Rugby Europe International Championships
The Rugby Europe International Championships is the European Championship for rugby union
The tournament is the latest formation of a competition with history going back to 1932. At that time, France had been expelled from the then Five Nations, and joined with a number of European teams to found an alternative organisation, the International Amateur Rugby Federation. While France were eventually readmitted to the Five Nations, the then FIRA-AER continued to run competitions, increasingly taking the role of organiser of European continental rugby below the Five Nations, and in which France continued to compete.
The competition expanded and modified under the new Rugby Europe structure, even as France, then Italy, left to compete solely in the Six Nations. It was held in a variety of formats with a variety of names including the European Nations Cup and the Rugby Europe Nations Championship.
The competition today is split into 3 levels. The highest level is now called the Rugby Europe Championship and, unofficially, was referred to as the Six Nations B, although the event now features eight teams. Below the Championship a six team Rugby Europe Trophy is contested by tier three nations, with promotion and relegation operating between the Championship and the Trophy. Below that, as of 2024, is the Rugby Europe Conference consisting of the lowest ranked teams in Europe in five pools - previously there had been tiers within the conference. A previous Development Tier competition was disbanded at the same time.
History
International championships before 2000
Following the exclusion of France from the Five Nations Tournament after the 1931 edition, France joined with Italy, Romania, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, and Catalonia to create the International Amateur Rugby Federation as an alternative to the International Rugby Football Board. Three tournaments were held from 1936 to 1938, with France winning all three. Following the Second World War, France was readmitted into the Five Nations Championship, but they also competed in the only two tournaments organised by FIRA, the Rugby Union European Cup, held in 1952 and 1954, winning them both.From 1965, FIRA attempted to revitalise the European competition by creating the FIRA Nations Cup and then the FIRA Trophy ; however, France fielded a France A side made up mostly of university students. While the French students won many of the tournaments, Romania also had their share of tournament titles. In the late 1990s, the championship became irregular, with some editions not taking place because of qualifications for the World Cup. Finally, the European Nations Cup began in 2000, no longer including France and Italy, as they now played in the reformed Six Nations Championship.
European Nations Cup: initial format (since 2000)
After the setup of the divisional system in 2000, Romania won the first competition with maximum points, The initial season also included Morocco.Russia then replaced Morocco in 2001 when Georgia secured the title and were crowned champions after a 31–20 win over Romania in Bucharest. As the competition format changed from a one-year tournament to two-years, the Netherlands were not relegated after this season.
Romania started 2002 trailing Georgia after the 2001 results, but managed to win all of the remaining five games, including a 31–23 victory in Tbilisi.
Portugal were 16–15 winners over Romania in Lisbon and installed themselves at the top of the 2003–04 table. In the second half of the competition, Romania won 36–6 against Portugal in Constanța, but went down 24–33 to Russia in Krasnodar. Then Portugal clinched their first title with a last-minute 19–18 home win over Russia. The Russia – Czech Republic game was rescheduled due to bad weather and was eventually cancelled.
The 2005–06 championships also served as a qualifying pool for the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Romania triumphed finishing level on points with Georgia, while Ukraine were relegated after losing all matches.
The 2007–08 edition saw the return of the Spanish to the top division. The winners were Georgia, following their display at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The Russians recorded their best ever placement, finishing in second. The Czech Republic were the team to finish on the bottom of the table, losing all of their matches, relegating them back to Division 2A.
A new format was decided at the beginning of 2009. Each calendar year had its own champion, but the cumulated ranking over two years determined which team was relegated. The 2009–10 edition was also basis for European qualification to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The 2009 season saw the début of Germany in the top division, Georgia defended their title, and there were wins for Portugal and Russia in Bucharest.
Faced with the possibility of missing a Rugby World Cup for the first time, Romania were managed the 2010 title. This feat was however not enough to overtake Georgia and Russia, who helped by their good results from the previous year, gained the automatic qualification for the 2011 RWC, leaving Romania to go through the Play-Off Qualification Rounds. Germany were relegated after failing to win any games.
Georgia won the 2011 edition, after beating Romania 18–11 in Tbilisi. The promoted team, Ukraine, lost all but one of their matches, single win over Portugal.
