Champions Cup group stages: Learnings as the last 16 is confirmed

By Matt Hardy

The Champions Cup group stages have concluded and we know the 16 teams who have progressed through to the knockout stages. Five teams from England have made the cut while eight from the United Rugby Championship (URC) will feature at the end of March in the next round. Here are our four takeaways from this weekend.

United Rugby successes

Astonishingly, all eight of the URC teams who qualified for the pool stages of this competition have gone on to qualify for the round of 16.

While the Irish sides in the URC have traditionally done well in the competition, it is a breath of fresh air to see a Welsh side in the Ospreys and a Scottish side in Edinburgh reach the knockouts.

This means the league – which has the addition of four South African sides – makes up 50 per cent of the places in the round of 16. The Premiership has five places and France’s Top14 has three.

It’s a brilliant advert for the youngest league of the three eligible for the competition and cements why the game’s chiefs wanted South African sides in the Champions Cup.

There is a caveat to South African success, however, and that’s the issue of home advantage.

According to the rules, should a South African side reach the semi-finals and have home advantage, they will not be able to play that match at home – another example of the difficulties that come with their inclusion in this competition.

Five from England

One way of working the statistics is to say that the URC had more qualifiers than the English Premiership – which is true – but another way of looking at it is out of the seven nations involved in the competition, England have the most teams in the last 16.

Saracens, Gloucester, Leicester, Exeter and Harlequins have all progressed through to the knockouts – even with Gloucester conceding 140 points in their four matches.

It speaks to the ability of the English sides – currently battling with very restrictive budgets – to stay in the fight and compete on the biggest stage.

It would be improbable to see an English side lift the title this year but, with five in the mix, England have the biggest percentage chance of being the team who triumph in May’s Dublin final.

Ospreys soar

The Ospreys upset the odds to become the first Welsh side to qualify for the knockouts of the top flight of Europe since the Scarlets did it in the 2017-18 competition.

To get to this point the Ospreys beat Top14 champions Montpellier, home and away, and Leicester Tigers in their back garden.

It is a sensational change in fortunes for a Welsh region some suggested would be scrapped and others said were down and out. But the Swansea club have shown up in Europe’s top tier and are a team who could pose a threat to anyone they face – especially given their form away from home in the competition this season.

Champions Cup format

The format for this competition has faced its fair share of criticism, from changing the pools from groups of four to groups of 12, and the complicated structure of who plays who.

But what is undeniable is that the final weekend was exciting. There was so much on the line in so many of the games, which is more than can be said of seasons with smaller pools.

It remains controversial but it has done what it intended to do, which was to keep things interesting across the board up until the last round of games.

We now must wait until the final weekend of March to see the round of 16 but, based on the performances we have seen thus far in the Champions Cup, we’re in for some cracking rugby.

Round of 16 in full

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