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The Challenge Cup draw procedure has been confirmed by EPCR with Connacht’s opponents to be confirmed on Tuesday July 1st.
It’s a little less complicated than last season, when Connacht were somewhat arbitrarily grouped with the English teams. The only slight quirk is that the Lions are grouped with the invitational teams. This is presumably to keep Lions and Cheetahs apart, although preventing the Lions from playing Black Lion feels a little like feline apartheid.

The executive summary is that Connacht will be in a pool with:
Two French teams (from Montpellier, Racing 92, Lyon, Stade Francais, Perpignan, Montauban)
One Welsh team (Cardiff, Ospreys or Dragons)
One South African or Georgian (Lions, Cheetahs or Black Lion)
One English or Italian (Exeter, Newcastle, Zebre or Benetton)

The only team we can’t get is Ulster and if we get Lions we can’t get Zebre or Benetton as that would mean four URC teams in the pool so if we get Lions we will have an English team.
We have a one in three chance of playing most teams and one in four of playing the English or Italians, so it’s pretty much wide open.

Which teams we play home or away and which team we don’t play at all will be determined by the mysterious algorithm, but we can make a few assumptions based on previous years:
One pool will have only two URC teams and those two teams won’t play each other, so we have a one in three chance of not playing another URC team. One assumes most of us would prefer to avoid the teams from our own league just for variety. The other two pools will have three URC teams so each of them will have to play at least one other and one will have to play two. Since Lions are grouped with the invitational teams, they will have two other URC teams in their pool and it’s a fair bet that they will have to play them both, which reduces Connacht’s chances of playing two URC teams. Also, the algorithm may help us out here, since we played both Cardiff and Zebre last time out, and therefore may be spared the same fate again.
One feature of the fixtures last season across all the pools, was that where two URC teams played, the fixture was the reverse of the equivalent league fixture for that season, so it’s fair to say that that is probably a rule. If so, it is good news as it means if we play Lions it will be at home. A single-game trip to Jo’burg in the heat of summer is not on many people’s Santa List.
So I am going to stick my neck out and confidently predict a maximum of one game against a URC team, which won’t be Welsh, with the only potential away trip being Benetton.
There’s not much predicting the rest, though perhaps if we draw Perpignan, the robots may decide we get them at home since we went there last time.
It’s worth reminding that we are not guaranteed a trip to France since one team has to play both French teams at home (and conversely we could go there twice), though the most likely outcome is one home and one away.
In terms of who we’d like to get, Montauban are top of the list since we’ve never played them and they’re also beatable. It’s a pleasant enough town without being on many people’s bucket list. Most of us have never been to the La Defense Arena, so that would be an experience, but the flipside is it might be tough to get a result. Cheetahs in Amsterdam has the makings of a memorable trip and while an adventure to Tbilisi has always been at the back of many of our minds, the political situation there is uncertain and it might be one for happier times.
So I’ll take Newcastle and Perpignan at home, Montauban and Cheetahs away.

In retrospect, we should all have predicted Scarlets’ victory over Leinster. The neighbours can never be relied upon when needed. We might have had a chance even with the defeat in Johannesburg and the Cardiff win, but with Scarlets now only two points from guaranteeing Connacht’s status as a bottom half team, the chances of salvaging something from this quite odd season look vanishingly slim.

The annoying thing is that none of the succession of results Connacht need to progress is individually that unlikely, in fact in the vast majority of cases, the likely punters and pundits predictions will do us nicely; it’s just that there are so damn many of them that at least one of them is bound to go awry. And with barely a point to spare, a stray bonus point either way could bury us even if the accumulator comes in.

For the record, in addition to picking up ten points from the last two weekends (technically nine might do, but we’d need an even bigger miracle), we need the following results to progress:

Scarlets and Benetton to lose both their matches. Glasgow’s trip to Treviso is the main danger there. In addition Scarlets can only be allowed to pick up one bonus point in total. With two, they’d be ahead of us on games won.

Ospreys and Ulster to lose at least one each. With all those games away, that shouldn’t be too unlikely. They also need to do anything unlikely bonus point wise. Seven points would do either of them.

Lions not to join us on a maximum ten points. With Scarlets and Ospreys at home this is a real risk.

