Pro14

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Pro14

Full name Guinness Pro14
Current season Season 2019/20
sport Rugby union
Association Irish Rugby Football Union
Federazione Italiana Rugby
Scottish Rugby Union
South African Rugby Union
Welsh Rugby Union
League foundation 2001
Teams 14th
Country countries Ireland Ireland Italy Scotland South Africa Wales
ItalyItaly 
ScotlandScotland 
South AfricaSouth Africa 
WalesFlag of Wales (1959 – present) .svg 
Title holder Ireland Leinster rugby
Record champions Ireland Leinster rugby
TV partner BBC , RTÉ , S4C , dahlia TV
Website www.pro14rugby.org

The Pro14 is an international professional league in rugby union . Due to its main sponsor Guinness and a league increase, it has also been known as the Guinness Pro14 since the 2017/18 season . Four franchises each from Ireland and Wales as well as two franchises each from Scotland , Italy and South Africa take part.

From the 2001 season to the 2005/06 season the league was called the Celtic League . For sponsorship reasons this was renamed Magners League before the 2006/07 season , as it was sponsored by the Irish cider manufacturer Magners until the 2010/11 season . In 2011 there was another change of name and sponsor, as two Italian teams had been playing in the league since 2010, and the old sponsorship contract expired. Until 2014, Rabobank was the main sponsor, and the league was called RaboDirect Pro12 . Guinness has been the main and name sponsor since 2015 , since then the league has been called Guinness Pro12 , and from the 2017/18 season Guinness Pro14.

mode

1999 / 2000–2016 / 2017

In the Pro12 , the four participants of the play-offs as well as the participants of the highest European cup competition, the European Rugby Champions Cup, were played out in the league system in which each team competes against each other in back and forth . The master was determined at the end of regular time by the play-offs. All other teams that failed to qualify for the European Rugby Champions Cup automatically entered the second European Cup competition called the European Rugby Challenge Cup . There were also no promotions and relegations.

2017/2018 – today

The expansion of the Pro12 by two South African teams made it necessary to adapt the league mode. The league was divided into two conferences based on the 2016/2017 season results. Each team from a conference plays 12 games against teams from its own conference, seven games against teams from the other conference and two derbies, so that each team has 21 games at the end of the regular season. The champion will then be determined in the play-offs in which the first place in the two conferences is seeded in the semifinals. The teams placed second and third in the conferences play the quarter-finals across all conferences, the winners of which advance to the semi-finals. There are still no promoters and relegators.

Below Pro14 there are also the national club leagues of the individual participating national rugby associations Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU), Scottish Rugby Union (SRU), Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), Federazione Italiana Rugby (FIR) and South African Rugby Union (SARU). These are the Principality Premiership (Wales), the Scottish Hydro Electric Premiership , the All-Ireland League (Ireland), the Super 10 (Italy) and the Currie Cup (South Africa).

history

At the beginning of the 1999/2000 season, the Welsh Premier Division was expanded with the integration of two Scottish teams into the Welsh-Scottish League. In 2001 the Irish Rugby Football Union, the Scottish Rugby Union and the Welsh Rugby Union agreed to create a new competition in which the four Irish provinces are also represented and founded the Celtic League. The Welsh Federation had previously negotiated with the English Rugby Football Union , but an Anglo-Welsh league did not materialize because no agreement could be reached on the number of teams involved.

Logo 2001-2006

In the first season 2001 15 teams took part; the four Irish provincial teams, two representatives of Scotland and all nine teams of the Welsh Premier Division. There were two groups with eight and seven teams, which initially competed against each other in a round robin . The top four in each group qualified for the knockout round . In 2002 the Welsh-Scottish League, which was initially held in parallel, was dissolved and the Irish provincial championship devalued. The Celtic League was also increased by a Scottish team.

In 2003 it was decided that the Celtic League should be the only professional league in the future. The Welsh Rugby Federation formed five independent professional franchises based on the nine Welsh clubs, reducing the number of teams to twelve. From a commercial point of view, the 2003/04 season was not very successful: Due to poor scheduling, most of the top players were absent in more than half of all rounds, as they were used at the World Cup and Six Nations and therefore had to take it easy.

