Complete cup revamp proposed for next season

SCHOOLS Cup rugby looks set to take a radical new turn with what is understood to be a complete revamp of the competitive structure for next season that will address such serious deficiencies as mis-matches, and offer more for the less developed schools.

It is believed that on offer for next season will be a cup competition for the established schools, which will begin early in the season, and which is likely to involve 32 entrants, who will play a preliminary round, the losers going into an identically structured plate competition.

Essentially the 32 schools in the cup competition will comprise the schools that have in the past been seeded in the third and fourth rounds of previous seasons but a set of criteria will be laid down, among them the participating school's ability to run competitive rugby from S1 to under-18.

The 16 winning teams from the preliminary round of the cup will divide into four pools of four and play round robins resulting in eight quarter finalists emerging for the knock out stages which will conclude with the cup final expected to be mid-February.

The plate will follow an identical pattern as will the two cup and plate competitions for the lower age group. But here there is expected to be a change from under-15 to under-16.

Crucially the competition is expected to offer hope and the chance to progress for the less well-developed rugby schools, the so-called emerging teams. They will be invited to take part in a competition that will be held in eight regions. The winners will go forward to the quarter-finals and the knock-out stages.

As with the cup competition there will be a preliminary round from which the losers will go into the second tier competition.

All of which should streamline the competitions and avoid damaging mismatches.