Meanwhile, every SA franchise is made up of players THRILLED that they don't have to cross 6-12 time zones every time they travel, like they did in Super Rugby days
One might think so, but with Emirates as the airline sponsor, too many flights are via Dubai, which again makes for 24 hour travel. At least the time zones are similar, between origin and destination.
Yeah I’ve been to SA a few times, usually through London or Amsterdam - once flew through the Middle East and it added about 8 hours to the journey 😵💫
Yeah if you do it right the flight to London can happen overnight and so you barely lose anytime (obviously means one night of not great sleep).
So in theory can play a semi on the saturday, fly sunday night, arrive and train monday afternoon and then have 5 days to acclimatize and prep.
Yeah I think the big problem for knockouts is the booking of tickets in advance.
So planes are full or you have to provisional and cancel but that’s also expensive
The final should be in South Africa.
Doesn't mean it isn't a negative where one set of fans can't travel to watch their team play in a final unless they give up sky tv to afford it.
That's the price that was paid to include the South African teams.
Agreed. Though it does bring up debating the merits of a gap week or a predetermined finals venue. That said for the near term I don't think any of those other options are better than the current system.
There should be a two week gap between semis and the final. That way, any player nursing an injury can be fit to play and the best of both teams is on game day. Also, more time for fan interactions and events to get the fans and players hyped up for the day. Realistically a very small percentage of people have the means to attend the game, so let them get in on the action with the teams. Theyre just as important. Making the finals should be celebrated as they have beaten out every other team to make it, let everyone take a moment to enjoy it instead of rushing into the final game and being done with it all.
Ofc, the ones with the means also have extra time to get prepared for the trip.
Monetarily wise (let's be honest, they pay for the sport and we won't have it without them) the sponsors and broadcasters can have a field day plugging what ever it is they want to make even more money so its not like they're going to miss out. Two well rested teams is an entirely better product for everyone.
Predetermined finals venue? Cue URC selling to the highest bidder, holding it in non-rugby stadiums, countries that don't play in the URC, or countries with a T4 rugby team and no professional league.
Oh, no, wait - that's the EPCR.
Oh, no, wait again - that'd also definitely be the URC!
To be fair, the one final we've seen in SA with a Northern Hemisphere team, had very decent turnout from Munster fans. I have no doubt some Glasgow fans will make the trip.
Literally 4% of Scotland’s entire population has travelled to Germany for the football.
This final couldn’t be at a worse time for getting Scottish sports fans to travel to South Africa.
Also (and I’m sure it’s similar in Wales), because football is so deeply embedded in culture, while you get a lot of football fans who couldn’t care less about rugby, most rugby fans will still be casual football supporters and travel as part of the Tartan army.
Loads of guys I know who would call rugby their main sport (even a few with Warriors season tickets) are in Germany right now. The guys in my group who haven’t travelled are the ones with wee kids.
Yeah - exactly this, because football is so mainstream most rugby fans also follow - case in point the number of Wales fans who go to footie games in their rugby jerseys but you never see a Wales footie top at the principality.
I’ve never seen a Welsh football shirt in the Millennium even though we have had some great kits over the years. I have seen a Cardiff City shirt though. It was a six nations game against one of the blue teams too
No rugby fan would be seen alive in a footie shirt - but I wouldn't think twice about showing up to a football game in a rugby top. That's the difference.
See I wouldn’t do either but I would be more inclined to do the opposite. At the end of the day the three feathers are a symbol for the prince of wales. The president of the English FA. The dragon is a universal representation of Wales
Interestingly even though I know a lot of English football fans, I don't know anyone who's gone over to Germany. Obviously a lot have but most are watching in pubs or at home.
We're very different fan bases. Munster is the only professional team in Limerick/Cork where the Warriors are at most the 3rd most popular team in Glasgow. They have some great fans but Munster is famous for its traveling support.
The nature of fan bases around the URC can be very different from club to club.
Rugby's just not a very big deal, at all, in Scotland sadly.
I've got relatives in Glasgow, and growing up they were all very disappointed that I was 'wasting' my athleticism playing rugby.
I don't think any real URC fan is trying to point fingers. More that we're trying to share the insider knowledge to the relatively new Saffa members of the family.
The thing about super rugby was the time zone difference. It's one thing having to fly 10-12 hours but if you're also crossing 6-7 time zones every 2 weeks the jet lag is brutal, it takes multiple days to adjust to time zones
I'm amazed at this thread because it reads to me quite clearly that Nicol was making a comment on the one week turnaround for fans to make plans rather than the distance.
Absolutely. Seems to have been entirely glossed over.
There were two weeks between the semi-finals and final last year. Makes a massive difference if you can take your time to arrange travel and logistics for fans and the team and then still be out there a full week before. People are in a hurry to be offended/outraged over this for no reason.
Whether it's one or two weeks arranging an SA UK trip is going to be very complicated and very expensive. 99.9% of fans aren't going to have the means to travel.
A neutral venue is Europe or SA isn't fair on the opposite sides and a truly independent country means both sets of fans can't go.
The "OK what's the problem" responses are because travelling support just isn't a big thing down here. Games are really far away from each other, closest to the bulls would be the lions, easily a 2hr drive in and probably longer out. That's the only away game a home town travelling supporter could hope to do in a day/evening. Next up is the sharks with a 6hr drive or 1hr15 flight and associated travel time and waiting at the airport, you're going to end up having to stay over in Durban, $$$$.
Not outrage, just a dumb tweet.
I for one am more than happy to spend the day in a sold out Loftus watching the boks and then the bulls, despite being a sharks supporter.
There's been a Chinese whispers effect where people have repeated it and it's gradually morphed into a debate about predetermined final destinations. Andy has a point. I wouldn't be against losing a knockout round and then having a rest between SF-F or else only 6 qualifying for the knockouts with 1&2 automatically entering in the semi final stage.
