Gerry Thornley: Improving Pro12 product a matter of urgency

Last weekend's derbies could have potentially huge ramifications for the playoff/qualification picture in this season Guinness Pro12's finale and thus on into next season's European competitions. Indeed, in that context, the latest Leinster-Munster collision was potentially more significant than many a previous league clash. Maybe it will eventually catch on.

For the moment though, with the particular exception of upwardly mobile Connacht, the provinces are largely judged in the prism of their European well-being, especially so Munster and Leinster after five wins between them in a seven-year period from 2006. Even since Leinster's last triumph in 2012, themselves and/or Munster subsequently reached the semi-finals for three successive seasons.

Whatever the actual attendance, Saturday's match at the Aviva Stadium lacked the sense of occasion associated with many of their high-octane meetings over the years. Of course these things happen in cycles, and the 80,000-plus crowd which attended the Heineken Cup semi-final of 2009, taken in tandem with their semi-final clash at Lansdowne Road three years previously, was always likely to represent a peak.

Yet each is, to some degree, weighed down by the baggage of history. Hence, one can’t help but feel that had the three- and two-time winners of the European Cup reached the knockout stages again this season, and had been looking forward to quarter-finals this coming weekend, there would have been an altogether different feel to last Saturday’s rendezvous.

Greater intensity

For starters, one ventures the attendance would have exceeded even the fanciful figure of 43,000-odd – league policy dictates that all season ticket holders (Leinster have 12,000) be included in that number. Most probably too, albeit the second-half marked an improvement, the game itself would thus have had a greater intensity to it; perhaps emulating the second 40 minutes over the full 80.

Yet there's little doubt Irish supporters, and perhaps too the playing and coaching staff as well as the media, judge their provinces' success or otherwise in a given season by their performances in Europe. Viewed in that light, the failure of Leinster, Munster and Ulster to advance beyond the knockout stages for the first time since the 1997-98 made this season a relative failure.

While a league title would constitute notable compensation (and ensure a top seeding for next season’s pool draw) it would still largely be considered just that, a consolation prize.

Back in 1997-98, as now, Connacht provided some compensation too by reaching the quarter-finals of the European Challenge Cup under another Kiwi coach, Warren Gatland, who was to leave a lasting impression on the province.

Significantly though, this season marks the first time in the history of the European/Heineken/Champions Cup when not one side from the Celtic nations has reached the knockout stages. Next weekend’s Champions Cup last eight is an Anglo-French carve-up. That lessens the European competition, but the whole Pro12 has been discredited as a result.

Coming at a time when the advent of beIN Sport and BT along with wealthy private benefactors has further upped the financial clout of the Top 14 and Premiership clubs, and in the second season of the Anglo-French revised tournament, it is a worrying development.

But too much can be read into one campaign; similarly erroneous rushes to judgements have been made in the past. But more than anything, the Pro12 needs a stronger showing in the European Champions Cup next season to revive its credibility.

Beyond that, there’s little doubt it suffers in comparison to the Top 14 and Premiership, with their weightier histories, stadia, financial backing and television coverage. For all the manifest French foibles when it comes to officiating, one could possible add in the refereeing as well.

In any event, although some of the Pro12 at least reaches a terrestrial audience, it simply doesn’t look or play out as entertainingly. Scattered television coverage as well as scattered kick-offs don’t help; nor does the lack of a highlights package across all the weekend’s half-dozen games.

The Pro12's recently appointed managing director Martin Anayi is working toward improving the league's appeal and to that end is canvassing all the participating 12 teams with a view to rescheduling the season. Anayi has identified the relatively low attendance of leading international players as one of the biggest blights on the Pro12, and wants therefore to reduce the number of games each team plays but increase the number of high -profile encounters.

Rather than continue with a 22-game, home-and-away format, he is proposing dividing the 12 teams into two conferences of six, comprising of two Irish, two Welsh, one Scottish and one Italian team each. They would play each other home and away, as well as meeting the six teams in the other conference at least once each, while also maintaining home and away derbies. This would in turn create room for an additional round of playoff matches encompassing more derbies; meaning 19 matches rather than 22 in total.

Revived format

Having less clashes with international weekends will not necessarily mean more appearances from international players. It comes with the possibility of expanding the British and Irish Cup, which for the sake of the club game here, should be resisted at all costs!

There would also be room for increasing the playoffs to the top six, ala the Top 14, with the sides finishing third and fourth at home to those finishing sixth and fifth in two quarter-finals, with the winners thus earning semi-finals away to the top two.

Akin to Super Rugby's revived format, it is gimmicky, it is not strictly equitable. Some teams will play ten home matches, and others nine. And yet it has merit, and probably should be adopted from the 2017-18 season onwards. Anything which improves the Guinness Pro12 product, and increases the number of what Anayi describes as 'flashpoints' in the season, should be adopted. gthornley@irishtimes.com