And we need Edinburgh to get less than six – so realistically we need a 5-0 league point result when they come to the Sportsground.

At this point, I’d take still being in the hunt by kick-off in that match, which requires Benetton to lose at home to Glasgow just before.

In the meantime, if Connacht want to keep the door ajar to the Champions Cup, Edinburgh need to not win the Challenge Cup, so a win for Bath in the Hive would help on that front. If Edinburgh win that trophy, Connacht will need a few more miracles as the only way in would then be to win the URC.

And let’s not be silly … I’m already scouting our Challenge Cup opponents for next season.

This will probably be remembered as Connacht’s Double Bonus Point Season, unless we somehow win the league, in which case it shall undoubtedly be remembered as the How The Feck Did That Happen Season.

Connacht’s fifth double bonus point of the season (not counting the honorary one against Racing) was, like the others, disappointing at the time, but all in all a decent result. We’d have taken their hand off for it pre-game.

The upshot of it all is that despite only winning one third of our games, Connacht are very much still in the hunt, which seems frankly ridiculous. Three wins would almost certainly get us to seventh place, thus avoiding Leinster until the final. Even two wins, with a bonus point or two thrown in, could bizarrely be good enough for eighth, given the challenging fixture lists of some of our rivals.

The good news is that all this means that Connacht fans have something to play for in every game this weekend, which should make it more interesting. Some of them could be close enough as well. Here’s the guide to make sure you don’t accidentally shout for the wrong team and ruin it for everyone else.

Friday 7:35pm Zebre v Edinburgh – If Zebre get ahead of us, it’s all gone horribly wrong, but we need Edinburgh to drop as many points as possible. It’s not completely crucial as Connacht still have Edinburgh at home, so we’ll be ahead of them if we win all three, but a Zebre win will be useful if we’re looking for a miracle on the last day.
Friday 7:35pm Glasgow v Bulls – Doesn’t effect our chances directly, but we would likely play the winner in the QF if it all starts going right so I’d rather not go to Pretoria.
Friday 7:35pm Cardiff v Munster – We’re not catching Munster with their fixture list and we need Cardiff to lose twice. They still have to go to South Africa so all would not be lost if they win, but a home defeat would help enormously.
Saturday 3pm Lions v Connacht – You probably don’t need me to explain this one.
Saturday 3pm Ospreys v Dragons – Unlikely Dragons will pull it off and not that crucial given Ospreys are two points back and have to go to SA, but it would be a nice bonus.
Saturday 5:15pm Stormers v Benetton – Possibly the most important one. We want Benetton to lose twice. Stormers are a point below but have much nicer fixtures so won’t be caught.
Saturday5:15pm Scarlets v Leinster – Leinster should get the job done but if they don’t we have to start worrying about Scarlets’ trip to Africa.
Saturday 7:35pm Ulster v Sharks – This would be a nice finish to the weekend’s fixtures of Connacht win in Joburg, and potentially a crucial lifeline if they don’t. Ulster have a tough run-in so could be caught even if they win, but best they don’t pick up too much momentum.