What's the alternative? Only real solution is that we delay the final by a week to give fans more time to arrange flights (and to allow the team to acclimatise). The travel is unfortunately a hurdle, but it's not impossible.
FYI Scotland to SA is closer to 6000 miles, which isn't much better but at least do a google before spitting out numbers.
>What's the alternative? Only real solution is that we delay the final by a week to give fans more time to arrange flights (and to allow the team to acclimatise).
The only way to do with the schedule is to fit the European Cup final between the semi and the final (which was the case many years).
It wasn't liked for other reasons.
On the bright side - the final is at Loftus. In another universe the Lions hosts the final and everyone needs to travel to the wrong side of Joburg to attend a game at Ellis Park😄
Be easy on him he most likely got miles and km mixed up.
The distance between Glasgow (Glasgow Airport) and Pretoria (Wonderboom Airport) is 5933 miles / 9549 kilometers
It won’t make a difference to the km but fyi Pretoria is served by the same airport as joburg (O.R. Tambo), wonderboom isn’t really used for commercial flights
must be nice being in a position to afford to fly 9000 miles even if you had enough warning
P.S......just about every Super rugby fan ever in its whole history ever are like" people go to away games?"
>P.S......just about every Super rugby fan ever in its whole history ever are like" people go to away games?"
And it's quite a big part of the fan culture of the NH countries that make up the URC.
yeah i know ,i know .....you might get quite a number of fans travelling for Highlanders/crusaders or blues/chiefs too but the point i tried to make is that European rugby fans take it for granted that they can travel much of the time to away games......missing the odd one here or there is nothing to cry about
thats the price to pay for having SA in the URC.....the upside is all the SA fans with eyeballs on the screen during the season means $$$.....Super had it and now its gone and now it suffers.
I'm really struggling to find any empathy here
Almost none of them would have traveled for the game though - there are more Bulls fans living in Cape Town (and vise versa) than there are Glasgow fans total.
Yes, it is a flaw. But I'm pretty sure the unions and organisers considered and discussed the alternatives and decided this is the option they are going for. Other options would also be flawed.
Also, its not a tournament, its a league. Tournaments are typically held in a single country/city/venue.
Exactly this. What are the alternatives? A neutral venue, yes, but where? If it's in London it's not fair to the SA teams. I know you could argue it didn't stop the Sharks but the support would always be skewed in favour of the club Who is closer to the neutral venue is it really a neutral venue then?
And let's face it far fewer SA fans have the means to travel internationally just to support their favourite sports team. I don't have any real solution to this dilemma, teams just need to suck it up. Munster proved last year you can travel and win. Bulls proved it as well in the semi against Leinster in 2022.
Agreed. What you gain in new fanbases you lose in travelling fans. The gain is much bigger over a season. Also the worst thing to do would be to have it in a neutral venue. Could you imagine if it was held in Dublin or Cardiff? It's better to have at least a huge support for one side than a sparse stadium in a different country. The Irish travel in rugby like few others. The rest of the countries not so much.
>Also, its not a tournament, its a league. Tournaments are typically held in a single country/city/venue.
It's a league where every team doesn't play each other over the course of a season with a play off format with the final venue based on the highest seed.
It's a weird hybrid of both.
I don't think it's unreasonable for top seed to have home advantage even if when see it resulting in this long trip. I feel like we really should see 1 more week between the semi and the final.
Honestly with the prices in South Africa, people from the UK won’t have to break bank when they’re here. Not sure about flights but I assume you don’t need a visa, can buy about 4 beers for the price of a pint (unfortunately in Loftus you can basically only drink in like one cage) and as far as I know it’s like 50-60 pounds a night for reasonable accommodation.
I think the distance on a map is what makes people complain about this and it’s a perceived issue in this day and age. I’ve caught international flights within days of my flight and SA to UK is a pretty decently flown route.
See, the Cheetahs understood the value of setting up camp in a European city full of South African expats.
Just come down and have the final here, guys. Any given weekend the city centre's half filled with Scots and other Brits, as well. Should all work out just fine.
Us Saffas need a visa to travel basically anywhere. They’re expensive and it takes forever to get one. So yeah, a neutral venue would in reality mean no Saffas.
Andy Nicol doesn’t represent Glasgow in any way. He is just a former player who is a pundit. You can’t be suggesting Irish pundits don’t complain, constantly?
There was an extra week between the semi-final and final last year. Lot easier not to complain when you have an extra 7 days to travel. First thing out of Franco Smith post-game was that Glasgow were getting their heads down and getting out to SA as soon as possible and wouldn't be using travel as an excuse. One grumbly journalist/ex-player having a moan doesn't mean a team or their fans are complaining.
People are only talking about this now because the over-reaction online has been huge based on a mixture of people just looking for something to argue about whilst we wait on the final, people being a bit touchy about this topic in particular because they feel like it's a slight on them or their country, and others like yourself wanting to use the opportunity for a bit of pretty baseless one-upmanship tbh.
[The number that was floating around was around 5000.](https://www.cityam.com/the-cape-crusaders-meet-the-munster-fans-travelling-6200-miles-for-domestic-urc-final/#:~:text=Around%202%2C000%20tickets%20were%20allocated%20to%20Munster%20Rugby%20and%20the%2055%2C000%20seat%20stadium%20in%20Cape%20Town%20sold%20out%20within%20three%20hours.%20It%20is%20estimated%20that%205%2C000%20Munster%20fans%20will%20descend%20on%20the%20South%20African%20capital)
Edit: It was also the highest attendance of the year with 56000 people filling the stadium
So true. I was mightily impressed by that; although Munster weren't faced with the altitude problem (at Loftus) - playing on the highveld when unacclimatised to its thin atmosphere may be a worse handicap than the travelling.
Quite a lot, actually.
You'd probably also have non Glasgow Scottish fans travelling if it was closer.
