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BREAKING: Pro12 release first official statement on 'Pro14' talks
By Ian Cameron
The Pro12 have released their first official statement regarding the entry of two new sides into the competition.
On the website, a statement read: "Celtic Rugby can confirm that advanced & positive discussions are taking place with the South African Rugby Union regarding the introduction of 2 teams into an expanded Guinness PRO12 Championship.
"Given the proximity of the 2017/18 season start, a final decision on this potential expansion will be confirmed as soon as practical."
Yesterday BBC Scotland are reported that the Pro12 will be confirmed as a new Pro14 competition with the entry of the two culled South African Super Rugby franchises.
The BBC report that the deal will be worth in the region of £6 million per year to the league through both TV revenue and through the South African Rugby Union.
Both the Cheetahs and the Southern Kings were officially discarded from the Super Rugby tournament early this month.
While it is yet to be confirmed, it is expected that the new layout will see two conferences of 7 teams, who will play each other both home and away. Each team will play all teams from the other conference at least once, bringing the total number of regular season games to 19.
The top teams from each conference will then play-off against each other to be crowned Pro14 champions.
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Latest Comments
GB is England, Scotland, Wales. They are the 3 constituent countries in Great Britain. Ergo playing only those three countries is a tour of GB. The difference between GB and the UK is Northern Ireland. It's not a huge deal to be accurate and call places by their correct name. But please refrain from your idiotic attempts to BS that GB=UK. It doesn't.
Go to commentsThe 2023 draw was only criticized when it became apparent that the top 5 sides in the world were on the same side of the draw. Nowhere did they discuss the decision to backtrack to 2019 rankings which ensured that England and Wales (ranked #12 in 2023) were ranked top4.
The parties who trashed out the schedule were England Rugby, NZ Rugby and ITV. It is bordering on corrupt that a Rugby nation has the power to schedule its opponents to play a major match the week before facing them in a QF.
You won't find commentary by members of the relevant committees because a committee did not make the scheduling decision. I have never heard members of World Rugby speak out on the draw or scheduling issues.
For example in 2015 Japan were hammered by Scotland 4 days after beating SA. The criticism only happens after a cock up.
A fair pool schedule is pretty straightforward: The lowest two tanked teams must play on last pool day but not against each other. That means that TV can focus on promoting big matches with a Tier2 involved for that Friday.
Why does NZ Always get its preferred slot playing the hardest pool match on day 1?
Why do other teams eg France, Ireland, Scotland get so often scheduled to play a hard match the week before the QFs?
If you believe the rules around scheduling are transparent then please point me in the right direction?
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