Enjoy the anxiety and don’t let the hope kill you …

As we know by now, Connacht have been drawn with Lyon, Perpignan, Cheetahs, Cardiff and Zebre in the Challenge Cup.
The exact fixtures are yet to be confirmed with the aid of EPCR’s mysterious algorithm, and based on previous seasons, we should have them in about two weeks’ time.
Speculation about who we might play where is, of course, completely pointless given that we’ll know the fixtures five months before they happen in any case, but it’s vaguely entertaining for those of us who are fascinated by the dystopian machinations of the EPCR.
The key thing to be determined is which of the other five teams we don’t play. In the other pools, this is fairly straightforward, but in our one it’s more complicated.
Each pool has exactly two French teams, so they won’t play each other, and Pool 2 also has two Welsh teams, Dragons and Ospreys, who presumably won’t play, and will therefore both play Lions. Pool 3 meanwhile has only two URC teams, Edinburgh and Scarlets, who logically will avoid each other also. The rest of the fixtures sort themselves out, other than the home advantage part of it.
Connacht’s pool however features three URC teams from different shields, so there is no specific reason for any one team of the three to avoid any other. One of them will have to play both of the others and that team will therefore not play Cheetahs.
My initial thoughts were that Connacht would play Zebre and Cardiff and therefore avoid Cheetahs. This is mainly based on EPCR’s rather cryptic statement that the Scottish and Italian teams would be “grouped with the Welsh teams”, which could mean that they don’t play each other. It’s also entirely possible that it could mean nothing at all.
A slightly more logical approach would be that Zebre don’t play Cheetahs, since they played them last season in the same tournament. That would mean that Connacht would avoid Cardiff and play both Zebre and Cheetahs.
We have no idea whether the algorithm takes into account previous years’ fixtures since this is only the second season of the format so we have nothing to base it on, however it is interesting to note that of the five fixtures last season that took place between two URC teams, the fixture was the reverse of the equivalent fixture in the league in all cases. This seems a bit too much to be coincidence, so we can assume it is by design, meaning for example Connacht would be at home to Zebre if they face them since they will travel to Parma already next May.
And given that they are taking account of URC fixtures it is not unreasonable to think they will take into account previous seasons’ European fixtures. The same argument could indicate that Connacht would play Lyon at home since they played over there in last season’s Champions Cup.
Combining all of this entirely hypothetical but vaguely plausible logic gives us a fixture list of.

Zebre at home (because we are away in the URC)
Lyon at home (because we were away last season)
Perpignan away
Cheetahs in Amsterdam
And we don’t play Cardiff at all (because Cheetahs won’t play Zebre and Perpignan won’t play Lyon)

If bookies took bets on this type of thing, I would throw down a few quid, but I wouldn’t exactly put the house on it, so don’t write strongly worded letters to me if I’m wrong! In any case of course there is no way of knowing the weekends the games are on until they are inevitably leaked the day before, so we can’t book anything either way, but it might be useful for advance itinerary planning.

The regulations for the Challenge Cup draw are, as predicted, unnecessarily complicated but might work out reasonably well for Connacht.
There is some quite vague language employed in the rules, which allows a little reading between the lines, so below is what we know, and also what we can reasonably guess.

Connacht are being kept apart from the two English teams so we know we won’t be in the same pool as Newcastle or Gloucester.
We will definitely have two French teams in our pool.
We will have one Welsh team plus either a second Welsh or Zebre/Edinburgh.
And finally one of the invitational teams (Cheetahs/Black Lion)

By a process of elimination, we cannot get Lions. This is because there is a maximum of three URC teams in each pool and we are already guaranteed to have two from Wales/Scotland/Italy. This rules out a second trip to South Africa as Cheetahs are based in Amsterdam.

As to which of the five other teams we don’t play, that is a matter for assumption and speculation.
The only thing it says is “A limited number of same-league fixtures will be unavoidable”, which is stating the obvious as two of the pools will have three URC teams. So technically it is not against the rules for the two French teams in a pool to play each other,but we can assume that won’t happen since it is avoidable and, after all, the whole raison-d’etre of this convoluted scheme is that the French teams did not want to play each other.
So we will play both the French teams in our pool. We are not however guaranteed one home and one away as it is not possible to arrange this for everyone. For example last season in Pool 3, Lions went to France twice and Benetton didn’t go at all.
One curious line in the rules, when talking about Edinburgh and Zebre says “For the purposes of the draw, they will be grouped with the Welsh clubs”. It’s not clear what this means exactly but a good guess is that it means that those teams will not play each other. In other words those six teams will be considered the URC teams for the purposes of scheduling, while Connacht and Lions are considered part of the “Everybody Else” contingent. It makes a more convenient draw and means they can follow the same rules as the Champions Cup, with teams from the same “league” not playing each other.
If that is true, and it seems the most likely scenario, then we would play two other URC teams and would not play the invitational sides even if we draw them. From the point of view of the Connacht away traveller, eager to see the world, that means that unfortunately Amsterdam and Tbilisi are off the itinerary. Indeed the sum total of our European travel could be two trips to Wales!
Based on an brief analysis of last season’s fixtures (and I haven’t checked them all), where two URC teams play each other, the fixture was the reverse of the URC fixture. This could just be coincidence but it would make sense to avoid repeat fixtures where possible. So that would make it likely we would be at home for Ospreys, Scarlets or Zebre and away for Cardiff, Dragons or Edinburgh. In that case I would like to avoid Edinburgh as our record there is poor and I always end up in the Rat Pack until 4am.

