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2015–16 British and Irish Cup

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Teams
  
20

2015–16 British and Irish Cup

Countries
  
England Ireland  Wales

Tournament format(s)
  
Round-robin and knockout

Date
  
13 November 2015 — 10 April 2016

Attendance
  
72,839 (average 1,078 per match)

Highest Attendance
  
5,273 Bristol v Ulster Ravens 23 January 2016

The 2015–16 British and Irish Cup was the seventh season of the annual rugby union competition for second tier, semi-professional clubs from Britain and Ireland. Worcester Warriors were the defending champions having won the 2014–15 final against Doncaster Knights 35–5 at Castle Park, Doncaster on 3 April 2015. There has been five different winners and six different losing finalists of the competition in the six seasons of its existence. The format of the competition was similar to last season with Scottish clubs not competing. This season the four Welsh teams are the reserve sides of the teams competing in the Pro 12 competition instead of clubs from the Welsh Premier Division.

Contents

Matches were played on the same weekends as the European Rugby Champions and Challenge cups. First round matches began on 13 November 2015 and the final was held on the 10 April 2016.

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 top four teams having home advantage. The four winning quarter-finalists will progress to the semi-final draw. Matches take place on the same weekends as the European Rugby Champions and Challenge cups.

Participating teams and locations

The allocation of teams is as follows:

  • – twelve clubs from RFU Championship
  • – four Irish provinces represented by 'A' teams
  • – four Welsh regions represented by Premiership Select teams.
  • Postponed due to frozen pitch. Game rescheduled to 20 February 2016.
  • Game rescheduled from 16 January 2016.

    • Knock-out stage

    The eight qualifiers are seeded according to performance in the pool stage, and competed in the quarter-finals, which are held on the weekend of 11/12/13 March 2016. The four top seeds host the quarter-finals against the lower seeds, in a 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5 format. However, if two teams have qualified from the same group then they cannot be drawn together despite the seeding. Hence Leinster A and Moseley were not drawn together leading to a 1 v 7, 2 v 8, 3 v 6, 4 v 5 format.


    Teams are ranked by:

    1 – competition points (4 for a win, 2 for a draw) 2 – where competition points are equal, greatest number of wins 3 – where the number of wins are equal, aggregate points difference 4 – where the aggregate points difference are equal, greatest number of points scored

    Individual statistics

  • Note if players are tied on tries or points the player with the lowest number of appearances is placed first (if they have the same number of games, then the less minutes played will rank first). Also note that points scorers includes tries as well as conversions, penalties and drop goals. Appearance figures also include coming on as substitutes (unused substitutes not included).

    • References

    2015–16 British and Irish Cup Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA