THE HERALD REPORTS

Play-offs would reinvigorate Magners League campaign

KEVIN FERRIE May 08 2008
As Leinster secured the Magners League title last weekend and there is no relegation, the last round of matches tomorrow and Sunday are relatively meaningless.

Just how much would be added to the product if that was not the case, though, and these games were vital as teams jockeyed for position ahead of do-or-die knockout matches? The case for play-offs has been made and every indication is that they will be introduced next season as Archie Ferguson, one of Scotland's Celtic Board directors, confirmed to me this week.

"There will be board meeting on the Friday before the Heineken Cup final May 23 at which we will be reviewing all recommendations, but there is agreement to play-offs in principle and it is a question of working out the detail," he said. "We will be looking at all possibilities that will make the Magners League more attractive."

advertisementNothing can do that more than play-offs. Think of the excitement that would be generated in Scottish rugby right now by the way Glasgow Warriors are finishing their campaign - they have recorded four successive wins, including last weekend's bonus-point success at Ravenhill. With Edinburgh's defeat of the Ospreys the previous night meaning that both had won on the road on the same weekend for the first time, the only team to have beaten a Scottish side since March is, well, Glasgow when defeating their neighbours a month ago.

On the face of it, the introduction of play-offs could create a fixture congestion problem because the Welsh provinces are, under their current agreement, committed to one more season of the Anglo-Welsh tournament. The credibility of that competition can be assessed by comparing the results when teams that met in the knockout stages of that competition (Wasps-Leicester and Saracens-Ospreys) then faced one another again in more meaningful Guinness Premiership and Heineken Cup matches over the following weeks.

Setting that aside, even if we assume the Welsh want to continue to take those matches with English clubs seriously, the way of dealing with it is not to worry about how to squeeze two more matches into the Magners League schedule, but to add three. It may seem a silly suggestion, but allowing eight of the 10 teams in the Celtic competition to qualify for the play-offs would have all sorts of advantages.

First, and most importantly, it would mean the teams which contain the bulk of the international players in the three countries would be able to rest them for a prolonged period in early season, something they could not afford to do if only four play-off places were available.

Leinster, Munster, Cardiff, the Ospreys, Edinburgh and Glasgow would be all but guaranteed play-off involvement. That is, by definition, far from the case if only four play-off places are available.

It would mean that a weekend like this one, with sixth-placed Llanelli facing fourth-placed Edinburgh and fifth-placed Glasgow visiting third-placed Munster, would be vital in the battle for the right to a home quarter-final. That in itself would make compulsive viewing ahead of the knockout stages themselves.

As things stand, the play-offs would begin with Cardiff Blues and the Ospreys, the two teams that produced the entire Wales grand slam-winning side, facing one another in the quarter-finals. You could probably fill the Millennium Stadium for that one.

A knock-on effect would be to create a form of relegation, since the two sides finishing ninth and 10th would be the only ones to miss out on the bonanza of play-offs. This season, that would have added a real edge to the closing matches for Newport-Gwent Dragons, Ulster and Connacht. Instead, now that the Dragons have secured the last Heineken Cup place for next season, they too have nothing to play for this weekend.

There is some good thinking going on within the Celtic League board. One idea is for a massive kick-off weekend, based on the way the Guinness Premiership starts with the London clubs playing a couple of games at Twickenham, but staging five matches at, in turn, Lansdowne Road, the Millennium and Murrayfield has been mooted.

That would be a great occasion, while I remain convinced that staging a match between a Magners League XV and the All Blacks, Springboks or Wallabies at the end of the autumn Test window would be far more exciting for supporters than Barbarians games, while boosting the Celtic competition's sense of identity.

There also remains a serious possibility that in future seasons the competition can be enhanced by the introduction of the best Italian sides. However, as things stand right now, the key to immediately enhancing the product lies in an extended play-off system.

This article was posted on 8-May-2008, 07:54 by Hugh Barrow.