United Rugby Championship

[neill_m]

PREMIER SPORTS WINS TV RIGHTS FOR NEW UNITED RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP FOR FOUR YEARS
Every game counts and will be LIVE on Premier Sports in new world-class 16 club league

UK sports broadcaster Premier Sports will show every game LIVE and host more than 100 exclusive rugby fixtures in the new look United Rugby Championship with coverage from every round across five elite rugby nations - Ireland, Italy, Wales, Scotland and South Africa.

Premier Sports has also been awarded TV rights for the Republic of Ireland for the first time in the new era of the game-changing tournament expanding its coverage to bring together live coverage from each round to a wider rugby audience across the UK and Ireland.

Premier Sports will provide exclusive coverage of more than two thirds of the tournament’s 151 games and all the top-billing live rugby action from the United Rugby Championship - as South Africa’s four Super teams Vodacom Bulls, Cell C Sharks, DHL Stormers and Emirates Lions join - providing the most comprehensive live TV coverage available and headlined by world rugby’s leading pundits.

[heno]

Am I reading the calendar right, do we have a free weekend before the euro sf?
That's hardly good for the teams that are and the teams that are not involved in the euro sf.

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[joooooe]

Am I reading the calendar right, do we have a free weekend before the euro sf?
That's hardly good for the teams that are and the teams that are not involved in the euro sf.

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Getting a little ahead of ourselves?

The really important impact could be the route taken by the open top bus

[heno]

Am I reading the calendar right, do we have a free weekend before the euro sf?
That's hardly good for the teams that are and the teams that are not involved in the euro sf.

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Getting a little ahead of ourselves?

The really important impact could be the route taken by the open top bus

You did understand what I said? The "we" applies to all participants in the urc.

It's a free weekend before the euro SF for those in the SF.
But those who are not will have 2 free weekends back to back before the final regular season game where top 8 positions will be decided.
So I am suggesting that this doesn't suit anyone in the urc. So assuming we have qualified for that, then no I don't think I'm getting ahead of myself.

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[cormac]

The argument is moot. There's no free weekend before the Euro SF's.

2021/22 EPCR weekends:

Round 1 – 10/11/12 December
Round 2 – 17/18/19 December
Round 3 – 14/15/16 January 2022
Round 4 – 21/22/23 January 2022

Round of 16 (1st leg) – 8/9/10 April 2022
Round of 16 (2nd leg) – 15/16/17 April 2022
Quarter-finals – 6/7/8 May 2022
Semi-finals – 13/14/15 May 2022
Challenge Cup final – Friday 27 May 2022; Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
Heineken Champions Cup final – Saturday 28 May 2022; Stade Vélodrome, Marseille

[heno]

The argument is moot. There's no free weekend before the Euro SF's.

2021/22 EPCR weekends:

Round 1 – 10/11/12 December
Round 2 – 17/18/19 December
Round 3 – 14/15/16 January 2022
Round 4 – 21/22/23 January 2022

Round of 16 (1st leg) – 8/9/10 April 2022
Round of 16 (2nd leg) – 15/16/17 April 2022
Quarter-finals – 6/7/8 May 2022
Semi-finals – 13/14/15 May 2022
Challenge Cup final – Friday 27 May 2022; Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
Heineken Champions Cup final – Saturday 28 May 2022; Stade Vélodrome, Marseille

Thank you, I don't know what version I was looking at. I knew it couldn't be right.

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[ronk]

1 week to organise a semi final. That'll be hard on travelling fans.

[roarlad]

If this is proposed to kick off on the weekend of the 24th of September...which is just over 6 weeks away...shouldn't we start to see fixture lists annouced soonish?
going off the 2019/20 season, we had pre-season fixtures (3 of which), starting.. 5 weeks out from the kick-off of the new season.

I'm all for letting the players recover from the hell that was the 2019-2020 seasons, though some clarity here on dates would be great..

[alanair]

and of course how many will be allowed to attend ???

[Flash Gordon]

If this is proposed to kick off on the weekend of the 24th of September...which is just over 6 weeks away...shouldn't we start to see fixture lists annouced soonish?
going off the 2019/20 season, we had pre-season fixtures (3 of which), starting.. 5 weeks out from the kick-off of the new season.

I'm all for letting the players recover from the hell that was the 2019-2020 seasons, though some clarity here on dates would be great..

Ideally yes of course. However, South Africa is in the middle of a massive pandemic which makes it unsafe to go to and unsafe for them to travel. Believe they are looking at safe European bases but the added complication is that the Stormers are close to bankruptcy. Of course it's frustrating but in this case I have some sympathy for administrators.

[neill_m]

https://www.the42.ie/united-rugby-champ ... 6-Aug2021/

MUNSTER LOOK SET for a difficult two-match trip to South Africa in the weeks running up to the start of the Heineken Champions Cup in December.

Clubs have been sent several draft fixture lists for the new United Rugby Championship as organisers try to plan a schedule that will not be impacted by the Covid-19 situation in South Africa, whose four main franchises will be joining the original PRO12 teams to form the new competition.

The continuing difficult Covid-19 environment in South Africa, which impacted on the recent Lions tour and which also sees games continued to be played behind closed doors, is being taken into account by the organisers of the URC.

Accordingly, none of the sides from the Six Nations countries will travel to South Africa until the end of November, although clubs know the latest draft fixtures could again be altered.

