Bath Given Many Chances To Win In Europe Next Year

Support In Europe
By Glen Leat
June 26 2002

The second string European Cup competition will change next season. Not only is the name changing (slightly) but the format will be different as well and we will be part of it – great!

The Parker Pen Challenge Cup will be a knock-out tournament with each of the 32 competing teams from eight nations assured of a minimum of four matches.

Round One will see 16 seeded teams drawn against 16 unseeded teams. They will play each other home and away and no two teams from the same country will be drawn together. The winners will go forward to Round 2 and play home and away.

The unsuccessful teams will move in to a separate competition called the Parker Pen Shield which is run on identical lines to the Challenge Cup.

Rumour has it that the eight unsuccessful teams in the Shield will move in to a competition called the Inkwell and the four unsuccessfull teams in the Inkwell will move in to the Ballpoint. The two unsuccessful teams from the Ballpoint will play in a final at Twickenham called the Pencil Cup and is intended to both blunt the ambition of all rugby supporters and provide a bit of an earner for the clubs. Before you start moaning about all this extra rugby I hasten to add that this is all just a rumour at present.

The last eight and then the last four in Cup and Shield competitions will continue on the home and away format in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, with a draw taking place to determine the order of home advantage. The two finals will be staged on the last weekend in May as straight winner-takes-all contests at neutral venues. The winner of the Cup will automatically qualify for the Heineken Cup next season.

The seeded teams are:
ENGLAND: Bath Rugby, Leeds Tykes, London Wasps, NEC Harlequins, Newcastle Falcons, Saracens
FRANCE: Bordeaux-Begles, Castres Olympique, Colomiers, Montauban, RC Narbonne, Stade Francais
WALES: Bridgend, Pontypridd
IRELAND: Connacht
SCOTLAND: Scottish Borders

The unseeded teams are:
FRANCE: Grenoble, Mont de Marsan, Pau
WALES: Caerphilly, Ebbw Vale
ITALY: GR.A.N. Rugby Parma, Parma Rugby, Petrarca Padova, Pol Rugby L’Aquila, Rugby Roma, Rugby Rovigo, Rugby Silea, Rugby Treviso
SPAIN: La Moraleja Alcobendas, Madrid 2012
ROMANIA: Dinamo Bucuresti