Talk:Heineken Cup

Untitled
I just removed a large section from a psychic that made no sense. You can look at the original version if you want but it was poorly written and garbled. It seemed to be a prediction for the next Heineken cup which shouldn't be in the history section at any rate. Outside Center 17:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Flags
Is it just me that has a problem with the exclusion of the Irish flag. Leinster and Munster are irish teams that are nationally Irish, under the tricolour. I understand the issues surrounding ulster, but why should the Irish flag be deleted from the whole treatment. There should either be no flags or appropriately assinged national flags. Ulster in this sense might be the union jack. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.104.205 (talk) 23:10, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Irish teams compete on behalf of the IRFU, which represents the island of Ireland as a whole. While teams may be based in either the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, they are not officially affiliated to either country, and as such it would not be appropriate for them to have either flag next to their name. As discussed at WT:RU, the only flag that would be appropriate is the official flag of the IRFU, but since that is a derivative of the IRFU logo, we cannot use it under Fair Use. Sorry. – PeeJay 00:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Well I don't accept this argument, I note you use it in several other places to deny the proper national representation of these teams; who the hell do you think you are doing this. I don't care about the IRFU stuff. You have taken an additional step that maps unions to nations in a way that is not binding. Either delete all flags or put the IRL flags into those provinces that are unambiguously Irish, in the Rep. of Ireland sense. Muk Den, 24 May 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.85.228 (talk) 21:12, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, if you don't accept that argument then you're in the minority, as the majority of the contributors to the rugby union WikiProject do accept it. – PeeJay 00:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

This is my first experience of a Wikipedia dispute and I must admit that I am disappointed and surprised by poverty of the decision making involved. PeeJay tells me I am in a minority on the rugby union WikiProject page on this issue, but when I read the discussion I just see the same 4 guys tossing around opinions to one another (and several others disagreeing with them) and then settling it between themselves; I guess everyone else is the "minority".

I think that the treatment of Irish teams in these pages is biased and, possibly, racist. There is a real colonial snap to a couple of guys (who all appear to be in Britain) making decisions about how Irish rugby is presented, with all this legalistic twaddle about copyrights and fair use. The end set of decisions are poor and fly in the face of all common sense. So, before I unleash my minority let me point how how many ways you are wrong.

First, it is a mistake to plaster flags all over these pages. That's the original sin. If you want to put an icon beside the country/nations/teams taking part then you should use the symbols of the rugby unions. That is way it is done on the RBS site (not national flags), on TV when the matches are televised and on the players shirts. [Ironically, you use this fact to exclude the tricolour saying that we should use the IRFU flag because it is the flag covering NI and the Republic. Can I applaud your inconsistency here.] If you cannot use these icons because of copyright then no icon should be entered; putting in flags is a poor second.Second, the template you have designed is wrong. The idea of a template is that it covers all the possibilities you want to cover. You have designed a template that doesn't work; by your own admission it does not handle Ireland. By you own reasoning, it should be dumped or modified to a point where it covers all the cases. Third, lets assume that we want to use flags, that you don't want to re-cant the original sin. Then, the logical choice is the 4-provinces one; this is the one created by the authorities to indicate the all-ireland unit. It, therefore, has an authority way beyond you four guys. Several people have pointed out that this is used at the games, several comments on the discussion have made this point but in your wisdom you have batted these comments aside with arbitrary asides (e.g., it is too small, you can''t see what it is, do we want to have a flag for the sake of a flag). This is very sloppy reaoning on your part. [and don't re-run the argument that it has to have the copyrighted IRFU logo in it, because you have already rejected that idea yourself by opting not to use the rugby union icons]. Fourth, in all of this you have lost sight of the common sense import of the activity. If you go to these matches you see people with national flags. In Wales the welsh flag, in France their flag and so on. When you go to a Munster match you will see tricolours, same with Leinster and Connaught. In Ulster, you will see a variety of things that reflect the history (probably notably, the now defunct Red-hand flag). These are the flag icons that people use, in common use, to indicate the national alignment of these teams. So, by use, at the very least the teams should have the appropriate flag beside them (if you want to indicate national alignment). In saying this, I recognise that there are problems putting the tricolour next to Ireland and Ulster; but at least we have contained the amount of idiocy in the page.

