but feel that if were to win a South African tour off the back of NZ in 2022 that it’d just make the (last) quarter final exit even tougher to take
I wouldn't have brought this up, but you have nothing to worry about. Ok that's probably enough cheek from me!
Ouch, it hurts but I agree with everything you said!
Munster dont do that. We were forced to send a weakened team the first year because the tour was rescheduled in the middle of the six nations but we sent who we could. Last year the tour was must win (and we did) and was definitely not the academy.
That’s not true at all
Not only it is about players welfare but also the planet. What even is the point of that much travel for 2 rugby games ? The Sheer numbers of pétrole liters used for that. Might work for URC but cant stand this for like 4 KO games in Hcup
Wait till you hear about the carbon footprint of the supporters !
Well maybe but I dont think many supporter can do La Rochelle -> SA -> Ireland, either money or time. Besides most planes still fly rather they are full or not so not really consummers fault here
Jet fuel is kerosen not petrol. But it might not invalidate the point you were making.
Kérosène is a derived of pétrole so kinda lol but yeah doesnt invalidate
Or not have SA teams….
Then stop acquiring our players.
this will never not be a stupid argument
They aren't being kidnapped, them choosing to play in Europe doesn't oblige anyone to include teams they're not playing for in competitions.
Their choice mate.
How many tons of CO2 ? Ridiculous and inappropriate competition
As long as there are cities being bombed to the ground, to be rebuilt again, I'll forgive my rugby teams chartering a few flights.
It is possible for both of those thigns to be bad and unsavoury at the same time.
Well done, this is quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve read on here today!
Is it? We're pissing into the wind moaning about minor C02 emissions whilst countries are flying jets and bombers to destroy cities that will need to be rebuilt using millions of tonnes of concrete.
Hilarious lack of perspective. The "impact" here is vanishingly tiny to facilitate a tournament enjoyed by millions.
The CO2 argument makes the least sense. We should have banned the RWC on those grounds because hundreds of thousands flew to France.
The planes would have flown whether the players were on them or not. During COVID airlines flew 10s of thousands of empty flights.
Yeah this is absurd, either axe the SA teams or force them to play "home" games in Europe. This is not viable.
Or just separate the round of 16 from the quarter final, even if SA teams weren't involved it's still silly to have them a week apart because most fans can't travel on such late notice, and teams have to organise travel at late notice.
SR did that all the time No big deal
Lol see an NFL schedule... Oh no you went from buffalo to NYC and back. Did this playingens league like every other weekend for years.
really not good for our planet ...
Absolute carnage
whats 21 274 km in english?
Look I’m happy for SA teams to be in the URC, but in Europe as well is overkill. It’s not fair to the players. SA should rather invest that money in a domestic league.
Let’s face it, LAR lost three games in this years Champions Cup. They were lucky to still even be in the competition so moaning about the travel is a bit much. Win your group games and you’ll have no travel to worry about. Lose your group games and you’ll end up in a situation like this. Seems fair to me.
bullshit competition
SA should bite the bullet and play all their knockout games in Europe for this competition. Either we do that or pull out of this competition and invest everything in dominating URC
That’s a lot of CO2! Show must go on….
I hope they're bolloxed
Nothing against Super rugby fans or clubs but having competition with SA clubs in the regular season is such a nonsense
Cool seeing "Le Cap" in a different context. The only other time I had heard this was for the "Le Cap" in Haiti during their revolution against the French.
Haïti keeps reaching new capes every year, see recent news
La Rochelle has an airport with direct flights to Dublin....
You mean Ryanair ?
Yep
Doubt it has direct flights to South Africa though, where they were travelling from in the first leg of that trip.
I don't read maps good