So based on all of these assumptions we will play:
Two of Pau, Perpignan, Lyon, Bayonne, Montpellier, Vannes and
Two of Edinburgh, Zebre, Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff, Dragons (but not both Edinburgh and Zebre).

There is a 50% chance we will play a French team and a URC team at home, a 25% chance we will play two French at home and a 25% chance we will play two URC at home. I’ll take Bayonne and Zebre at home with Vannes and Dragons away. I’d like two trips to France but they’re very close together. Not going at all would be disappointing.
Of course my wild speculation could be inaccurate and we might be off to Amsterdam.

So it turns out the other results went in our favour on the last weekend of the URC so all we needed was that elusive bonus point win against Leinster. In any case unless we won the league we were headed to exactly where we are now – the Challenge Cup.

And if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s where we belong for the moment.

There is the usual lack of confirmation from EPCR of anything beyond the shape of the ball but we can probably work on the assumption that the format will be much the same as this season, with two invitational teams making three pools of six. Like in the Champions Cup there will be one team that we don’t play, which will be a URC team, but since two of the pools will have to have three URC teams, there is a good chance that we will play one of the other seven.

Unofficially Black Lion appear to be in again as the only Super Cup team so we can probably assume Cheetahs are back in as well. Gloucester and Newcastle will again be the only English representatives, while the French contingent has yet to be finalised pending the last weekend of the Top 14 and the Pro D2 final and promotion play-off.

Lyon and Bayonne are the only French teams definitely confirmed, along with the lowest two of Racing/Perpignan/Castres/Pau/Clermont and the better two of Vannes/Grenoble/Montpellier. We will play two French teams, probably one home and one away, though that is not guaranteed, for example this season Treviso played two French teams at home while Zebre went there twice.

Our other two opponents will be some combination of an English team, an invitational team and a URC team.

In the final shake-up in France there are some interesting encounters. Pau play Perpignan, with a win putting Perpignan through to the Champions Cup (and maybe the play-offs) while a Pau win would give them a chance. Clermont should win at home to Montpellier, who have nothing to play for and that would put them in the running for the top eight. Castres travel to Bayonne, who also have nothing on the line and a win would see them off our radar, whereas Racing travel to La Rochelle needing a win to secure a barrage spot. They will probably be in the Champions Cup regardless (Top 14 uses head-to-head results as the first tie-breaker and it’s too complicated to look it all up) but a losing bonus would secure it.

Personally I would like to avoid Racing and Clermont. Both their stadiums are on the bucket list but I’d prefer to face them in a Champions Cup sometime. This trophy is winnable so let’s avoid the heavyweights for now. So best if Clermont win and Racing get the LBP. I’d prefer to have Castres and Perpignan in, so best if they lose on the road. In the Pro D2, Vannes is the one we want in the final, with the loser beating Montpellier in the play-off.

Last season the draw was unseeded, with only rules about leagues and countries, but we’ll see what the EPCR come up with.

Latest prediction: Pau, unless I’m an idiot and got it all wrong!

Live Update: Bayonne looking good against Exeter. The bonus point try means they technically only need a draw to get ahead of Connacht in the seedings and send us to Pau. Dragons trailing Sharks and not looking anywhere near likely to get the bonus point win they need to affect matters.

Surprise two late tries from Sale put them ahead of Connacht in the seedings. If Bayonne beat Exeter, we will play Pau (or Dragons if they give Sharks a thumping). Otherwise we go to Swansea.

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OK, nearly there. We can’t get into the Champions Cup now obviously.

I suppose for most people we’d like to avoid having to go to Johannesburg, so best if Lions beat Ospreys well and get them out of contention.

We’d probably also like to avoid Edinburgh, so best if either Sale get at least a bonus point or Bayonne win. But if Dragons beat Sharks, Edinburgh are out of the picture anyway.

So first up, a big Lions win and something for Sale.

I’m still sticking with Montpellier as my prediction, but there are many variables.