Logo 2006-2011

Since the 2004/05 season, the game calendar has been better coordinated with international matches and tournaments. With the dissolution of the Celtic Warriors , further concentration took place in Wales, so that only eleven teams were represented. The Welsh teams first took part in the Anglo-Welsh Cup in 2005 . This led to their exclusion from the Celtic League, as the Welsh Association had not taken the game calendar into account. There were even considerations to take on four teams from Italy as replacements . New negotiations resulted in a changed calendar and the resumption of the Welsh teams before the start of the season.

The Scottish Rugby Union announced the dissolution of the Border Reivers team in late March 2007 . Thus, the Celtic League comprised only ten teams from the 2007/08 season. From the 2009/10 season, the Celtic League was decided by playoff games at the end of regular time. The league followed the example of the English Premiership and the French Top 14 , which are also ended by playoffs.

Logo 2011-2014

For the 2010/11 season, the league was expanded to include two Italian teams. To do this, however, the teams had to meet certain financial and sporting standards. The Italian association founded a new franchise , which was based in Viadana ( Aironi ). The already existing club Benetton Rugby Treviso moved here from the Italian league. At the end of the 2012 season, the Aironi team was dissolved because they no longer received a license for financial reasons. The Zebre team took their place .

In August 2017 it was announced that the former South African super rugby teams Central Cheetahs and Southern Kings will be integrated into an expanded Pro14 from the 2017/18 season. For this purpose, the league is divided into two conferences, each containing teams from all participating countries. It should also be ensured that the previous number of derbies is retained.

Teams

The following fourteen teams are represented in the Pro14:

conference team Stadion Places City, region / country
Conference A WalesFlag of Wales (1959 – present) .svg Cardiff Blues Cardiff Arms Park 12,500 Cardiff , Wales
South AfricaSouth Africa Central Cheetahs Free State Stadium
Hoffepark
48,000
18,000
Bloemfontein , South Africa
Ireland Connacht rugby Galway Sportsgrounds 09,500 Galway , Ireland
ScotlandScotland Glasgow Warriors Scotstoun Stadium 09,708 Glasgow , Scotland
Ireland Munster rugby Thomond Park
Musgrave Park
26,500
09,250
Limerick , Ireland
Cork , Ireland
WalesFlag of Wales (1959 – present) .svg Ospreys Liberty Stadium 20,532 Swansea , Wales
ItalyItaly Zebra Sergio Lanfranchi Stadium 05,000 Parma , Emilia-Romagna , Italy
Conference B ItalyItaly Benetton Rugby Treviso Stadio Comunale di Monigo 06,700 Treviso , Veneto , Italy
WalesFlag of Wales (1959 – present) .svg Newport Gwent Dragons Rodney Parade 11,676 Newport , Wales
ScotlandScotland Edinburgh rugby BT Murrayfield Stadium 67,130 Edinburgh , Scotland
Ireland Leinster rugby RDS Arena
Aviva Stadium
18,500
51,700
Dublin , Ireland
WalesFlag of Wales (1959 – present) .svg Scarlets Parc y Scarlets 14,870 Llanelli , Wales
South AfricaSouth Africa Southern Kings Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium 48,459 Port Elizabeth , South Africa
Ireland Ulster rugby Ravenhill Stadium 18,196 Belfast , Northern Ireland

master

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Celtic League unveils new sponsor RaboDirect
  2. RaboDirect to end sponsorship of the Celtic League next season
  3. ^ Magner's set to bring in play-offs. BBC, April 11, 2008, accessed March 26, 2009 .
  4. ^ Italians to join Magners League in 2010. Daily Mail, March 11, 2009, accessed March 26, 2009 .
  5. ^ Praetorians and Aironi make the Magners. (No longer available online.) Planet Rugby, July 19, 2009, archived from the original on August 7, 2009 ; accessed on July 22, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.planetrugby.com
  6. South African teams Cheetahs and Southern Kings join expanded PRO14 ( English ) Guardian. August 1, 2017. Accessed August 1, 2017.