The 2014–15 British and Irish Cup is the sixth season of the annual

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

competition for second tier, semi-professional clubs from Britain and Ireland.

Leinster A Leinster Rugby ( ga, Rugbaí Laighean) is one of the four professional provincial rugby union teams from the island of Ireland and the most successful Irish team domestically. They compete in the United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby ...

are the defending champions having won the 2013–14 final against

Yorkshire Carnegie Leeds Tykes (formerly Leeds RUFC, Leeds Carnegie and Yorkshire Carnegie) is an English rugby union club in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, playing in the National League 1. The club was founded as Headingley FC, but renamed in 1991 when it j ...

44–17 at Donnybrook on 23 May 2014. There has been four different winners and five different losing finalists of the competition in the five seasons of its existence. The format of the competition has been changed once again, with the Scottish withdrawing from the competition because of an increase, from four to six, in the number of the group matches before Christmas. Scottish Rugby felt that Scottish teams would not be able to compete fully in both the British and Irish Cup and the

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottis ...

, the top-flight league for clubs in Scotland. The Welsh teams selection is based on

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

play-offs involving the 2013–14 Premier Division clubs at the start of the season. This process yielded

Pontypridd () ( colloquially: Ponty) is a town and a community in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Geography comprises the electoral wards of , Hawthorn, Pontypridd Town, 'Rhondda', Rhydyfelin Central/Ilan ( Rhydfelen), Trallwng ( Trallwn) and Treforest (). ...

to represent the Cardiff Blues Region, Cross Keys to represent the Dragons Region,

Aberavon Aberavon ( cy, Aberafan) is a town and community in Neath Port Talbot county borough, Wales. The town derived its name from being near the mouth of the river Afan, which also gave its name to a medieval lordship. Today it is essentially a distr ...

to represent the Ospreys Region, and Carmarthen Quins to represent the Scarlets Region. Matches in the competition proper were played on the same weekends as the European Rugby Champions Cup and

European Rugby Challenge Cup The EPCR Challenge Cup is an annual rugby union competition organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the second-tier competition for clubs based in European leagues behind the European Rugby Champions Cup. From its inception ...

. First round matches began on 10 October 2014 and the final was held on 3 April 2015. Worcester Warriors beat Doncaster Knights 35 – 5 in the final held at Castle Park,

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

; the home ground of the Knights.

Participating teams and locations

The allocation of teams is as follows: * – twelve clubs from

RFU Championship The RFU Championship is an English rugby union competition comprising twelve clubs. It is the second level of men’s English rugby and is played by both professional and semi-professional players. The competition has existed since 1987, when ...

* – four Irish provinces represented by 'A' teams * – four clubs from the

Welsh Premier Division The Welsh Premier Division, () known for sponsorship reasons as the Indigo Group Premiership, (''Uwch Gynghrair grŵp indigo'') is a rugby union league in Wales first implemented by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) for the 1990–91 season. Compet ...

Welsh qualification

The Welsh teams are selected, based on

play-offs involving the twelve clubs from the 2013–14 Premier Division and played at the start of the season. Teams gained home advantage depending upon their finishing position at the end of last season.

Cardiff Blues Region

The two constituent clubs of the Cardiff Blues played in a one-off game to determine the region's representative in the Cup.

Dragons Region

The four teams that make up the Newport Gwent Dragons each played in semi-finals, with the winner of each progressing to play off for the opportunity to represent the region.

Ospreys Region

With three teams making up the Ospreys region,

and Neath faced each other first, with the winner going into the final play-off with

Bridgend Bridgend (; cy, Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr or just , meaning "the end of the bridge on the Ogmore") is a town in Bridgend County Borough in Wales, west of Cardiff and east of Swansea. The town is named after the medieval bridge over the River Og ...

Scarlets Region

Like the Ospreys, the

Scarlets The Scarlets () are one of the four professional Welsh rugby union teams and are based in Llanelli, Wales. Their home ground is the Parc y Scarlets stadium. They play in the United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby Champions Cup (which ...

region has three constituent clubs, so two teams played each other in a preliminary game for the chance to face the third team in the deciding match.

Competition format

The competition format is a pool stage followed by a knockout stage. The pool stage consists of five pools of four teams playing home and away matches. The top side in each pool, plus the three best runners-up, will progress to the knockout stage. The eight quarter-finalists will be ranked, with teams ranked 1-4 having home advantage. The four winning quarter-finalists will progress to the semi-final draw. Matches will take place on the same weekends as the European Rugby Champions Cup and

cups.

Pool stages

Pool 1

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Pool 2

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Pool 3

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Pool 4

* This match finished with a 35 – 34 victory to Cornish Pirates. However, in the 72nd minute the match went to uncontested scrums as Pirates were unable to provide a front-row replacement for injured prop Tyler Gendall. Pirates should have reduced to 14 men on the pitch, in accordance with the regulations but, instead, Gendall was replaced with fly-half Bertie Hokpin (who scored the winning try) and continued with 15 men. The Organising Committee decided to award the match to Bedford with a 28 – 34 scoreline, the score at the time that the scums went uncontested. Pirates are considering an appeal. Pirates' appeal failed to overturn the decision. ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Pool 5

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Knock-out stage

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Total season attendances

*Does not include Welsh qualification matches.

Individual statistics

* Note if players are tied on tries or points the player with the lowest number of appearances will come first. Also note that points scorers includes tries as well as conversions, penalties and drop goals.

Top points scorers

Top try scorers

Notes

References

External links

Unofficial British and Irish Cup website - latest news, teams etc
{{DEFAULTSORT:British and Irish Cup British and Irish Cup 2014–15 rugby union tournaments for clubs 2014–15 RFU Championship 2014–15 in Irish rugby union 2014–15 in Welsh rugby union 2014–15 in British rugby union