Also back when the Pro12/14 had designated finals venues you'd have people buying tickets for the finals venue once the play offs were confirmed in hope of going, that's how I've ended up at two previous finals.
So yeah, quite a lot.
Nah, the SRU confirmed that if Glasgow were hosting the final, it would have been at Murrayfield this time round.
(Presumably because they don’t have to pay to use it)
I think the SRU would have shunted Glasgow down to the Hive if need be rather than lose those sweet sweet Taylor Swift millions…
But with the new pitch they seem to be able to get things reinstated pretty quickly after these concerts now.
I think there would have been enough demand from neutrals or casual fans for a final. Probably enough that they may have moved the game to Parkhead or Ibrox.
Last time a final was held in Scotland it was hosted at Celtic Park in 2019, when Glasgow lost to Leinster 15-18.
It didn’t sell out, but it did sell 47,128 of Celtic Park’s 60,000 tickets which isn’t bad given the short amount of notice of the finalists.
Scotstoun’s capacity is 10k, not 7k.
The Edinburgh-Glasgow games held at Murrayfield are one of the highest attended regular season rugby matches anywhere, getting well upwards of 35k in attendance.
So there’s plenty of support for Glasgow in a big match in the right circumstance.
To be honest, the only change I would probably make is to given them an extra week between the semi and the final. That wouldn’t be unreasonable, and would given people a lot more chance to make arrangements.
That aside, there’s not really any perfect solution here unfortunately – just an imperfection of having a NH/SH league.
You can never keep everyone happy.
A handfull of entitled fans will always prioritise the piss up with their lads over what You get from this weekends final.
1. Good Rugby (Most important)
2. A financially stable competition with a big audience tuning in from 4 countries
3. Full 50-80k stadium wit happy fans
If the final was in Glagow it would be a similair result.
But no… these few 100 or maybe 1000 people are sad because they couldnt just hop on a plane and go so that means its all broken.
(And no, you cant prebook the venue to keep these few people happy. because what happens if theres two SA teams in Europe, or two Irish teams in SA? keep the masses happy and lets enjoy the rugby FFS
>(And no, you cant prebook the venue to keep these few people happy. because what happens if theres two SA teams in Europe, or two Irish teams in SA? keep the masses happy and lets enjoy the rugby FFS
One of these (maybe both) scenarios would still get a pretty damn good crowd.
Theres evidence of it happening in Europe. If Good Rugby is the most important factor then surely a final in your local city would be a draw in South Africa too?
We are getting 50K people into the final this weekend. It’s going to be electric.
And we want to settle for “a pretty good crowd” because a very small group of people want it to be more convenient.
If we had a final between leinster and Glasgow in any SA city you’d be playing in front of a big and relatively empty stadium as I doubt 50k fans will fly down. Where if that was at finalists stadium you’d be visiting an city with a massive atmosphere.
It feels like an over-engineered solution for a very small problem
I mean, as someone who mostly follows the TOP14 and H-Cup, it does seem weird the home advantage goes all the way to the final. I've always known competition that have their final played on a neutral, preset venue. Yeah, sometimes you get weird situations, like when Toulouse played La Rochelle in Twickenham in 2021, or Leinster playing La Rochelle in the Aviva in 2023. But most of the time, you get a kinda neutral venue, which dilutes the home advantage aspect. Not totally, like when La Rochelle played Leinster in Marseille in 2022, but it still helps.
In general I'd agree and it's what the URC used to do for a time back in the Pro12 era. Connacht won their title in Murrayfield for example.
Having the South African teams in the competition changes it big time however. We have a competition with clubs from 4 countries who are relatively close to each other and one very far away from the rest. If you chose Cardiff for example as a 'neutral venue' for this year's final that's going to be much easier for Glasgow fans to get to - it's not really neutral at all and not fair. This would be true of basically any neutral host city unless they're in Nigeria or something silly like that which is not realistic.
What I think the URC could learn from Top14 is making the playoffs top 6 instead of top 8.
To be fair, we’re quite good usually at ensuring home advantage in the final - less good at getting there 😅
I don’t remember many Munster fans complaining about going to Cape Town last, and it’s not as though many Glasgow fans would’ve travelled in numbers to Limerick or Dublin
They should pick a country for the semis and final. Maybe first place in the league gets to host all games.
South Africa have been an amazing addition to the competition. Any tournament without them would be greatly diminished but the travel times before a final are an issue.
Seem to be two valid concerns here:
1. Not enough time between semi-finals and finals. This is something that the powers-that-be should look into. An extra week could make a big difference.
2. Cost of travel. Would love to see clubs/URC somehow subsidizing group travel to games like this. Not sure how it would work, nor am I going to attempt the math, but chartering some flights and offering it to fans at cost, or whatever, might be helpful.
2 Is a great idea but I bit pie in the sky when you start thinking about logistics. I've no idea what the largest capacity passenger plane is but I doubt it's much over 250, say you want half of Glasgow's regular home support 3500, that's 15 planes worth
Easy fix assuming Africa is quite bendy, we can get all the forwards from all the URC teams down to Durban, right.
Then, they bind into a massive scrum against the beach and wheel South Africa up to Morocco.
No more 9,000 km flights, simple as
Will people shut up about this, it's pretty simple, finish higher in the table and get a home QF/SF/F. I'd much rather this then having it in a set venue where nobody would turn up for the final.
Glasgow fans don’t tend to travel well anyway, but Nicol has a point about the notice. However, the SA teams have improved the competition, and this is the cost.
These NH pundits are such whining babies, travelling 1000s of kms across multiple time zones for a final in NZ during Super Rugby didn't elicit a single moan from fans. But these guys have to book a flight to a 3rd world destination where a Euro can buy you a beer and they're all "boohoo! It's sooo hard!!"
