2016–17 European Rugby Challenge Cup

2016–17 European Rugby Challenge Cup
Tournament details
Countries	England France Italy Romania Russia Scotland Wales
Tournament format(s)	Round-robin and Knockout
Date	13 October 2016 – 12 May 2017
Tournament statistics
Teams	20
Final
Venue	BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh

The 2016–17 European Rugby Challenge Cup is the third edition of the European Rugby Challenge Cup, an annual second-tier rugby union competition for professional clubs. Clubs from six European nations plus one Russian club compete. It is also the 21st season of the Challenge Cup competition in all forms, following on from the now defunct European Challenge Cup.

Montpellier are the reigning champions, having beaten Harlequins in the final of the 2015–16 European Rugby Challenge Cup. They do not defend their title as they automatically qualified for the 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup as a result of the win

The first round of the group stage will begin on the weekend of 13/14/15/16 October 2016, and the competition will end with the final on 12 May 2017 in Edinburgh.

Teams

20 teams will qualify for the 2016–17 European Rugby Challenge Cup; a total of 18 qualified from across the Aviva Premiership, Guinness Pro12 and Top 14, as a direct result of their domestic league performance, with two coming through a play-off. The expected distribution of teams is:

• England: 6
  • Any teams finishing between 7th-11th position in the Aviva Premiership. (5 Teams)
  • The champion of the Greene King IPA Championship. (1 Team)
• France: 7
  • Any teams finishing between 8th-12th position in the Top 14. (6 Teams)
  • The champion, and the winner of the promotion play-off, from the Pro D2. (2 Teams)
• Ireland, Italy, Scotland & Wales: 5 teams
  • Any teams that did not qualify for the European Rugby Champions Cup, through the Guinness Pro12. (5 teams)

The French Top 14 had its allocation reduced by 1 place after Montpellier won the 2015–16 European Rugby Challenge Cup. This is after it was decided that, due to the 2015 Rugby World Cup, there would be no qualification play-off.

• Other European Nations: 2 teams
  • Two teams qualified through the 2015–16 Qualifying Competition, which took place alongside the Challenge Cup and Champions Cup competitions.

The following clubs have qualified for the Challenge Cup.

Aviva Premiership	Top 14	Pro12				Qualifying Competition
England	France	Ireland	Italy	Scotland	Wales	Other
Harlequins Gloucester Bath Worcester Warriors Newcastle Falcons Bristol (Championship winner)	Brive La Rochelle Grenoble Pau Stade Français Lyon (Pro D2 champion) Bayonne (Pro D2 Play-off winner)	No sides qualified	Treviso	Edinburgh	Cardiff Blues Ospreys Newport Gwent Dragons	Enisey-STM Timișoara Saracens

Qualifying Competition

Further information: European Rugby Challenge Cup Qualifying Competition § 2015–16

Once again, EPCR expanded the qualifying competition.

Eight teams were split into two pools of four. Each team played the four teams in the other pool once. The winner of each pool then played a two-legged final against last year's qualifying sides, and the winners, on aggregate, will take the two remaining places in the Challenge Cup.

Pool A Play-off

9 April 2016

Rovigo	0 - 31	Enisey-STM

---

23 April 2016

Enisey-STM	39 - 5	Rovigo

• Enisey-STM qualify with an aggregate score of 70 - 5

Pool B Play-off

9 April 2016

Timișoara Saracens	36 - 23	Calvisano

---

23 April 2016

Calvisano	17 - 28	Timișoara Saracens

• Timișoara Saracens qualify with an aggregate score of 64 - 40

Team details

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.

