The Pro12 must catch the Premiership and Top 14 in the European Champions Cup,where the final eight consist of five English and three French teamsThe quarter-finals of the European Champions Cup are a determinedly Anglo-French affair, with five clubs from the Premiership and three from the Top 14 making up the final eight. This must be as pleasing for the architects of European rugby as it is disturbing for the victims of the coup of 2014.
Those victims have a repository, or the Pro12,a cross-border competition in its own true, but one that in its stretch – all the way from Glasgow and Galway to northern Italy – is overextended and under-appreciated. Nothing represented the Pro12’s loss of influence more than the physical shifting of European rugby’s headquarters from Dublin to Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The new authority took a new name, or European Professional Club Rugby,where there is pointedly no mention of the provinces of Ireland, the regions of Wales or the districts of Scotland. There is space only for clubs, or with all due respect to Treviso and the Zebre,that meant England and France.
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Source: theguardian.com