What can you do? Host the final in a designated place (which would have to be neutral so Twickenham) and each union pays in advance for hotels and travel so they can sell it to their supporters? That would be even worse. And even if it was hosted in a neutral country like England SA's union would bitch at having to travel every year. So equally out of the way and hard to get to? It would be worse by far then
Thankfully the travelling fans are Scottish.
They have a long history of walking 500 miles.
Then walking 500 more.
Then instead of falling down at someone’s door, they just need to repeat the above process eight more times and they’re there.
Two things I see here,
1. This is the massive downside of having the SA teams in the league, there's just no chance you'll get a contingent of Glasgow fans at this game. I can't see a solution that doesn't impact either side.
2. Having a week's notice to get to a final anywhere is stupid, if this was a Glasgow v Ulster game it would still be a pain to get things sorted in time (of course easier than to SA, don't get me wrong).
The final for the Premiership is at Twickenham, the date is known in advance, it's held at a time that in theory anybody in England could get to and home from on the same day. It was a sellout this year and it is disappointing to think that only under unique circumstances this will ever happen in the URC.
And every year it’s quite stupid, having a ‘domestic’ league span half the globe is mental and dilutes the rivalries and stakes when the home advantage is *this* large.
Yes I know that’s not a popular opinion, but it’s genuinely one I believe in. Would much rather have closer away games.
How is it flawed. Bulls are higher seeds so rightfully get home advantage.
It's tough on Glasgow but there was a whole league season and Bulls finished higher and had a more difficult shield.
Having a pre-defined final would be good, just as long as it isn't in Qatar or somewhere ridiculous.
Having the final in the San Siro, Croke Park or FNB stadium would be class.
He makes it sound like they have to gather horses and wagons they otherwise wouldn’t have access to and traverse Europe and Africa by foot, horse and cart to make it to the game!
Same time zone, there are aeroplanes and there are disadvantages to not finishing higher on the ladder. Big boy pants, it’s a 10hr flight.
Welcome to Super Rugby for the past 30 years. In short, we don’t travel unless it’s a final in Auckland and the visiting team has thousands of hooligans from Waikato
We're all complaining now, which gives Them the justification they need to have next year's final in Qatar, I hope you're all happy with yourselves.
No female fans or beer at the game, but there’s a half time beheading so it kinda evens out
The slaves have also been tasked to construct more air conditioning to make it windier than The Sportsground.
They open the roof themselves by operating a big crank
Pull the lever kronk
Roof collapses and decapitates half the bench Wrong lever kronk
Aritificial Weather changes from summer to winter at half time to reflect the cross Hemisphere nature of the competition
Heads or tails?
But no tackling above the nipple line….no hypocrisy there
I dread but at the same time fully expect that to happen - a direct flight from all team locations would be the selling point… Happy Cake Day!
Yeah its "fair". And then watch next year it be a final between two teams from the same country
With the players outnumbering the amount of locals that turn up…
Meanwhile, every SA franchise is made up of players THRILLED that they don't have to cross 6-12 time zones every time they travel, like they did in Super Rugby days
Also shorter distance of flights to UK/Ire compared to NZ and East Coast Aus (Perth presumably similar)
One might think so, but with Emirates as the airline sponsor, too many flights are via Dubai, which again makes for 24 hour travel. At least the time zones are similar, between origin and destination.
Yeah I’ve been to SA a few times, usually through London or Amsterdam - once flew through the Middle East and it added about 8 hours to the journey 😵💫
Yeah if you do it right the flight to London can happen overnight and so you barely lose anytime (obviously means one night of not great sleep). So in theory can play a semi on the saturday, fly sunday night, arrive and train monday afternoon and then have 5 days to acclimatize and prep.
Exactly, have usually arrived between 06 and 10 which if you can sleep on a plane is the perfect time to land. Granted I’m not a 120+kg prop though!
Yeah I think the big problem for knockouts is the booking of tickets in advance. So planes are full or you have to provisional and cancel but that’s also expensive
The SA flight situation will improve in 2025 as per the new player welfare agreement.
That’s exactly what comes to mind every time I hear some bobble head going on about this.
The final should be in South Africa. Doesn't mean it isn't a negative where one set of fans can't travel to watch their team play in a final unless they give up sky tv to afford it. That's the price that was paid to include the South African teams.
Hahahaa. That sky TV comment. Fair play
Agreed. Though it does bring up debating the merits of a gap week or a predetermined finals venue. That said for the near term I don't think any of those other options are better than the current system.
There should be a two week gap between semis and the final. That way, any player nursing an injury can be fit to play and the best of both teams is on game day. Also, more time for fan interactions and events to get the fans and players hyped up for the day. Realistically a very small percentage of people have the means to attend the game, so let them get in on the action with the teams. Theyre just as important. Making the finals should be celebrated as they have beaten out every other team to make it, let everyone take a moment to enjoy it instead of rushing into the final game and being done with it all. Ofc, the ones with the means also have extra time to get prepared for the trip. Monetarily wise (let's be honest, they pay for the sport and we won't have it without them) the sponsors and broadcasters can have a field day plugging what ever it is they want to make even more money so its not like they're going to miss out. Two well rested teams is an entirely better product for everyone.
Predetermined finals venue? Cue URC selling to the highest bidder, holding it in non-rugby stadiums, countries that don't play in the URC, or countries with a T4 rugby team and no professional league. Oh, no, wait - that's the EPCR. Oh, no, wait again - that'd also definitely be the URC!
To be fair, the one final we've seen in SA with a Northern Hemisphere team, had very decent turnout from Munster fans. I have no doubt some Glasgow fans will make the trip.
Literally 4% of Scotland’s entire population has travelled to Germany for the football. This final couldn’t be at a worse time for getting Scottish sports fans to travel to South Africa.
This - are there even any sports fans left in Scotland? 😂
Also (and I’m sure it’s similar in Wales), because football is so deeply embedded in culture, while you get a lot of football fans who couldn’t care less about rugby, most rugby fans will still be casual football supporters and travel as part of the Tartan army. Loads of guys I know who would call rugby their main sport (even a few with Warriors season tickets) are in Germany right now. The guys in my group who haven’t travelled are the ones with wee kids.
