The British and Irish Cup Attraction or Distraction?

With the Green King Championship taking a couple of weeks off. This weekend saw the first pool matches of the British and Irish Cup. With London Welsh fielding a much changed side and losing out to London Scottish. So which clubs see this competition as worthwhile and which as an incovenience?

London Welsh's unbeaten run came to an end on Saturday at the hands of close rivals London Scottish, but should anything be read into that considering the amount of changes made to the side, that has performed so well over the past four weeks.

Justin Burnell said that the team give the B and I the same respect as any other compettition, but can that be taken seriously, when London Welsh fielded  a side including dual registered players,  who usually play week in week out for other teams, on top of that players recovering from injury and other players who have yet to feature in the GKC matches.

Quite clearly London Welsh have prioritised the Championship over the cup competition, but what of the other sides.

Welsh's opponents on Saturday only fielded 4 players in their 22 that haven't featured in their championship campaign , so far.

Coaches and fans alike , talk about momentum, but do competions such as this destroy that with so many teams choosing to rest some of their better players and in doing so does that de-value the competition.

Obviously the team that ends up winning the cup will say that the competition is worthwhile, but is it a bit of a hollow victory when you know that you have beaten teams that haven't necessarily fielded their best sides. As a fan do you want to see the best players on show regardless of the competition.

What happens in the subsequent fixtures, once a team loses a game it leaves them in a situation where it is then hard to get out of their pool and so may decide to field an even weaker team.

You may think that the B & I cup would be the equivilant of the Heineken Cup for the second tier clubs but in reality there is a much greater prize at stake when promotion to the premiership is taken into consideration.

Whats your opinion? Would you be gald to see the back of the cup and maybe see it replaced by more championship matches involving a bigger league or do you enjoy the trips across the Irish Sea and into Wales?

Next week sees the second round of group games and that in itself should clarify who has the intention to try and progress in the competition.

Regardless of opions about the competition, many see it as another rugby game and will, I'm sure be travelling to watch their teams regardless.