For once, the European club campaigns are aligned. The regular league seasons in England, France and the Pro12 finish this weekend, although if Premiership Rugby has its way from 2019-20 no player will be able to contemplate going on holiday until July.
The three leagues all have a play-off system, with the champions determined by how they perform over two weeks rather than eight months.
Authentic Jarell Martin Youth Jersey Under the old system, the Premiership would have been a three-way tussle this weekend with Wasps and Exeter on 79 points and Saracens, who are at the Ricoh Arena on Saturday, two points behind in third.
In the Pro12, the leaders, Leinster, are three points ahead of Munster with both assured of a home draw, while in France La Rochelle lead Clermont Auvergne, their opponents on Saturday, by 10 points. Clermont,
http://www.authenticgrizzliestore.com/Lorenzen_Wright_Jersey fighting on two fronts like Saracens having made the European Champions Cup final, have paced themselves but need to win to ensure they sit out the first round of the play-offs. The system is more drawn out in France, with six teams involved rather than four.
When the Premiership adopted the play-offs in 2002-03, the main reason given was that with clubs shorn of their international players for three months of the season – more than one-third of the league campaign – the system was fairer on those who supplied a large number of players to England and other Test sides than first-past-the-post.
Not that the champions will revert to whoever leads the table at the end of the final round of matches from 2019-20 if the club season expands to 10 months,
Authentic David Lee Womens Jersey with the international weekends to be largely filled with Anglo-Welsh-South Africa Cup matches. It would allow clubs to be at full throttle for virtually the entire Premiership campaign, but the play-offs are lucrative and Twickenham sells out for the final.
When Premiership Rugby introduced the system, it was not rapturously received. Wasps won the first three finals and beat the team that had finished top each time, appreciating that consistency was less important than peaking at the right time. Saracens will not finish top if Exeter win at Gloucester on Saturday, but would they have lost at Gloucester and Worcester, matches played during the Six Nations, had they been at full strength?
A team that finished fourth in the Premiership has only once won the final, Saracens in 2014-15, although Northampton and Leicester had previously made it to Twickenham. The Tigers currently lie in fourth place,
http://www.authenticspurstore.com/Danny_Green_Jersey four points ahead of Bath, with a trip to Worcester on Saturday to face opponents they have lost to only twice in the top flight. They are 17 points behind Wasps and Exeter having mustered two bonus points in their matches against the top three this season, but they could be crowned champions. Unlikely, perhaps, but they are play-off perennials.
Stade Français are sixth in the Top 14 having won one away match in the league, at relegated Bayonne, and if they maintain that position in a madly congested table in which 10 points separate Castres in fifth and Toulouse, the mighty fallers, in 12th, they will have a chance to win the league.
