The Top 14 don't want to fail so close to the goal. After an unfinished 2019-2020 season - championship stopped, no designated champion - the National Rugby League wants to bring it to an end at all costs. Even if it means introducing a few curiosities into its regulations, at odds with sporting merit. At present, 22 out of 26 matches have been played in the Top 14. There are also eight postponed matches from Matchday 21 and 22 to go. One is scheduled for Thursday (Bayonne-Castres). Three this Saturday (including the Racing 92-Stade Français derby). Three more during the week, Tuesday May 11. The meeting between UBB and Montpellier has not yet been rescheduled. Other postponements cannot be ruled out in the event of new cases of Covid-19 in the teams.
But now, the calendar with the semi-finals and finals of the European Cup, the finals of the Top 14 and the tour of the XV of France in Australia in July, is not extendable.
In this context, more or less incongruous proposals have emerged: delay of the final stages, freezing of the championship with a single descent to make a Top 15 ... During its management committee on Tuesday, the NRL whistled the end of the fun fair ideas and tried to get everyone to agree on the rules that will allow the championship to come to an end.
The dates of the final stages confirmed
The regular phase of the Top 14 championship will end on Saturday 5 June at 9 p.m. with the 26th and final day, in multiplex. In the meantime, we will have to have played the games late. The weekend of 22-23 May remains free, except for the clubs qualified for the European Cup finals (La Rochelle, Toulouse, Bordeaux-Bègles in the Champions Cup as well as Montpellier in the Challenge Cup are playing their half this weekend. ). Matches during the week, extremely rare in rugby, seem inevitable, especially for Montpellier, UBB, Toulon and Brive (who have two games late). A date has already been chosen, that of Tuesday, May 11.
According to our information, an extreme solution would also have been validated by the NRL if it was impossible to reprogram everything: an equalization system to recalculate the points of a team that has not played all its matches (allocation of corresponding points the average obtained over the season, at home or away).
Then, the final stages will be well maintained in June: play-offs (between the teams classified from 3rd to 6th place) on June 11 and 12, semi-finals in Lille on June 18 and 19, and finally final at the Stade de France on Friday June 25.
# Steering Committee
The programming of the final stages of TOP 14 and PRO D2 has been fixed pic.twitter.com/lU1snhdeWQ
- National Rugby League (@LNRofficiel) April 27, 2021
The teams "prevented" by the Covid will be replaced
This is the big news. The NRL indicates that it has "finalized the rules applicable for the final stages of Top 14 and Pro D2 in the event of a team impacted by the Covid" and promises to communicate them in a complete document next week. According to our information, during the final stages, if a team has cases of coronavirus in number (the precise rules will be defined by the medical commission of the NRL), its match will not be postponed, for lack of dates available. It will not be either, as is the case in the European Cup, declared lost on the green carpet (Toulon was the victim in its round of 16 against Leinster), unless the cases are discovered at the the day before the match. The contaminated team will simply be replaced by the highest ranked team behind it.
Example, for a play-off: the team ranked 7th in the Top 14 will have to be ready to possibly replace a qualified team “prevented” from playing.
For the semi-finals, we will pick the loser of a jump-off.
Or, for the final, the highest ranked loser of the semi-finals.
Which could quite give a champion of France who will have been beaten in the jump-off or in the half, or even who would not even have finished in the first six… In summary, to be champion of France in this so special season, it will be necessary defeat his opponents, but also, which is more random, avoid the coronavirus.
No Top 15
Finally, the LNR indicates that it has examined the requests of certain clubs on the creation of a Top 15 (a single descent for two climbs), because of this particular health context. The steering committee has clearly ruled out this option. The League indicates "to maintain in the state the rules of ascents-descents fixed at the beginning of the season and therefore also the format of the two championships for the next season".