Pro14 bosses have suspended the rest of the league season indefinitely because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Round 14 of Pro14 was due to take place next weekend, starting 20 March.
Matches involving the Italian sides had already been postponed but there will be no more matches planned.
Unbeaten Leinster are top of Conference A with 61 points from 13 games with Edinburgh leading Conference B.
There were due to be play-games before the final is scheduled. It was due to be played on 20 June at the Cardiff City Stadium.
The Pro14 had already seen disruption involving the Italian teams with Ospreys' trip to Zebre and Ulster's game at Benetton were both postponed on 29 February.
With travel restricted across the whole of Italy, Zebre were not allowed to go to Cardiff Blues on 21 March, and Benetton to Munster the following week.
Benetton had been given permission to travel to Newport on 6 March to take on Dragons after giving assurances that none of their players or staff had been in contact with anyone suffering from the coronavirus.
Wow! Strange days indeed.
So what are they going to do?
If the crisis fades away over the next month;
-call all unplayed games 0-0 and finish the rest + playoff games?
If the season is written off then how do they decide next seasons Heino qualifiers?
So many imponderables.
You know I'm going to lose,
And gambling's for fools,
But that's the way I like it baby, I don't want to live FOREVER!
blockhead wrote:Wow! Strange days indeed.
So what are they going to do?
If the crisis fades away over the next month;
-call all unplayed games 0-0 and finish the rest + playoff games?
If the season is written off then how do they decide next seasons Heino qualifiers?
So many imponderables.
Merge the two conferences and decide the top six teams based on the current points. That would make Leinster the top seeds and winners of the Pro14 .
If the season isn't completed then the seeding for next season will have to be worked out. Just using the current points totals won't work because not every team has played the same number of games and not every team has played the same teams or teams of the same profile. Some kind of complicated maths is going to be needed to come up with an equitable and accurate formula
Dave Cahill wrote:If the season isn't completed then the seeding for next season will have to be worked out. Just using the current points totals won't work because not every team has played the same number of games and not every team has played the same teams or teams of the same profile. Some kind of complicated maths is going to be needed to come up with an equitable and accurate formula
Given how long this will take to play out, it could be 6-12 months before "large public gatherings" are permitted again. In that case, they might just pick up where we've stopped this season. If they have space for a few more rounds of fixtures they might invent a one off cup or expand the play off system or something to make up the difference. We won't be playing matches again before the summer. It saves on having to calculate who qualifies for what, who gets relegated and who takes home the trophies now. Even when we are ready to get back into things all squads will need a pre-season so all this talk of playing again in May are nonsense.
No more Ireland and/or Leinster selection permutations to work thru when I go to bed for the foreseeable future. How ever will I get off to sleep?......
riocard911 wrote:No more Ireland and/or Leinster selection permutations to work thru when I go to bed for the foreseeable future. How ever will I get off to sleep?......
riocard911 wrote:No more Ireland and/or Leinster selection permutations to work thru when I go to bed for the foreseeable future. How ever will I get off to sleep?......
riocard911 wrote:No more Ireland and/or Leinster selection permutations to work thru when I go to bed for the foreseeable future. How ever will I get off to sleep?......
Depth charts by position, like I do!
I did this the other day I came to the conclusion that we could put out three pretty good teams and a half decent fourth.
Another good one for sleep is thinking of teams with players whose second names all start with the same letter.
OTT wrote:At least the journalists can continue with their narrative of Leinster players lacking game time, they would be right for a change
I doubt they'll be thinking of moving anyway. No food in the shops, people afraid to go outside, everyone looking miserable...it'll give them a flavour of what life in Munster is always like.
The Football Pools Panel or the Bookies could probably do a good job of predicting the results of the remaining fixtures.
The seeding would then be Leinster, B1 Conference winner with 3rd and 4th seeds based on number of points gained in the irregular season etc etc.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall who's the greatest player of them all? It is Drico your majesty.