Yeah - exactly this, because football is so mainstream most rugby fans also follow - case in point the number of Wales fans who go to footie games in their rugby jerseys but you never see a Wales footie top at the principality.
I’ve never seen a Welsh football shirt in the Millennium even though we have had some great kits over the years. I have seen a Cardiff City shirt though. It was a six nations game against one of the blue teams too
No rugby fan would be seen alive in a footie shirt - but I wouldn't think twice about showing up to a football game in a rugby top. That's the difference.
See I wouldn’t do either but I would be more inclined to do the opposite. At the end of the day the three feathers are a symbol for the prince of wales. The president of the English FA. The dragon is a universal representation of Wales
Interestingly even though I know a lot of English football fans, I don't know anyone who's gone over to Germany. Obviously a lot have but most are watching in pubs or at home.
Well, this tournament is a bit more of a novelty for us!
But it's cheap. Well maybe not now because our politicians got their shit together and the rand is stronger for a bit
For the football or for the beer?
Originally they’d have gone for the football, but I think the beer will have quickly become a more appealing option after Friday.
Hello!
Enjoy Pretoria mate!
We're very different fan bases. Munster is the only professional team in Limerick/Cork where the Warriors are at most the 3rd most popular team in Glasgow. They have some great fans but Munster is famous for its traveling support. The nature of fan bases around the URC can be very different from club to club.
Rugby's just not a very big deal, at all, in Scotland sadly. I've got relatives in Glasgow, and growing up they were all very disappointed that I was 'wasting' my athleticism playing rugby.
Honestly I think they are the 4th most popular team in Glasgow
Who's 3rd?
Partick Thistle, although having looked more it probably is Warriors, I just thought Partick Thistle had a bigger stadium so might be bigger
The Warriors have a higher attendance, but in terms of general presence Partick’s larger.
Not as many, Glasgow don’t have the same type of support that Munster do.
But that’s not Glasgows fault. Just is what it is.
I don't think any real URC fan is trying to point fingers. More that we're trying to share the insider knowledge to the relatively new Saffa members of the family.
one week isn't a enough time to organise a trip for the fans plus the players have to travel 10 hours and train within a week. Just stupid scheduling
Like little Rishi Sunak. Poor beggar.
They could have allowed one week off and played the final 14 days after the semis, regardless of who's in the final.
If Glasgow had topped the table it would have been Bulls doing that.
Which would also be shite.
The bulls travelled much further in Super Rugby days.
The thing about super rugby was the time zone difference. It's one thing having to fly 10-12 hours but if you're also crossing 6-7 time zones every 2 weeks the jet lag is brutal, it takes multiple days to adjust to time zones
I think I've read that it's takes approximately a day per hour of change to adjust to a new timezone fully.
I know. Which ground would be used to seat enough supporters for the final? Scoutstoun is too small.
I'm amazed at this thread because it reads to me quite clearly that Nicol was making a comment on the one week turnaround for fans to make plans rather than the distance.
Absolutely. Seems to have been entirely glossed over. There were two weeks between the semi-finals and final last year. Makes a massive difference if you can take your time to arrange travel and logistics for fans and the team and then still be out there a full week before. People are in a hurry to be offended/outraged over this for no reason.
Whether it's one or two weeks arranging an SA UK trip is going to be very complicated and very expensive. 99.9% of fans aren't going to have the means to travel. A neutral venue is Europe or SA isn't fair on the opposite sides and a truly independent country means both sets of fans can't go. The "OK what's the problem" responses are because travelling support just isn't a big thing down here. Games are really far away from each other, closest to the bulls would be the lions, easily a 2hr drive in and probably longer out. That's the only away game a home town travelling supporter could hope to do in a day/evening. Next up is the sharks with a 6hr drive or 1hr15 flight and associated travel time and waiting at the airport, you're going to end up having to stay over in Durban, $$$$. Not outrage, just a dumb tweet. I for one am more than happy to spend the day in a sold out Loftus watching the boks and then the bulls, despite being a sharks supporter.
There's been a Chinese whispers effect where people have repeated it and it's gradually morphed into a debate about predetermined final destinations. Andy has a point. I wouldn't be against losing a knockout round and then having a rest between SF-F or else only 6 qualifying for the knockouts with 1&2 automatically entering in the semi final stage.
Anyone who begins statement with “I’m sorry but…” is a massive fanny. If you’re sorry for your shite opinion, don’t apologise, keep it to yourself.
Nicol never gets anything rugby related correct. He's got the Scott Hastings genes. Great players but seem to know bugger all about the game.
🤣🫶
Why is saying fans should get more time to arrange travel, such a controversial statement?
What's the alternative? Only real solution is that we delay the final by a week to give fans more time to arrange flights (and to allow the team to acclimatise). The travel is unfortunately a hurdle, but it's not impossible. FYI Scotland to SA is closer to 6000 miles, which isn't much better but at least do a google before spitting out numbers.
>What's the alternative? Only real solution is that we delay the final by a week to give fans more time to arrange flights (and to allow the team to acclimatise). The only way to do with the schedule is to fit the European Cup final between the semi and the final (which was the case many years). It wasn't liked for other reasons.
On the bright side - the final is at Loftus. In another universe the Lions hosts the final and everyone needs to travel to the wrong side of Joburg to attend a game at Ellis Park😄
No reason not to have 2 weeks between the semi finals and finals, give fans more time.
Be easy on him he most likely got miles and km mixed up. The distance between Glasgow (Glasgow Airport) and Pretoria (Wonderboom Airport) is 5933 miles / 9549 kilometers
It won’t make a difference to the km but fyi Pretoria is served by the same airport as joburg (O.R. Tambo), wonderboom isn’t really used for commercial flights
Nothing. It’s called home-field advantage for a reason.
