While he broadly welcomed the launch of the United Rugby Championship which will replace the Guinness PRO14 next season, Leinster chief executive Mick Dawson revealed that the Irish provinces were voted down on the controversial method for qualifying for Europe from next season.

However, he believes the competition will revert back to a merit-based qualification method from the 2024/’25 season.

The 16 team tournament will see the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian teams joined by the four strongest South African franchises from next season with an 18-game season. The top eight teams will enter a knockout stage run on a quarter-final, semi-final, final basis. The final will be played on June 25 next year.

However, while the rebrand has been welcomed, it is the news that qualification for Europe will be done on a regional pool basis that has led to some disquiet in Irish rugby circles.

Organisers have decided to split the European qualification into four pools on geographic grounds, with the top-ranked Irish, Welsh, South African and Scottish/Italian teams qualifying for the Champions Cup. Then, the next best four teams on the ladder will make it into Europe the following year.

Also, there is some frustration that the top four teams in the 2020/’21 season will now all play each other twice and take points off one another, making the fixture schedule tougher on paper for the Irish sides.

“The Irish provinces and the IRFU would not have been in favour of the geographical thing for Europe, that’s the only disappointment I have with the competition,” Dawson said. “We would have all voted for meritocracy.

“It’s only two years and hopefully meritocracy will be reintroduced then, but we were outvoted. The Welsh and the Scottish didn’t want four Irish and four South African teams (qualifying for Europe).

“After two years it’s open season and I think the competition will be better for it, because I don’t think it’s good business to have the geographical thing.

“There’s no point in having teams in the competition who aren’t good enough to be there just because they’re from a certain locality.

“It’s up for review in two years’ time with meritocracy being the favoured method and everyone agrees that that’s the way forward. It’s a compromise all round.”

On the whole, Dawson is delighted with a tournament that should breathe new life into a competition that has struggled to capture the imagination in recent years.

“It’s good news, it will bring a huge amount of positivity towards the competition,” he said.

“The old competition was probably a little tired, we needed some new blood and we get four of the biggest names in club rugby in the world coming into our competition – that’s a real positive.

“There’s nine home games as opposed to 11, but because there’s less you’d hope that more of the top players will be engaged in the competition all the time and that you’d be playing against better opposition all the time as well.

“I think overall I’d be very positive about the whole thing.”

It is understood that next season’s Champions Cup will feature 24 teams, with two pools of 12 and four pool fixtures. The top 16 teams will then go into a round of 16 with two legs, before the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final which will be held in Marseille proceed as normal.

Leinster welcomed 1,200 fans to the RDS for the first time last Friday night for their final match of the season against the Dragons.

Hailing that event as a success, Dawson said he hopes that by the time next season kicks off in September 24 there will be close to full houses in Irish stadia.

“Friday was a huge success, I think the limited number of supporters that were there enjoyed themselves,” he said.

“A lot of the staff in the office worked hard to make sure it went well, but it was hugely positive.

“You now have two Ireland internationals in early July with spectators, the GAA hope to have 60 or 70pc capacity in for their All-Ireland finals. I seem Wimbledon will have a full house for the final, so as long as the vaccine appears to be working we’d be hopeful for the start of next season we’ll be close to back to normal.

“The season ticket holders have supported us, we’d a great response to our season ticket sales. I think people believe that we will get back to something like normal and want to get back to as normal a life as possible.”

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