Team	Coach / Director of Rugby	Captain	Stadium	Capacity	Method of Qualification
Bath	Todd Blackadder		Recreation Ground	13,500	Aviva Premiership 7th-11th (9th)
Bayonne	Vincent Etcheto		Stade Jean Dauger	16,934	Pro D2 runner-up
Bristol	Andy Robinson		Ashton Gate Stadium	27,000	2015–16 RFU Championship Champion
Brive	Nicolas Godignon		Stade Amédée-Domenech	16,000	Top 14 7th-12th (8th)
Cardiff Blues	Danny Wilson		BT Cardiff Arms Park	12,125	Pro12 bottom 5 (10th)
Edinburgh	Alan Solomons		Murrayfield Stadium Myreside	12,464 6,000	Pro12 bottom 5 (9th)
Enisey-STM			Central Stadium	22,500	Challenge Cup Qualification Play-off
Gloucester	David Humphreys		Kingsholm Stadium	16,115	Aviva Premiership 7th-11th (8th)
Grenoble	Bernard Jackman		Stade des Alpes	20,068	Top 14 7th-12th (11th)
Harlequins	John Kingston		Twickenham Stoop	14,800	Aviva Premiership 7th-11th (7th)
La Rochelle	Patrice Collazo Xavier Garbajosa		Stade Marcel-Deflandre	15,000	Top 14 7th-12th (9th)
Lyon	Pierre Mignoni		Matmut Stadium	8,000	Pro D2 Champion
Newcastle Falcons	Dean Richards		Kingston Park	10,200	Aviva Premiership 7th-11th (11th)
Newport Gwent Dragons	Kingsley Jones		Rodney Parade	8,800	Pro12 bottom 5 (9th)
Ospreys	Steve Tandy		Liberty Stadium	20,827	Pro12 bottom 5 (8th)
Pau	Simon Mannix		Stade du Hameau	13,819	Top 14 7th-12th (11th)
Stade Français	Gonzalo Quesada		Stade Jean-Bouin	20,000	Top 14 7th-12th (12th)
Timișoara Saracens	Grainger Heikell		Stadionul Dan Păltinișanu	32,972	Challenge Cup Qualification Play-off
Benetton Treviso	Kieran Crowley		Stadio Comunale di Monigo	6,700	Pro12 bottom 5 (12th
Worcester Warriors	Carl Hogg		Sixways Stadium	12,024	Aviva Premiership 7th-11th (10th)

Seeding

The 20 competing teams were seeded and split into four tiers; seeding was based on performance in their respective domestic leagues. Where promotion and relegation is in effect in a league, the promoted team was seeded last, or (if multiple teams are promoted) by performance in the lower tier.

Rank	Top 14	Premiership	Pro 12	Qualifying Competition
1	Brive	Harlequins	Cardiff Blues	Enisey-STM
2	La Rochelle	Gloucester	Ospreys	Timișoara Saracens
3	Grenoble	Bath	Edinburgh
4	Pau	Worcester Warriors	Newport Gwent Dragons
5	Stade Français	Newcastle Falcons	Treviso
6	Lyon	Bristol
7	Bayonne

Teams will be taken from a league in order of rank and put into a tier. A draw was used to allocate two second seeds to Tier 1; the remaining team went into Tier 2. This allocation indirectly determined which fourth-seeded team entered Tier 2, while the others entered 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 were automatically included in Tier 4, despite officially being ranked 1/2 from that competition.

The brackets show each team's seeding and their league (for example, 1 Top 14 indicates the team was seeded 1st from the Top 14).

Tier 1	Harlequins (1 AP)	Cardiff Blues (1 Pro12)	Brive (1 Top 14)	Ospreys (2 Pro12)	La Rochelle (2 Top 14)
Tier 2	Gloucester (2 AP)	Bath (3 AP)	Edinburgh (3 Pro12)	Grenoble (3 Top 14)	Worcester Warriors (4 AP)
Tier 3	Pau (4 Top 14)	Newport Gwent Dragons (4 Pro12)	Newcastle Falcons (5 AP)	Treviso (5 Pro12)	Stade Français (5 Top 14)
Tier 4	Bristol (6 AP)	Lyon (6 Top 14)	Bayonne (7 Top 14)	Enisey-STM (QC 1)	Timișoara Saracens (QC 2)

The following restrictions apply to the draw:

• The 5 pools each contain four clubs, one from each of the 4 Tiers.
• Each pool is required to have one club from each league, drawn from Tier 1, 2 or 3. A second team will only be added to a pool during the Tier 4 allocation.