In conclusion, if you want flags (which are not necessarily warranted at all) then I would suggest (i) the 4-provinces flag for Ireland, (ii) the red-hand flag or 4-provinces one for Ulster, and (iii) that the tricolour goes everywhere else. This solution maintains the coherence of the template and is most accurate in reflecting the common view of what all of these things mean, taking divergent sensibilities into account. Muk Den —Preceding undated comment added 14:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC).

I totally agree on the last point that it should be the teams flag no country —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.89.213 (talk) 17:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Qualification
Just noticed that the qualification criteria here is incomplete - says 5 teams for England, plus one if an English team wins the Anglo-Welsh Cup, but doesn't say plus one for Wales if a Welsh team wins it. The diagram just says six for England. Am looking up now and will correct. Rawling 4851 13:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * IIRC, Welsh teams use the Magners League as their sole qualification criterion. The top three Welsh teams qualify, and the best-placed team in the league that doesn't qualify automatically (usually Newport Gwent Dragons) has to play in the Italo-Celtic playoff against (IIRC) the 4th-best Italian side. – PeeJay 14:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess the reference to the Anglo-Welsh cup was because the English rugby board decided to allocate one of their places by performance in the cup and not by performance in the league. The Guinness Premiership site used to list explicitly the English qualification criteria, but now it doesn't.
 * I've now edited the page, but I'm not completely sure on everything... Rawling 4851 14:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The diagram is now totally wrong, following the abolition of one of the Scottish teams; admittance of teams from Spain; etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.63.162 (talk) 16:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

So the Irish flag is ok to have here and its ok to have Ireland under the nation table.

A Nation is a single state. please follow a single convention and not two conflicting ones. Have flags or no flags including the qualification image and remove the nation table as Ireland is not a nation but an Island. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.89.213 (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You know Ireland used to be a single country, right? – PeeJay 11:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Mission accomplished
Finally I put the pool stage results of all editions, I'd like to see more people interested on HC history... Maxtremus (talk) 23:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I said it before, but I'll say it again, excellent work! Cheers Nouse4aname (talk) 13:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but there may be some errors in some parts (I'm not perfect), so I'd like to people here review them, and also in the future put the match stats like the recent arcticles. Maxtremus (talk) 22:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Article name
A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby union as the name of this article along with the Magners League and the Guinness Premiership --Snowded (talk) 21:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Enlargement Proposals
There aren´t currently any proposals to enlarge the Heineken Cup to the winners of the National Leagues of the Six Nations B countries ? It seems strange how some might expect to see the development of rugby across Europe with this tournament as the equivalent of the football Champions League, being restricted to only the main six rugby nations of the continent. It certainly would increase the interest for rugby in countries like Georgia, Romania, Portugal, Spain, Russia and Germany.Mistico (talk) 22:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

There are Rumanian Spanish and Portugese teams in the Amlin Challenge cup (europa league of rugby) and it fails. I doubt they could handle the tougher tournament.

