The 2014–15 European Rugby Challenge Cup was the first season of the European Rugby Challenge Cup, the annual rugby union competition. It is the 19th season of second tier pan-European club competition in general, as the competition replaces the European Challenge Cup.[1] The competition began with the first round of the group stage, on the weekend of 16 October 2014, and ended with the final on 1 May 2015 at the Twickenham Stoop.[2][3]
Gloucester became the first ever champions of the newly formatted competition, beating Edinburgh, who became the first ever Scottish team to make a European final, 19–13, with 14 men on the pitch for the final 17 minutes after centre Bill Meakes was sent off because of a dangerous high tackle off the ball on Edinburgh centre Sam Beard.[4][5]
Twenty teams qualified for the 2014–15 European Rugby Challenge Cup, based on their performance in their respective domestic leagues the previous season. The distribution of teams is as follows:[1]
So far, the following 18 teams have qualified.
The following teams took part in the play-off to decide the final team in the Champions Cup. The play-off was held between the seventh-placed teams in the English Premiership and the Top 14. The loser of this play-off entered the Challenge Cup.
On 29 April 2014, it was announced that this play-off would take place over two legs, on the weekends of 17/18 May and 24/25 May, with a draw being used to determine home advantage for each leg.[7]
The draw took place in Heathrow on 6 May 2014. Following the draw, the fixtures were announced as follows:[8]
Stade Français lost the play-off 35–50 on aggregate, and will play in the Challenge Cup.
On 14 August 2014, EPCR announced the format for the first Qualifying Competition.[9]
Given the amount of time until the start of the Challenge Cup, it was announced that this first competition will consist of two ties, played over two legs, with the aggregate winner of each taking a place in either pool. The first legs took place on 20 September, with the return legs taking place on 27 September
Below is the list of coaches, captain and stadiums with their method of qualification for each team.
Note: Placing shown in brackets, denotes standing at the end of the regular season for their respective leagues, with their end of season positioning shown through CH for champions, RU for runner-up, SF for losing semi-finalist and QF for losing quarter-finalist.
The 20 competing teams will be seeded and split into four tiers, seeding will be based on performance in their respective domestic leagues. Where promotion and relegation is in effect in a league, the promoted team will be seeded last, or (if multiple teams are promoted) by performance in the lower tier.[11] So, Lyon – who were Pro D2 champions – will be the seventh Top 14 seed while La Rochelle – who qualified through the Pro D2 play-off – will be the eighth seed.
As with the previous European competition, the European Challenge Cup, teams from the same country will be kept apart where possible. However, as 8 teams have qualified from France, 3 pools will contain two French teams – Oyonnax, Lyon and La Rochelle.
For the purposes of creating the tiers, the clubs are ranked based on their finishing positions in the Top 14, Aviva Premiership, Pro12 and PRO D2 Leagues, or on their qualification via a play-off.
Teams will be taken from a league in order of rank and put into a tier. A draw is used allocate two second seeds to Tier 1, the remaining team will go into Tier 2. This allocation then determines which fourth seeded team enters Tier 2, while the others enter Tier 3.
Given the nature of the Qualifying Competition, a competition including developing rugby nations and Italian clubs not competing in the Pro12, Rugby Europe 1 and Rugby Europe 2 are automatically included in Tier 4, despite officially being ranked 1/2 from that competition.
The brackets show each teams seeding and their league (for example, 1 Top 14 indicates the team has been seeded 1st from the Top 14).
The draw took place on 10 June 2014, at the Stade de la Maladière in Neuchâtel.[12]
Teams will play each other twice, both at home and away, in the group stage, that will begin on the weekend of 16/17/18/19 October 2014, and continue through to 22/23/24/25 January 2015, before the pool winners and three best runners-up progress to the quarter-finals.[2][13]
Fixtures were announced on Thursday 14 August 2014 at 2 pm.
Teams are awarded competition points, based on match result. Teams receive 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw, 1 attacking bonus point for scoring four or more tries in a match and 1 defensive bonus point for losing a match by seven points or fewer.[14]
In the event of a tie between two or more teams, the following tie-breakers are used, as directed by EPCR:
The eight qualifiers will be seeded according to performance in the pool stage, and compete in the quarter-finals, which will be held on the 3/4/5 April 2015. The four top seeds will host the quarter-finals against the lower seeds, in a 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 format.
The semi-finals, to be contested by the quarter-final winners, will take place on the weekend of 17/18/19 April 2015.
The winners of the semi-finals will contest the final, at The Twickenham Stoop, on the weekend of 1 May 2015.[3]