2023 Round-Up Of Six Nations, Gallagher, Heineken, and URC
With three exciting finals the Northern Hemisphere's 2022/23 professional rugby season has drawn to a close, providing plenty of fodder for Rugby World Cup pundits ahead of this summer’s warm-up matches.
SIX NATIONS
Of course, the 2023 Six Nations Championship provided plenty of talking points with Ireland (1) and France (2) dominating, Scotland finishing a strong 3rd, England (4) disappointing at the start of Steve Borthwick’s reign, and Wales limping into 5th with Warren Gatland unable to repeat his previous successes, for now. Italy won the wooden spoon again but have some great young players starting to make their mark.
Opponents from the southern hemisphere at this year’s RWC will be paying especially close attention to the combination of power and speed the Irish and French have in their games that has taken them to number 1 and 2 in the world rankings.
GALLAGHER PREMIERSHIP
In an historic season, for all the wrong reasons, the Gallagher Premiership nonetheless provided a feast of rugby for spectators and lots to think about for England's selectors, providing some tricky problems in some key positions. The problem, simply, is not an absence of talent, but whom to pick from a long list of standout players, especially in the back row of the scrum and in the 9 and 10 roles.
The season was notable for several positive reasons including an emphatic return by Saracens, recently relegated for salary-cap offenses but back at the top of the English game, winning the regular season on points and defeating league runner-up Sale in the Premiership final. Leicester, last season’s champions, were third in the table and lost in the semi-final to Sale, while fourth-place Northampton Saints fell to Saracens in the second semi-final.
A bigger, much less encouraging problem was the unprecedented departure of two teams during the season due to financial difficulties - Worcester Warriors and Wasps, and the announcement of London Irish going into administration (meaning the club is insolvent) at the end of the season.
This highlights the great dichotomy taking place in English rugby these days: a top quality, highly entertaining product on the pitch; and complete disarray off it (rumors suggest that there are more English clubs with financial problems). While the French club game is in strong shape, helped by municipal ownership of major stadiums and lucrative TV rights, the same cannot be said for clubs in England. Competition for the top players worldwide has created an arms race in salaries that many clubs struggle to compete with and selling tickets at the turnstile does not provide enough revenue to compensate. Ultimately, this season’s developments require a major restructuring in the rugby “pyramid” that provides players with a real future in the game, and spectators with a high quality product.
(While preparations for the World Cup will dominate the airwaves during the summer, the perilous state of the Premiership, reduced to 10 teams for the 2023/24 season will be under the microscope as soon as the RWC is over.)
Heineken Champions Cup
The competition pits the top club teams from the European region and South Africa’s leagues in a season-long tournament - qualification depends on the club’s position in their domestic league the year before. 24 clubs are divided into 2 pools of 12 and play 4 matches. The top 8 teams in each pool move to the round of 16 for the knockout phase, single matches played up to and including a final.
This season, in what was described as one of the best games of rugby seen in years, Stade Rochelais beat Leinster, in what was effectively a home match for the Irish team, in Dublin (the venue for the final is selected before the participants are known), winning by 1 point, 27-26, in a come-from-behind thriller. On display were the best teams from the top 2 countries in the world and the fact that both teams were stacked with players likely to be selected for RWC duty by Ireland and France was not lost on the millions of spectators who tuned in for the game.
United Rugby Championship
Comprising 4 pools of club teams from 5 countries (Ireland, South Africa, Wales, Scotland + Italy) each team plays 6 matches in the pool stage, home and away, against the other 3 teams in their pool. The top 8 teams enter into a knockout phase of QF, SF and Final.
In a tight match hosted by the defending champions, DHL Stormers in Cape Town, Munster scored a late try to win their first trophy since 2011 with a 19-14 final score. On this occasion, even home field advantage for the Stormers wasn’t enough to see off an Irish team that had beaten them, again in Cape Town, in April during the regular season.
Note: South African teams first played in the URC in the 2021/22 season and in the Heineken Champions Cup in 2022/23 after many years of Super Rugby, Super 14 and Super 12 competition against other southern hemisphere clubs from Australia and New Zealand. So far, their participation in these northern hemisphere competitions is regarded as a success, notwithstanding the huge distances traveled.
Rugby World Cup 2023
+ World Cup Preparations - Warm-up matches; Bledisloe; Rugby Championship
A heavy schedule of “friendly” matches and the southern hemisphere’s annual Rugby Championship (RC) fixtures, including Bledisloe Cup (BC) action between Australia and New Zealand, will provide spectators with a feast of rugby as an appetizer for the World Cup. This will also give the national team coaches the chance to refine their squads - 33 player names to be provided to World Rugby by September 1.
Of course, with a grueling World Cup schedule coming up (the “final four” will play 7 matches in total), fitness and conditioning will be key. Inevitable injuries during the summer warm-up phase will no doubt cause heart-burn and last-minute changes in World Cup squads.
Some major fixtures during the summer include (France’s club season finishes July 14):
| Date | Match 1 | Match 2 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 8 | S. Africa vs. Australia | Argentina vs. New Zealand | (RC) |
| Jul 15 | New Zealand vs. S. Africa | Australia vs. Argentina | (RC) |
| Jul 29 | Australia vs. New Zealand (BC) | S. Africa vs. Argentina | (RC) |
| Aug 5 | New Zealand vs. Australia (BC) | Argentina vs. S. Africa | |
| Scotland vs. France | Ireland vs. Italy | ||
| Aug 12 | England vs. Wales | France vs. Scotland | |
| Aug 18 | Ireland vs. England | ||
| Aug 19 | France vs. Fiji | Wales vs. S. Africa | |
| Aug 25 | New Zealand vs. S. Africa (at Twickenham Stadium, England) | ||
| Aug 26 | England vs. Fiji | ||
| Aug 27 | France vs. Australia | ||
| Sep 9 | Rugby World Cup Opening Ceremony at Stade de France in Paris | ||
| Sep 9 | First match - France vs. New Zealand @ 9:00 PM |