British & Irish Cup 17/18

[BaggyTrousers]

Very difficult unless you have a squad like Mexico to compete with a scratch team who rarely play together against half decent clubs who play week in & week out.

Pirates were the home of Stack Stevens, I only discovered today that he had a real name. He was Claude Brian Stevens. I never ever heard of him referred to as anything but Stack.

[Dave]

Wonder how the scrums went?

[Cockatrice]

How VDM do at prop?

[Russ]

How VDM do at prop?

Dunno. You?

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[Neill_M]

Seems this will be the last year of the B&I.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/ ... -1.3278278

This season will mark the final instalment of the British & Irish Cup. A meeting between the England Championship clubs and the English RFU produced a resolution that they no longer wished to play in the competition.

It is likely to provide the IRFU with some scope to potentially stage an A interprovincial championship among the provinces at the start of the season run over eight weeks and that would then allow the academy players to return to their clubs and compete in uninterrupted Ulster Bank League campaigns.

[BaggyTrousers]

Bloody good idea. I have long considered that many of our lesser lights would benefit from regular competitive rugby, even if it's not the level that they aspire to. In Scotland all pro players are assigned to a club and if they are not required by the Pro team or aren't injured their club have the duty to play them.

Saves the nonsense of guys not having a competitive match for weeks then suddenly needed to play in the Pro14 with neither form nor match fitness.

And lest we forget, feck the Lionels.

[Rooster]

So bang goes the idea of a couple of SA sides joining it and bang goes the Welsh local derbies with the Eeenglish that they toss themselves off about.

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[jean valjean]

So bang goes the idea of a couple of SA sides joining it and bang goes the Welsh local derbies with the Eeenglish that they toss themselves off about.

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Do they not still have the glorious LV cup to fawn over?

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[Russ]

So bang goes the idea of a couple of SA sides joining it and bang goes the Welsh local derbies with the Eeenglish that they toss themselves off about.

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Do they not still have the glorious LV cup to fawn over?

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English want rid

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[Neill_M]

So bang goes the idea of a couple of SA sides joining it and bang goes the Welsh local derbies with the Eeenglish that they toss themselves off about.

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You sure you aren’t getting the B&I mixed up with the Anglo Welsh?

Championship sides play in the B&I

[Kofi Annan]

I was under the impression that the Cup was to go in its current format but another competition was to replace it.

[Rooster]

So bang goes the idea of a couple of SA sides joining it and bang goes the Welsh local derbies with the Eeenglish that they toss themselves off about.

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You sure you aren’t getting the B&I mixed up with the Anglo Welsh?

Championship sides play in the B&I

I was getting confused indeed, then again they are both stupid competitions

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[Neill_M]

So bang goes the idea of a couple of SA sides joining it and bang goes the Welsh local derbies with the Eeenglish that they toss themselves off about.

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You sure you aren’t getting the B&I mixed up with the Anglo Welsh?

Championship sides play in the B&I

I was getting confused indeed, then again they are both stupid competitions

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Both serve a similar function for the AP sides and the provinces - gametime for the lads in the wider squad/academy.

Both also lack a wow factor, saw that Sarries were beat by Quins at the weekend but then saw it was the AW....

[Dave]

They are going to split it into more conferences and each team will play teams from their own country six times to make up the difference.

[BR]

Celtic Warriors, the Borders, Aironi and Caledonia will be asked to join.

There will be 16 pools of 1 and 4 of 2.

Each club will play itself Away only along with the club from the same pool the previous season Home, Away and the ground of the team currently leading the next but 1 pool. Unless there is a local derby when the national coach will be given the decision of who wins.

The top 9 teams will progress to the play-offs where
1st plays 9th,
2nd plays 8th,
3rd plays 7th,
4th plays 6th
5th will play Mickey Slevin select on EA's Jonah Lomu Rugby

The club with the greater number of barristers in their legal team will progress.

QF will be drawn from a hat, with the rabbit having home advantage.

SF will be played by actors under government broadcasting restrictions.

Final will be played as a curtain-raiser to the final match of the English National 3 North season.