The Wildcard Playoffs Explained
By Keith Jenner
May 10 2004
The season is over, it's just the Championship and Wildcard playoffs to come. Following the final matches of the season, the Zurich Premiership table looks like this:
Bath 79
Wasps 73
Northampton 70
Gloucester 63
Leicester 55
Quins 54
Sale 53
London Irish 49
Newcastle 45
Saracens 39
Leeds 37
Rotherham 3
I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs of the fact that Bath aren't champions yet, despite being at the top of the table after 22 games. Instead, let's look at the various playoffs which are still to come and also how this all affects Quins chances of qualifying for the Heineken Cup next year.
Firstly, lets deal with the Premiership final, as that is fairly easy. Next weekend, Wasps will host Northampton and the winner will then face Bath at Twickenham to decide the official Premiership Champions. It's as simple as that.
The situation isn't anything like so easy for the Wildcard playoffs. There is a place in next season's Heineken Cup for one team, but who that team will be is the subject of numerous permutations.
One thing we do now know is that the Wildcard semi-finals played next weekend will be:
Gloucester v Sale
Leicester v Quins
In theory, the two winners will then play at Twickenham on the 29th of May for that Heineken Cup place. However, things are likely to change before the Twickenham game is played as the European Finals the weekend before will mean that one or two of the teams in the wildcard semis will automatically qualify for Europe and therefore drop out of the wildcards.
Let's look at the two European Finals first to see which teams will be affected.
Parker Pen Cup
As a result of this match, one of the wildcard teams will automatically qualify for the Heineken Cup. Hopefully, Quins will win the Parker Pen and get into Europe that way. If so, they will drop out of the wildcards and Leicester would progress to the final whatever the result of the game next week.
However, if the result goes against us then the team who finished 4th, i.e. Gloucester will get the Heineken Cup place. In this case, Sale would go through to the wildcard final regardless of the result of their match against Gloucester.
Heineken Cup
If Wasps lose the Heineken Cup final then there will be no effect of the wildcards, but if they were to win then England would get another place in Europe next season, which would go to the highest placed English team who haven't already qualified. This is where things start to get a bit complicated. If Quins won the PPC then Gloucester would qualify, but if we had lost the previous day then Gloucester would already be in, so Leicester would then qualify.
Does that make sense? Lets put it this way:
European Winners Qualifiers
Wasps/Harlequins Gloucester/Harlequins
Wasps/Monterrand Gloucester/Leicester
Toulouse/Harlequins Harlequins
Toulouse/Montferrand Gloucester
So, for each of the four teams in the wildcard semis this is what they have to do.
Gloucester
Gloucester will qualify automatically unless Toulouse win the Heineken Cup and Quins win the Parker Pen Cup, which is a possible outcome. They therefore must take next weeks game against Sale seriously. If they win that, and have to play in the final it will be against Leicester who, on current form, will be hard to beat at Twickenham.
Leicester
Leicester will be hoping that Wasps and Montferrand win in Europe which will mean that they will qualify automatically. However, they will surely fancy themselves to win the playoffs anyway on their current form. They will be favourites to beat Quins next week at Welford Road and, assuming that they don't then drop out, will play either Gloucester or Sale in the final. From a very sticky start to the season, Leicester now have an excellent chance of being in the Heineken Cup again next season.
Harlequins
We did Wasps a favour last week when we beat Bath in the last minute, and how did they repay us? They didn't take advantage of the lifeline which they had been given and, by losing to a rampant Leicester, they ensured that we have to play the leagues form team at Welford Road next week rather than a home tie against Sale.
Today's results didn't work out very well for us, as slipping from 5th to 6th place has cut off one means of automatic Heineken Cup qualification for us. Had we finished 5th, we would have qualified automatically as long as either us or Wasps had won our European Finals. As things now stand, the only way we can automatically qualify is by winning the Parker Pen Cup ourselves.
However, there is one other ray of hope. If we do fail to win the PPC, but Wasps win the Heineken Cup then Gloucester and Leicester will both drop out and we would face Sale in the wildcard final. It would be hard to forecast the result of that match.
Sale
Sale are the only team in the wildcard for whom this is the only way that they can now qualify for Europe, so they know exactly what they have to do which is to beat Gloucester at Kingsholm and then go on to beat either Leicester or Quins at Twickenham.
There is one little complication, which is that even if they lose to Gloucester then it is still possible (in fact likely) that they still go to the final as Gloucester may drop out.
The playoff system to decide both the champions and the final Heineken Cup qualifiers have been widely criticised. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of having the playoffs, my main issue is to do with the timing, which means that the wildcard semis may prove to be meaningless. The organisers have narrowly avoided two embarrassing situations, either where one of the semis was known to be meaningless before it was played or where both teams in one of the semis then went on to qualify automatically (both of these required Quins finishing 7th), but there are still potential problems.
The first problem as I see it is that teams still won't know after the semis have been played whether they will be in the final or not. The losing teams will have to stay in training for at least a week in case they find that their victors have dropped out. Quins have an advantage here as we will be training for the final anyway, but that isn't the case for the other three teams.
From an observers point of view, the biggest issue is that the whole thing looks a mess. If Wasps win the Heineken Cup then the final will be between Sale and either Quins or Leicester. Which of the two teams they face won't have been decided by the semi final, but by the Parker Pen Cup final. Basically, if Wasps win then both of the semis will have been meaningless. If this story gets out then the press will have a field day.
So, for Quins there is still some work to do in order to qualify for next seasons European Cup. If we had finished 5th then we could have qualified without winning another game (we would have needed Wasps to win the Heineken Cup). As it is, the simplest method will be to win the Parker Pen Cup. However, before that game is played we face a daunting trip to Welford Road. If we beat Leicester or Wasps win the Heineken Cup then we will at least get another chance against Sale in the wildcard final.
For the record, if we do play in the wildcard final, it can only be against Sale. There is no way that we could have to face Gloucester for the European place