You are right. Rugby union unlike football and basketball is a very stratified sport in Europe. They could perhaps create a equivalent of the Heineken Cup for these countries, but I doubt it would attract enough interest. In the past Romania had for sure enough quality to be here, but unfortunately they didn't managed to keep the same level after the fall of communism. So the enlargement proposals should be currently aimed to the European Challenge Cup definetely.Mistico (talk) 00:31, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Arms Park capacity??
Anyone who knows Cardiff Arms Park agrees with the Wikipedia entry on same re capacity - its max capacity was about 20k. Therefore it's not possible that 40k attended the second cup final there. I don't know what the correction is, but that entry's wrong! Dublinblue (Simon in Dublin) (talk) 07:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The former Welsh national stadium, which occupied the current site of the Millennium Stadium and was also known as Cardiff Arms Park, was capable of holding far more than 40,000 people, so it's definitely correct that at least 40,000 attended the second Heineken Cup final. – PeeJay 09:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move page, based on discussion below. Although two three editors support with only one opposing, the reasons for support are "the sponsorship might change", which makes no appeal to consensus-backed policy, and "consistency", which is a much-less strongly relied-on naming principle than WP:COMMONNAME. Pending some evidence that the cup is generally known as "European Rugby Cup", a move doesn't make sense. - GTBacchus(talk) 18:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Heineken Cup → — Per the moves and reasons listed at Super Rugby and English Premiership (rugby union) Gnevin (talk) 09:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - A generic name is far more preferable, since the sponsorship might change in the future. – PeeJay 09:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Consistency with other recent moves plus, it makes more sense as a title to the uninitiated.  Skinsmoke (talk) 10:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose. The Heineken Cup has never been known as anything but the Heieneken Cup (except the H Cup in France). WP:COMMONNAME should take precedence here. This opposition to sponsored names is rather odd when there has only been one sponsored name, particularly in this case, where the cup has only actually had one name. Heineken Cup is by far the most widely usd and recognised name. If sponsorship changes in the future, we can address that issue then, there is no need to pre-empt such changes now, by moving the article to an illogical location. Nouse4aname (talk) 16:33, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you really think that adding "Strong" to your !vote adds any extra weight? Anyway, looking at this page on the ERC site shows that the competition has indeed been known as the European Rugby Cup in the past. – PeeJay 17:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See, there's your first mistake, this sin't a vote. I am simply using "strong" is simply to emphaise how ridiculous I feel the proposed move is. I take it you have never used the words "strong" or "weak" or the like when discussing deletions or moves...? One source suggesting the cup was known as another name previously does not mean anything. Those statements were probably from before the signing of Heineken as sponsor. WP:COMMONNAME is quite clear here, and there is no logic in ignoring it and moving the article to a name that has been rarelt used. Nouse4aname (talk) 18:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What makes you think that I think this is a vote? I simply used the word "vote" to describe your "Strong Oppose" comment, hence the exclamation mark that preceded the word. And yes, I did use "strong" and "weak" in the past, but then I realised that it made no sense. The strength of your opposition or support should be made clear through your rationale. Anyway, the Magners League was known as the Celtic League when it was established, so I don't see any difference between that and the Heineken Cup being known as the European Rugby Cup before Heineken signed. – PeeJay 18:10, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The difference being of course that no one has ever won the "European Rugby Cup". There has never been an edition of the "European Rugby Cup", it has only ever been the "Heineken Cup". Considering there is naming policy/guideline supporting keeping the article at Heineken Cup and only various opinions that it should be moved, I think the strength of the argument for keeping the article here is clear. Further, considering that we are all just expressing an opinion, I don't see any problem with using the word "Strong" and think it makes perfect sense. Nouse4aname (talk) 08:08, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * No one has ever won the "Premier League" either, but we still have the article at Premier League, despite it being known as the Barclays Premier League at the moment. – PeeJay 08:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there was agreement to use Premier League due to all the various sponsored names causing confusion and page moves every few years. Here, the Heineken Cup has had no other name. There is no confusion regarding sponsored names and no moving of pages every few years. Simply, there is no need to move the page, and no clear consensus to do so either (see further discussion here). And stop changing the indents to bullet points! Nouse4aname (talk) 09:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Btw, what about 1992–93 FA Premier League - no sponsor there. Nouse4aname (talk) 09:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Finals venue
Why has France hosted the finals so infrequently? Is it a scheduling issue with the Stade de France? Funnyhat (talk) 04:22, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

2014-15 season
There is a table of the finalists. I already removed Toulon and Clermont from "Winner" and "Runner-Up" boxes, as the title is not yet decided. But, I also think that 2014-15 cannot be included in this article, as the name of the competition is not Heineken Cup. A solution would be to include the Heineken Cup finals in Champions Cup article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.194.30.218 (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2015 (UTC)