2023/24 New Format Explainer | Champions Cup

The 2023/24 Champions Cup pools will be drawn on Wednesday 21st June, but with a brand new format, here's a lowdown on how next season's competition works

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[pjdarcy]

Hopefully this is format is only due to the world cup and they'll revert to the old format of 4 teams in each pool next year

[looweeee]

It's been a long time since the Champions Cup is not "the one to win" anymore...

[michaelharnedy]

Disappointed with this. Cutting the tournament by 1 week it has permanently hobbled it. The old format of pools of 4 was far superior and made the pool stage engaging, especially in the last round of fixtures when teams tried to force their way into the last available QF spaces. Top 14 has 29 weeks of fixtures, but they end up cutting 1 week from the Champions Cup schedule instead. Makes no sense if you want to make a success of this tournament.

"More sporting jeopardy" is just plainly disingenuous to me. 16/24 teams progressing to a round of 16 means the same lack of jeopardy of the past few seasons will remain. Last season a couple teams progressed from the pools with only 1 win. That's likely to be repeated.

Scrap the round of 16, add one more week back in and revert to the pools of 4 so that those pool games are meaningful and have actual sporting jeopardy. Otherwise it is fatally devalued and I will have less interest in those matches before the knockout stages.

Finally "No repeated fixtures" is actually a bad thing in my eyes. I enjoyed the Munster v Toulouse match last season in the pools at least. If instead they only got to play them once, and that match were away in Toulouse I would be frustrated with not having a repeat fixture to try and even the score with them.

[antiussentiment]

It should just be called the UTC Championship.
~ smiles ~

[ciaranbrk]

Why not just have each team play each other twice like the amazing Heineken cups in their pool games.

[paulmahony]

This format is better but it's still fundamentally far too silly. At this point just make it straight single elimination. Put all the teams in. This is what the people want.

[robertjacob]

Can’t wait for Leinster to bottle it 💪🏼

[erwerwewerwer]

In other words: "Now that the comp is successful and not in need of fixing, we are going to break it".

[matiasaguilera]

I absolutely disagree that 2 teams from the same country cannot face each other in pools stages

[zisssssou]

Is it too difficult for this organization to stick with 1 single and historic format, rather to change every year to satisfy every unions? The idea to open this competition to SA provinces rather to new european countries was already a bad idea... You needed more marketing bullshit. Sad.