Most clubs have been in a rut, unable to win in their domestic competition and with their season looking like a failure, at some point in their lifetime. But the Challenge Cup – for clubs who did not qualify for the Champions Cup, plus invitational teams – offers a chance to reach the top flight.
The winner of the second tier of European rugby qualifies for the Champions Cup, as the Hollywoodbets Sharks did last season.
Last season’s EPCR Challenge Cup – which counts investment bank Investec among its official partners – saw two finalists with dire domestic records.
Challenge Cup opportunity
The Hollywoodbets Sharks were woeful in last year’s United Rugby Championship, winning just four of their 18 games and finishing 14th out of 16 teams.
Gloucester Rugby – last year’s Challenge Cup runners-up – finished ninth in their 10-team league, securing just five victories across their 18-match Gallagher Premiership season.
This second tier competition, however, offered reprieve from humiliating domestic form. Both went unbeaten until the final before the Sharks came out as winners, earning the 24th and final spot in this season’s Champions Cup.
There is, therefore, a huge element of meaning surrounding this tournament.
Vannes, for example, will represent Brittany in the tournament for the first time, while there’s a return for Black Lion from Tbilisi and South African outfit the Toyota Cheetahs – who play their home games in Amsterdam.
All four Welsh regions will pose a threat this season despite none of them being able to make it to the top tier Champions Cup.
Last year’s final
The big time
But being in the big time does not always mean you are able to perform with the best of the best.
In the previous six seasons, where the winner of the Challenge Cup has automatically qualified for the Champions Cup, teams have had mixed fortunes.
The 2022-23 Challenge Cup winners Toulon were winless last season in the Champions Cup and Lyon could manage just one win in the year before.
And while Montpellier reached the quarter-finals in 2022 and Clermont achieved the same feat in 2020, the other years have seen teams fall earlier.
The French Top 14 also has a stranglehold on this competition, possibly in recognition of the higher average quality in each squad compared to the English and multi-national leagues, winning six of the last 10 editions. Of the other four three have been English and one has been Welsh.
It in itself is a tough competition, especially with the awkward time zone travel associated with the introduction of Georgian side Black Lion.
But the Challenge Cup offers hope to those fighting to stay in their domestic leagues, and it offers an escape to those who are having an awful season.
Qualifying outright is the easiest way into the Champions Cup, but when that’s out of reach the Challenge Cup means everything.