European Nations Cup: second format (from 2010 to 2016)
For the 2010–2012 competition, the top two divisions were redefined as 1A and 1B, both having six teams. The next four levels become 2A-2D, under the new system, with the remnants of Division 3D making up the initial group of teams labelled as Division 3. In principle, each division is to encompass a different type of competition.In Division 1, groups have six teams, a significant fraction of the players are assumed to be professional or semi-professional, and only one team is promoted and one relegated every two years.
In Division 2, groups have only five teams each, it is assumed that the majority of players are amateurs, and in addition to the traditional automatic first-promoted-last-relegated system, fourth place from the higher pool will play second place from the lower pool after every two-year competition, with the winner taking the position in the higher pool. From a five-team group, one team is promoted, one team is relegated and two teams play in playoffs. Thus, a maximum of four of a pool's five teams could change from one two-year competition to the next.
In Division 3, a single-location, short-time-period tournament is organised once per year. This minimises travel costs for teams and time-off-work requirements for players, and allows the flexibility of having a different membership every year, rather than requiring the membership to be constant over two years. The best performing team over two years of tournaments is promoted to Division 2.
In the year of transition to the new system, there were no relegations from any division below the highest, because the second-highest was expanded by one team.
International Championships: third format (from 2016 to 2022)
From September 2016, the European Nations Cup became the Rugby Europe International Championships, made up of five levels or divisions:- Level 1 - Championship. The top six ranked European teams outside the Six Nations contest the annual title. Replaces the former Division 1A.
- Level 2 - Trophy. The next six ranked European teams bid for the Trophy title. Replaces the former Division 1B.
- Level 3 - Conference 1. Division 2, A through to D, becomes the new Conference level, where twenty teams are separated into two Conferences made up of ten teams each, based on their previous year rankings. Each conference is then split into two, North and South, where teams could change each year depending on the competing teams - nations closest to boundary moved from North to South and vice versa each season as necessary to geographically balance the conferences.
- Level 4 - Conference 2
- Level 5 - Development. Replaces Division 3.
A promotion and relegation play-off system is maintained across all levels every year, moving away from the two-year system in place since 2003, meaning teams will be promoted and relegated every year.
In the 2020–2021 season, due to the worldwide COVID-19 epidemic, the lower divisions were not held, and much of the 2021 Championship division was delayed, being held over the whole of 2021. Thus, there was no promotion/relegation between the divisions, including between the Championship and Trophy, following the 2020–2021 season: promotion/relegation resumed following the 2022 Championship and the 2021-2022 Trophy, Conference and Development divisions. The structure was slightly changed after 2022, to increase the Championship division to eight rather than six teams: furthermore, Russia, were disqualified and banned from the 2022 Championship and from all international rugby until further notice, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine after having played two matches of the 2022 season: their three remaining matches in the 2022 Championship were awarded to their opponents, by walkover.
Qualification for three European spots in the 2023 Rugby World Cup was determined by the collective results of the 2021 and 2022 Championships added together, which formed a full home-and-away round-robin between the six nations of the Championship. The top two teams would qualify as Europe 1 and Europe 2: the third-place team, as Europe 3, would enter the final qualification tournament along with Africa 3, Americas 3 and the loser of the Asia/Pacific play-off. Russia's expulsion mattered little, since they had lost all but two of their matches anyway. However, the issue of ineligible players raised its head again, though not to the extent it had in the 2019 qualification: Spain, who had been fourth in 2021 but second in 2022 and were in fact in second place over the collective two years, were penalised 10 points - five in each season - for fielding an ineligible player in two matches. Georgia were far ahead in first place, with 9 wins and 1 draw over the two years: Spain's discomfiture resulted in Romania qualifying directly from the Championship in second place, and Portugal being in third place for the final intercontinental qualifier. Portugal won that tournament to qualify for the World Cup.
Additionally, Rugby Europe made changes to the bonus points system. The standard system, that is applied in the Six Nations Championship was discarded in favour of the French system. The main difference is that where previously a team would be awarded 1 try bonus point for scoring 4 tries, regardless of the outcome, and whereas now, a team would be awarded 1 "bonus" point for winning while scoring at least the equivalent of 3 or more tries than their opponent.