It’s proposed that the four South African sides, the Bulls, Stormers, Sharks and Lions, will travel north for the opening four rounds of the competition which gets under on the final weekend of September. The four South African sides will play each other in the fifth round before the autumn internationals start.

And if the current draft of fixtures is adopted, then Leinster, who won the last four PRO14 titles, will host South Africa’s most successful Super Rugby side the Bulls on the opening weekend next month, while the Sharks, with former Munster lock Gerbrandt Grobler and ex-Irish U-20 coach Noel McNamara on board, will visit Thomond Park, with the Stormers due a week later.

Ulster will be at home to Glasgow Warriors with Connacht the only Irish side away on the opening weekend when they make the trip to Cardiff before entertaining the Bulls and Dragons.

The new competition will run for five rounds until 22-24 October and then break for four weekends for the autumn internationals.

Munster and Cardiff will be the first teams to head to South Africa, with Johann van Graan making a trip home to the Bulls in Pretoria on the last weekend in November and then take on the Lions in Johannesburg the following week.

A week later Munster will open their Heineken Champions Cup campaign against either Castres or Wasps, leaving the Munster management with a dilemma over what sort of squad they take to South Africa. The squad will have been idle for four weeks of the autumn internationals and the matches in South Africa will be their only games before the start of the Champions Cup.

The draw has been kinder to Leinster, as things stand, as they’re poised to be at home to Ulster and Connacht before the start of Europe but later in the season Leo Cullen’s men will have a two-match trip to South Africa against the Sharks and the Stormers in the weeks leading up to the European quarter-finals.

Connacht are also due to head to South Africa at the same time in April, taking on the Lions in Johannesburg and the Sharks in Durban, while Ulster are due to head to play the Stormers in Cape Town at the end of March and the Bulls the following week, just before 16 teams battle it out in a knockout round of the Champions Cup to determine the quarter-finalists.

The manoeuvring around the Covid-19 situation in South Africa looks set to result in their four franchises having a large number of home games in a row at the business end of the season with the Sharks at home for six of their last seven games.

The 16 teams in the new URC have been divided into four pools — Irish, Welsh, South African and Scottish/Italian — with each team playing derbies home and away in their pool and then playing the other 12 teams either home or away. Each team will have a total of nine home and nine away games before the knockout stages. The top eight teams will qualify for the quarter-finals of the inaugural URC.

The four pool winners will automatically qualify for the Champions Cup, with the remaining four teams being the next highest in the final league table.

[ronk]

We'll be down Lions and Irish summer tourists for the start of the season. We'll be basically in pre season friendly mode. Then we go straight into our biggest home match against the top SA side who'll be battle hardened by the Currie Cup, with a huge point to prove and knowing that we're undercooked.

Good draw? It couldn't be tougher (at least if we were travelling it would just be an away match on the line).

Our South African trip will interfere with the HC QF. Exactly when we don't want it. And it's timed to be in front of crowds (but who knows). The group stage is easy in the new format so it forgives a slow start.

Munster can sent fresh non internationals to SA and rest/reintegrate slowly the internationals post autumn internationals.

[cormac]

Not sure if we'll be missing all those involved in Ireland camp. They must surely have started their pre-season by now? Game v USA was on July 10th and quite a few Leinster players didn't even feature in that one.

Plus, unusually for us, some of our more experienced internationals weren't involved so should be available for the start of the season.

[CiaranIrl]

I'd say James Ryan and Sexton and a couple of others will be desperate to play against the big South African franchises and show what Gatland was missing.

[Oldschoolsocks]

I'd say James Ryan and Sexton and a couple of others will be desperate to play against the big South African franchises and show what Gatland was missing.

I would honestly hope that they wouldn’t give a shite what Fatland thinks of them.

The entire notion of the Lions has been cheapened by the last two tours at least

[neill_m]

Unsure how to post pictures here, but basically the league have said the fixtures are with the clubs and the broadcasters and will hopefully be published shortly.

[domhnallj]

Unsure how to post pictures here, but basically the league have said the fixtures are with the clubs and the broadcasters and will hopefully be published shortly.

Does anyone know if Premier Sports is showing all the games for this years league? I just saw from my bank statement that they charged me £120 and I want to make sure I gets my monies worth.

[Serb]

Premier Sports claim they have ROI rights for the United Rugby Championship here:

https://www.premiersports.com/sports/pr ... ier-sports

[neill_m]

Unsure how to post pictures here, but basically the league have said the fixtures are with the clubs and the broadcasters and will hopefully be published shortly.

Does anyone know if Premier Sports is showing all the games for this years league? I just saw from my bank statement that they charged me £120 and I want to make sure I gets my monies worth.

UK sports broadcaster Premier Sports will show every game LIVE and host more than 100 exclusive rugby fixtures in the new look United Rugby Championship with coverage from every round across five elite rugby nations - Ireland, Italy, Wales, Scotland and South Africa.

Premier Sports has also been awarded TV rights for the Republic of Ireland for the first time in the new era of the game-changing tournament expanding its coverage to bring together live coverage from each round to a wider rugby audience across the UK and Ireland.

[The Doc]

Premier Sports has also been awarded TV rights for the Republic of Ireland for the first time in the new era of the game-changing tournament expanding its coverage to bring together live coverage from each round to a wider rugby audience across the UK and Ireland.

If I read their website correctly, the only way to get Premier is with Sky - that correct?