Pool Stage

Main article: 2016–17 European Rugby Challenge Cup pool stage

The draw took place on 29 June 2016, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Teams will play each other twice, both at home and away, in the group stage, that will begin on weekend of 13/14/15/16 October 2016, and continued through to 19/20/21/22 January 2017, before the pool winners and three best runners-up progressed to the quarter finals.

Teams will be 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.

In the event of a tie between two or more teams, the following tie-breakers will be used, as directed by EPCR:

1. Where teams have played each other
   1. The club with the greater number of competition points from only matches involving tied teams.
   2. If equal, the club with the best aggregate points difference from those matches.
   3. If equal, the club that scored the most tries in those matches.
2. Where teams remain tied and/or have not played each other in the competition (i.e. are from different pools)
   1. The club with the best aggregate points difference from the pool stage.
   2. If equal, the club that scored the most tries in the pool stage.
   3. If equal, the club with the fewest players suspended in the pool stage.
   4. If equal, the drawing of lots will determine a club's ranking.

Key to colours

	Winner of each pool, advanced to quarter-finals.
	Three highest-scoring second-place teams advanced to quarter-finals.

Pool 1

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
1	Gloucester (2)	6	5	0	1	237	110	+127	31	15	5	0	25
2	La Rochelle (6)	6	5	0	1	203	104	+99	28	11	4	0	24
3	Benetton Treviso	6	2	0	4	75	182	−107	9	23	0	0	8
4	Bayonne	6	0	0	6	116	235	−119	14	33	0	1	1

Source: espn.co.uk

Pool 2

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
1	Ospreys (1)	6	6	0	0	279	51	+228	42	7	6	0	30
2	Lyon	6	3	0	3	187	164	+23	26	21	4	0	16
3	Newcastle Falcons	6	2	0	4	158	180	−22	22	26	2	2	12
4	Grenoble	6	1	0	5	74	303	−229	8	44	1	0	5

Source: espn.co.uk

Pool 3

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
1	Brive (5)	6	5	0	1	175	120	+55	16	13	3	0	23
2	Newport Gwent Dragons	6	3	0	3	150	140	+10	19	19	2	0	14
3	Worcester Warriors	6	2	0	4	147	117	+30	22	13	2	3	13
4	Enisey-STM	6	2	0	4	107	202	−95	13	27	1	0	9

Source: espn.co.uk

Pool 4

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
1	Bath (4)	6	5	0	1	214	91	+123	24	10	3	0	23
2	Cardiff Blues (7)	6	5	0	1	150	115	+35	16	15	2	0	22
3	Bristol	6	2	0	4	138	181	−43	19	22	2	0	10
4	Pau	6	0	0	6	97	212	−115	13	25	0	2	2

Source: espn.co.uk

Pool 5

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
1	Edinburgh (3)	6	5	0	1	215	122	+93	30	15	3	1	24
2	Stade Français (8)	6	4	0	2	152	108	+44	20	16	3	1	20
3	Harlequins	6	3	0	3	230	113	+117	34	14	4	2	18
4	Timișoara Saracens	6	0	0	6	26	280	−254	2	41	0	0	0

Source: espn.co.uk

Knock-out stage

The eight qualifiers will be ranked according to performance in the pool stages, and compete in the quarter-finals, which will be held on the weekend of 30/31 March, 1/2 April 2017. The top four teams will host the quarter-finals against the lower teams in a 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5 format.

The semi-finals will be played on the weekend of 21/22/23 April 2017. In lieu of the draw that used to determine the semi-final pairing, EPCR announced that a fixed semi-final bracket would be set in advance, and that home advantage would be awarded to a side based on "performances by clubs during the pool stages as well as the achievement of a winning a quarter-final match away from home".

Home advantage, will be awarded as follows:

Winner of QF		Semi-Final 1 (Home v Away)
1	4	1 v 4
1	5	5 v 1
8	4	8 v 4
8	5	5 v 8

Winner of QF		Semi-Final 2 (Home v Away)
3	2	2 v 3
3	7	7 v 3
6	2	6 v 2
6	7	6 v 7

The winners of the semi-finals will contest the final, at BT Murrayfield on 12 May 2017.

See also

• 2016–17 European Rugby Champions Cup