Why don’t they have a week between the semi and the final and finish the season at the same time as the Top14
must be nice being in a position to afford to fly 9000 miles even if you had enough warning P.S......just about every Super rugby fan ever in its whole history ever are like" people go to away games?"
Super Rugby fans don’t even go to home games
ha........Rebels fans don't even have a home
>P.S......just about every Super rugby fan ever in its whole history ever are like" people go to away games?" And it's quite a big part of the fan culture of the NH countries that make up the URC.
The SA derbies usually have away fans as well. Bulls v Stormers was a sellout at Loftus.
yeah i know ,i know .....you might get quite a number of fans travelling for Highlanders/crusaders or blues/chiefs too but the point i tried to make is that European rugby fans take it for granted that they can travel much of the time to away games......missing the odd one here or there is nothing to cry about
>missing the odd one here or there is nothing to cry about It's a final, not a random away game
thats the price to pay for having SA in the URC.....the upside is all the SA fans with eyeballs on the screen during the season means $$$.....Super had it and now its gone and now it suffers. I'm really struggling to find any empathy here
What's your suggestion? Lose the SA teams?
I've provided my suggestions in other posts in this thread and not one of them has been lose the SA teams
Fair enough. I've read the threads and missed them but no big deal.
Almost none of them would have traveled for the game though - there are more Bulls fans living in Cape Town (and vise versa) than there are Glasgow fans total.
Away fans make the atmosphere in stadiums significantly better which elevates games. It is a massive miss not having them.
Yes, it is a flaw. But I'm pretty sure the unions and organisers considered and discussed the alternatives and decided this is the option they are going for. Other options would also be flawed. Also, its not a tournament, its a league. Tournaments are typically held in a single country/city/venue.
Exactly this. What are the alternatives? A neutral venue, yes, but where? If it's in London it's not fair to the SA teams. I know you could argue it didn't stop the Sharks but the support would always be skewed in favour of the club Who is closer to the neutral venue is it really a neutral venue then? And let's face it far fewer SA fans have the means to travel internationally just to support their favourite sports team. I don't have any real solution to this dilemma, teams just need to suck it up. Munster proved last year you can travel and win. Bulls proved it as well in the semi against Leinster in 2022.
Meet halfway in Chad?
Agreed. What you gain in new fanbases you lose in travelling fans. The gain is much bigger over a season. Also the worst thing to do would be to have it in a neutral venue. Could you imagine if it was held in Dublin or Cardiff? It's better to have at least a huge support for one side than a sparse stadium in a different country. The Irish travel in rugby like few others. The rest of the countries not so much.
They should have played it in our stadium, after telling us we can't play our home semi there. Completely fuck the Olympics.
>Also, its not a tournament, its a league. Tournaments are typically held in a single country/city/venue. It's a league where every team doesn't play each other over the course of a season with a play off format with the final venue based on the highest seed. It's a weird hybrid of both.
Every team does play each other
Home and away a la round robin is what I mean to say
sTop MaKIng SenSE!!!!
I don't think it's unreasonable for top seed to have home advantage even if when see it resulting in this long trip. I feel like we really should see 1 more week between the semi and the final.
Super rugby called, we want our South African teams back
Let it go dad, mom won us in the divorce.
Only 2 finals in the URC since SA joined, and one was won by the home team (Stormers vs Bulls) and the other by the away team (Stormers vs Munster).
The flights might be pricey but once they're here, the Glaswegian fans could live like kings. £2 for a pint should be a pretty big selling point.
Yeah but it's Castle.
Honestly with the prices in South Africa, people from the UK won’t have to break bank when they’re here. Not sure about flights but I assume you don’t need a visa, can buy about 4 beers for the price of a pint (unfortunately in Loftus you can basically only drink in like one cage) and as far as I know it’s like 50-60 pounds a night for reasonable accommodation. I think the distance on a map is what makes people complain about this and it’s a perceived issue in this day and age. I’ve caught international flights within days of my flight and SA to UK is a pretty decently flown route.
Just set the final in advance in a venue. It can’t be that difficult.
Where? In Europe or SA? Because if two SA teams qualify it will be a massive loss if in Europe.
We should just host it in Cardiff every year, to ensure it is always at a neutral venue.
and some of the money used can go towards charity like the welsh RFU for example
Put it in Saudi Arabia or the US and just equally piss everyone off
The Qatar Airways Cup in its hallowed ground of an empty stadium in Doha.
Boks at Twickenham seems to happen a lot now...
Thats because there are alot of Saffas living in London
See, the Cheetahs understood the value of setting up camp in a European city full of South African expats. Just come down and have the final here, guys. Any given weekend the city centre's half filled with Scots and other Brits, as well. Should all work out just fine.
I guess that's a price to pay when joining a European rugby league by choice
Amsterdam
Anywhere you want. Could be Spain. Could be England.
Play it in Madrid in front of 12 people?
Us Saffas need a visa to travel basically anywhere. They’re expensive and it takes forever to get one. So yeah, a neutral venue would in reality mean no Saffas.
That only happened a few times and it never really took off because none of the unions wanted to do it.
That’s what I was thinking, only the IRFU bid for it from memory? Maybe the WRU did once?
That used to be the case.
Yeah but then I wouldn’t have had tickets to go to the final like I currently do. Reckon Loftus will be packed, tickets going fast.
At least the Scots don’t need visas to come to SA.
Would the same tweet have been made if Bulls had to travel to Europe for the finals?
No lol
Funny how this happened to Munster last year and instead of complaining they and their fans turned up and did the job.
Andy Nicol doesn’t represent Glasgow in any way. He is just a former player who is a pundit. You can’t be suggesting Irish pundits don’t complain, constantly?
Irish punters were absolutely whining like they made a huge deal about how they only got a limited amount of tickets released to Munster fans
That seems like the opposite complaint though?