Pinky’s Live Gut Prediction: Montpellier (but possibly Edinburgh or Pau, maybe even a trip to Johannesburg or Newport)

So Connacht are away in Europe on the weekend of April 6th, which is a week after Benetton away in the URC on Easter weekend. We have all been given that week off by Presidential Decree and are going to both games, but where are we going?
This blog will confuse the hell out of you until I figure it out … Stay tuned.

First, the easy bit. We get into the Champions Cup last 16 if Saracens get nothing at home to Lyon.

Otherwise we go into the last 16 of the Challenge Cup, where we would play one of the teams ranked 5 to 8, namely the lower ranked two second placed teams and the higher ranked two third placed teams.

But Ulster will be fifth in Pool 2 and are below Connacht, so we can’t get the better of the second-placed teams.

So unless the fifth placed teams in both the other Pools get ahead of us, we will play a third-placed Challenge Cup team. That would require Bayonne to beat Exeter at home and La Rochelle to beat Sale away (both tomorrow).

Clermont are definitely second in Pool 3 but will almost certainly be the best second-placed team and will thus play another Challenge Cup team. There may be some weird result that lets Benetton or Montpellier ahead of them but I’m fairly confident a trip to the Auvergne is impossible. Likewise Edinburgh are third Pool 3, but look likely to be the lowest ranked third-placer and thus out of the picture, which is no harm as it’s always a nice trip but we’ve already been there, lost and nearly lost toes to frostbite (though that is less of a risk in April).

If Cheetahs win away to Oyonnax in Pool 1, they will be second and Pau third. If they lose with a bonus point, those will be reversed. No bonus point and Zebre will be third. Dragons can still come into play by beating Sharks. If that happens the holiday is cancelled (no offence Newport). We could in theory play Sharks in that case as they would likely be second.

Benetton will probably top Pool 2 if they beat Montpellier into second, with the winner of Lions v Ospreys third (or sneaking into second). If Montpellier win, Benetton will be third, creating the possibility of back-to-back games in Treviso.

Live Updates:

Pool 1: Cheetahs romping, so they will go top overnight. If Sharks win tomorrow, they will go top and it will be Cheetahs or Pau. If Dragons win, Cheetahs will stay top and it will be Sharks or Dragons.

Half-time: Oyonnax fighting back. Cheetahs Red Card. If Cheetahs get 1-2 points, the Clan could be on the way to Amsterdam.

45 Mins: TBP secured for Cheetahs, they can lose by up to 16 points and still stay ahead of Zebre. As it stand they are top but can be caught by Sharks.

87 Mins: Unreal! Two bonus points for Cheetahs. They will now be the worst third placed team or else fourth, so they will be away (I think). That puts Edinburgh back in the frame.

Pool 2: Benetton in control so may go top so it should be Montpellier or and the winner of Lions v Ospreys. Likely Lions in Joburg and they may even overhaul Montpellier with a big win, making a trip to Southeast France likely.

47 Mins: Montpellier back into it, so the Settimana del Prosecco is on!

Overnight Summary:

Pool 1: Zebre are out of contention as they are fourth at best. Cheetahs can hold on to third but they will be be worst third team and thus away in the last 16. Pau will be the worst second-placed team and so we could go there. If Dragons get an unlikely try bonus at home to Sharks, Pau would drop to third, and would still be a possibility. A win for Dragons without a bonus would put them third and also in the frame.

Pool 2: Benetton can’t be caught at the top, so don’t book the Hotel Continental for the full week. Montpellier are second, but Lions will catch them with a bonus point win over Ospreys with a 13 point margin. The bookies have them at -19 and that seems fair to me. So I am sticking with Montpellier as the likely best third-placed team and thus Connacht’s likely opponents. So a jaunt along the Riviera is on the cards.

Pool 3: Clermont are the best second placed team so we can’t go there. Edinburgh are the second of the third-placed teams so we would go there if Bayonne don’t beat Exeter and Sale get nothing at home to La Rochelle. However if Dragons beat Sale, Edinburgh would be pushed out of the home seedings altogether.

But all this is irrelevant as Lyon are going to stuff Saracens, right?

