Munster away days have to be more productive

Five years on from the acrimonious restructuring of the European Champions Cup, the tournament’s new organisers, European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) have finally stumbled across what appears to be the best balance between the old Heineken Cup, as driven by the Dublin based European Rugby Cup (ERC), and the new entity.

With the ERC — a body controlled by the unions from the six participating countries — disbanded, the new EPCR structure has resulted in the warring factions from the unions and the three club organisations from the English Premiership, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby in France and Regional Rugby Wales sitting side-by-side.

With nine parties perched around the board table, the transition was never going to be smooth. A central issue driving club interests in England and France into forcing a restructure (or a potential breakaway) was their belief the ERC wasn’t maximising the commercial potential of the Heineken Cup. The club interests also wanted a change in the distribution of funding and the qualification process for the main tournament.