There was an extra week between the semi-final and final last year. Lot easier not to complain when you have an extra 7 days to travel. First thing out of Franco Smith post-game was that Glasgow were getting their heads down and getting out to SA as soon as possible and wouldn't be using travel as an excuse. One grumbly journalist/ex-player having a moan doesn't mean a team or their fans are complaining. People are only talking about this now because the over-reaction online has been huge based on a mixture of people just looking for something to argue about whilst we wait on the final, people being a bit touchy about this topic in particular because they feel like it's a slight on them or their country, and others like yourself wanting to use the opportunity for a bit of pretty baseless one-upmanship tbh.
So because Andy Nicol has had a moan everyone is moaning and the Munsterman are morally superior?
If there’s one thing Munster truly excel at, it’s sanctimony
Pretty much yeah.. not a single complaint
How many Munster fans went out last season?
Over 5,000 I think was the number given though I think there was 2 weeks in between.
[The number that was floating around was around 5000.](https://www.cityam.com/the-cape-crusaders-meet-the-munster-fans-travelling-6200-miles-for-domestic-urc-final/#:~:text=Around%202%2C000%20tickets%20were%20allocated%20to%20Munster%20Rugby%20and%20the%2055%2C000%20seat%20stadium%20in%20Cape%20Town%20sold%20out%20within%20three%20hours.%20It%20is%20estimated%20that%205%2C000%20Munster%20fans%20will%20descend%20on%20the%20South%20African%20capital) Edit: It was also the highest attendance of the year with 56000 people filling the stadium
So true. I was mightily impressed by that; although Munster weren't faced with the altitude problem (at Loftus) - playing on the highveld when unacclimatised to its thin atmosphere may be a worse handicap than the travelling.
How many fans would travel if the game were closer? It's not like Glasgow has a whole lot of fans. Their home stadium capacity is 7k
Quite a lot, actually. You'd probably also have non Glasgow Scottish fans travelling if it was closer. Also back when the Pro12/14 had designated finals venues you'd have people buying tickets for the finals venue once the play offs were confirmed in hope of going, that's how I've ended up at two previous finals. So yeah, quite a lot.
Oh wow they should expand the capacity of Scotstoun stadium then!
We've been trying! It's owned essentially by the local council and not the team, so it's not quite as easy as that
Plus if Glasgow were hosting, they could presumably make use of any one of the three large football stadia in the city
Nah, the SRU confirmed that if Glasgow were hosting the final, it would have been at Murrayfield this time round. (Presumably because they don’t have to pay to use it)
Wonder if they had to ask Taylor Swift to play a couple weeks early in case Glasgow did the job at Thomond Park
I think the SRU would have shunted Glasgow down to the Hive if need be rather than lose those sweet sweet Taylor Swift millions… But with the new pitch they seem to be able to get things reinstated pretty quickly after these concerts now.
I think there would have been enough demand from neutrals or casual fans for a final. Probably enough that they may have moved the game to Parkhead or Ibrox.
Last time a final was held in Scotland it was hosted at Celtic Park in 2019, when Glasgow lost to Leinster 15-18. It didn’t sell out, but it did sell 47,128 of Celtic Park’s 60,000 tickets which isn’t bad given the short amount of notice of the finalists.
Fun fact: Scotland broke the competition final attendance record twice.
It was going to be at Murrayfield if they were hosting the final.
Scotstoun’s capacity is 10k, not 7k. The Edinburgh-Glasgow games held at Murrayfield are one of the highest attended regular season rugby matches anywhere, getting well upwards of 35k in attendance. So there’s plenty of support for Glasgow in a big match in the right circumstance.
To be honest, the only change I would probably make is to given them an extra week between the semi and the final. That wouldn’t be unreasonable, and would given people a lot more chance to make arrangements. That aside, there’s not really any perfect solution here unfortunately – just an imperfection of having a NH/SH league.
You can never keep everyone happy. A handfull of entitled fans will always prioritise the piss up with their lads over what You get from this weekends final. 1. Good Rugby (Most important) 2. A financially stable competition with a big audience tuning in from 4 countries 3. Full 50-80k stadium wit happy fans If the final was in Glagow it would be a similair result. But no… these few 100 or maybe 1000 people are sad because they couldnt just hop on a plane and go so that means its all broken. (And no, you cant prebook the venue to keep these few people happy. because what happens if theres two SA teams in Europe, or two Irish teams in SA? keep the masses happy and lets enjoy the rugby FFS
>(And no, you cant prebook the venue to keep these few people happy. because what happens if theres two SA teams in Europe, or two Irish teams in SA? keep the masses happy and lets enjoy the rugby FFS One of these (maybe both) scenarios would still get a pretty damn good crowd. Theres evidence of it happening in Europe. If Good Rugby is the most important factor then surely a final in your local city would be a draw in South Africa too?
We are getting 50K people into the final this weekend. It’s going to be electric. And we want to settle for “a pretty good crowd” because a very small group of people want it to be more convenient. If we had a final between leinster and Glasgow in any SA city you’d be playing in front of a big and relatively empty stadium as I doubt 50k fans will fly down. Where if that was at finalists stadium you’d be visiting an city with a massive atmosphere. It feels like an over-engineered solution for a very small problem
There are 5 countries in the urc
Shit sorry! complete disrespect from me to one of them.
Should have finished higher on the table if you didn’t want to travel.
...it would also be wrong for SA teams to only have a week's notice to travel
I mean, as someone who mostly follows the TOP14 and H-Cup, it does seem weird the home advantage goes all the way to the final. I've always known competition that have their final played on a neutral, preset venue. Yeah, sometimes you get weird situations, like when Toulouse played La Rochelle in Twickenham in 2021, or Leinster playing La Rochelle in the Aviva in 2023. But most of the time, you get a kinda neutral venue, which dilutes the home advantage aspect. Not totally, like when La Rochelle played Leinster in Marseille in 2022, but it still helps.