The new European season is finally here, and while the jury is out on the new format, I think we can all agree that it is much better than the previous three seasons, though I feel nostalgia for the pre-pandemic format may define the season’s discourse.
One feature of Connacht’s fixture list is that the jeopardy is very much front-loaded: the very first night of the tournament will really define how the competition goes. While victory doesn’t guarantee future success, nor does defeat equate to failure, the shape of our engagement with the remainder of the Champions Cup will hinge on this mouthwatering opener.

With the final home game against Bristol deemed eminently winnable, a win in Round One would inspire confidence of progression and even thoughts of a home tie on the round of sixteen, whereas defeat would leave us staring down the barrel of a winless December and potentially duking it out for the consolation Challenge Cup spot on the last day.

The bookies have every home team bar La Rochelle as favourites this weekend, and this trend may well continue. If everyone keeps winning their home games, then anyone who has lost one may find themselves in a spot of bother. Even though you can somewhat bizarrely progress with only one win from four, it will be an uphill fight.

And so, as to who to root for in the other pool games, it really is too early to say, but probably best to default to home wins if Connacht win, as we could potentially top the pool by just sneaking one away win if most of the other results go with home advantage. On the other hand if we lose, a rare home defeat for Bulls might help our cause in what will then be a battle for fourth place.

The revised Champions Cup format has been confirmed much as expected, with a few slightly bizarre quirks. The rather unexpected decision to almost completely abandon seeding, with only trophy winners being kept apart, suggests that there may have been some disagreements between the leagues, or between clubs in the same league, over the seeding rules. The fact that the Top 14 seedings take into account play-off performance and the URC only partly do, might have led to the decision to forget about the whole thing and fire almost all the balls into the same bowl.
The other odd rule is that teams from the same URC shield can’t be drawn together, in other words the four provinces will each be in a separate pool. In previous seasons this might have made sense, but since they don’t play each other anyway, it seems unnecessary. It might have actually been nice to be in the same pool as another Irish team as it would have meant that the opponents we meet away would also be visiting the country at some point and there might have been an opportunity to go see them in action in Thomond Park or Lansdowne Road and have a beverage or two with new friends from on tour.
Also, it gives Connacht (along with Leinster and Ulster) a bit of a disadvantage over the other URC teams. One of those four will be drawn with Munster (who they of course won’t play) and thus avoid Saracens, Toulouse and La Rochelle, whereas we will have to play one of those three.
The upshot of Romain Ntamack’s last minute heroics are that at least we can’t be drawn with Toulouse AND La Rochelle/Saracens, though our odds of avoiding Toulouse altogether have slipped.
For the record, the probabilities of being drawn with each team on Wednesday are as follows:

Saracens, Toulouse, La Rochelle: 1/3 (33%)
Racing, Stade Francais, Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulon, Bayonne: 2/9 (22%)
Sale, Leicester, Northampton, Exeter, Quins, Bath, Bristol: 4/21 (19%)
Stormers, Bulls, Glasgow, Cardiff: 1/4 (25%)

So not a lot in it really.
One annoying aspect is that we won’t get the crucial detail of which teams we have at home at the time of the draw. This will ostensibly be determined by an “algorithm”, though I think many people would deem it unlikely that EPCR could write a coherent shopping list, let alone an algorithm.
In terms of who we would like to get and avoid, there are many moving parts. Drawing Cardiff for example is a bit of a double-edged sword. Assuming they perform as poorly as their budget cuts suggest (and they may not), they would prop up the table and potentially allow Connacht to secure the Challenge Cup spot without even picking up a point. However they would also gift points to all of our opponents (but not us) meaning that we would need at least two wins to get into the top 4. So they are best avoided. The best URC team would probably be Bulls, who will take points off our opponents in Pretoria, but often struggle in Europe, so could potentially be caught.
Overall the best chance of a higher finish would probably be to play Saracens away (and more or less throw our hat at that one) and get Bristol or Bath at home while drawing two of the more beatable French teams. Stade Francais have had a tough time in the Sportsground before and Lyon and Bayonne do not have good European form.
From a travel perspective there are plenty of places we haven’t been competitively yet. Toulon, Lyon, Bristol and Bath would all be nice trips, plus we have only played Racing behind closed doors and the pandemic ensured most of us didn’t make it to Welford Road the last time either, so there are good chances for some new adventures.

But that is all in the hands of The Algorithm.