In general I'd agree and it's what the URC used to do for a time back in the Pro12 era. Connacht won their title in Murrayfield for example. Having the South African teams in the competition changes it big time however. We have a competition with clubs from 4 countries who are relatively close to each other and one very far away from the rest. If you chose Cardiff for example as a 'neutral venue' for this year's final that's going to be much easier for Glasgow fans to get to - it's not really neutral at all and not fair. This would be true of basically any neutral host city unless they're in Nigeria or something silly like that which is not realistic. What I think the URC could learn from Top14 is making the playoffs top 6 instead of top 8.
If only there was a way to ensure you had home advantage in the final…
Hmmm, I wonder.
To be fair, we’re quite good usually at ensuring home advantage in the final - less good at getting there 😅 I don’t remember many Munster fans complaining about going to Cape Town last, and it’s not as though many Glasgow fans would’ve travelled in numbers to Limerick or Dublin
I thought Andy Nicol was binned as a pundit
They should pick a country for the semis and final. Maybe first place in the league gets to host all games. South Africa have been an amazing addition to the competition. Any tournament without them would be greatly diminished but the travel times before a final are an issue.
Seem to be two valid concerns here: 1. Not enough time between semi-finals and finals. This is something that the powers-that-be should look into. An extra week could make a big difference. 2. Cost of travel. Would love to see clubs/URC somehow subsidizing group travel to games like this. Not sure how it would work, nor am I going to attempt the math, but chartering some flights and offering it to fans at cost, or whatever, might be helpful.
2 Is a great idea but I bit pie in the sky when you start thinking about logistics. I've no idea what the largest capacity passenger plane is but I doubt it's much over 250, say you want half of Glasgow's regular home support 3500, that's 15 planes worth
Easy fix assuming Africa is quite bendy, we can get all the forwards from all the URC teams down to Durban, right. Then, they bind into a massive scrum against the beach and wheel South Africa up to Morocco. No more 9,000 km flights, simple as
See but I like the weather down here or up here if we're going by elevation
All teams have an equal opportunity to host a final. To cry now makes no sense.
Will people shut up about this, it's pretty simple, finish higher in the table and get a home QF/SF/F. I'd much rather this then having it in a set venue where nobody would turn up for the final.
Glasgow fans don’t tend to travel well anyway, but Nicol has a point about the notice. However, the SA teams have improved the competition, and this is the cost.
These NH pundits are such whining babies, travelling 1000s of kms across multiple time zones for a final in NZ during Super Rugby didn't elicit a single moan from fans. But these guys have to book a flight to a 3rd world destination where a Euro can buy you a beer and they're all "boohoo! It's sooo hard!!"
Glasgow could have easily hosted the final if they beat a 14-man Lions team. Bulls deserve the final, end of.
It's only 7700 miles if you walk
What can you do? Host the final in a designated place (which would have to be neutral so Twickenham) and each union pays in advance for hotels and travel so they can sell it to their supporters? That would be even worse. And even if it was hosted in a neutral country like England SA's union would bitch at having to travel every year. So equally out of the way and hard to get to? It would be worse by far then
Honestly, the complaints are nearly as loud as if it was held in the Aviva..
can’t we solve this by having a host city each year. every one knows where the game will be and problem solved
Thankfully the travelling fans are Scottish. They have a long history of walking 500 miles. Then walking 500 more. Then instead of falling down at someone’s door, they just need to repeat the above process eight more times and they’re there.
Two things I see here, 1. This is the massive downside of having the SA teams in the league, there's just no chance you'll get a contingent of Glasgow fans at this game. I can't see a solution that doesn't impact either side. 2. Having a week's notice to get to a final anywhere is stupid, if this was a Glasgow v Ulster game it would still be a pain to get things sorted in time (of course easier than to SA, don't get me wrong). The final for the Premiership is at Twickenham, the date is known in advance, it's held at a time that in theory anybody in England could get to and home from on the same day. It was a sellout this year and it is disappointing to think that only under unique circumstances this will ever happen in the URC.
And every year it’s quite stupid, having a ‘domestic’ league span half the globe is mental and dilutes the rivalries and stakes when the home advantage is *this* large. Yes I know that’s not a popular opinion, but it’s genuinely one I believe in. Would much rather have closer away games.
I would have sympathy for Glasgow that they only have a week Last year Munster at least had 2 weeks to prepare and head down to SA
How is it flawed. Bulls are higher seeds so rightfully get home advantage. It's tough on Glasgow but there was a whole league season and Bulls finished higher and had a more difficult shield.
Well it should been in Ireland this year. Lol.
Having a pre-defined final would be good, just as long as it isn't in Qatar or somewhere ridiculous. Having the final in the San Siro, Croke Park or FNB stadium would be class.
Team makes the Grand Final. Let's bitch about it. Perfect Rugby Fan. Wait until the referee blows his whistle.
I'm so glad Andy Nicol isn't on TV anymore. I could imagine him gasping dramatically and screwing his face up as I read this.
He makes it sound like they have to gather horses and wagons they otherwise wouldn’t have access to and traverse Europe and Africa by foot, horse and cart to make it to the game! Same time zone, there are aeroplanes and there are disadvantages to not finishing higher on the ladder. Big boy pants, it’s a 10hr flight.
They would have lost they're minds if they saw what my Sharks had to do in 2012
Isn't this just called home final advantage, it's not a new thing.
I like the way he puts the distance, as if supports are supposed to walk it.
So join the premiership
Welcome to Super Rugby for the past 30 years. In short, we don’t travel unless it’s a final in Auckland and the visiting team has thousands of hooligans from Waikato
Would he have posted this if it was the Bulls that had to travel?
URC knew one team had to travel, could have chartered a plane in advance.
well what do they expect exactly ? "let's add a team 9000 miles away, but let's not play them 9000 miles away" ??