2016–17 British and Irish Cup

Updated on Oct 25, 2023

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Teams 19 Attendance 54,870 (998 per match)		Matches played 55

Countries England Ireland Wales Tournament format(s) Round-robin and knockout Date 14 October 2016 — 22 April 2017

The 2016–17 British and Irish Cup is the eighth season of the annual rugby union competition for second tier, semi-professional clubs from Britain and Ireland. London Welsh are the defending champions having won the 2015–16 final against Yorkshire Carnegie 10–33 at Headingley Carnegie Stadium, Leeds on 10 April 2016. There have been six different winners and six different losing finalists in the seven seasons of its existence. The format of the competition is similar to last season with Scottish clubs not competing. For the second consecutive 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.

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, progress to the knockout stage. The eight quarter-finalists are ranked, with top four teams having home advantage. The four winning quarter-finalists progress to the semi-final draw. Most of the matches are played on the same weekends as the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. First round matches begin on 14 October 2016 and the final will be held on the 22 April 2017.

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.

Round 6

Postponed due to frozen pitch. Game rescheduled to ?.

Pool 2

London Welsh entered liquidation on 8 December 2016 and were disqualified from the competition and their results from rounds 1 and 2 were annulled.

Round 1

Result will not count as London Welsh would be expelled from competition.

Round 2

Result will not count as London Welsh would be expelled from competition.

Postponed due to recent death of Munster Rugby's head coach Anthony Foley. Game rescheduled to 7 January 2016.

Round 2 (rescheduled game)

Game rescheduled from 22 October 2016.

Knock-out stage

The eight qualifiers are seeded according to performance in the pool stage, and compete in the quarter-finals. 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. If two teams have qualified from the same group then they cannot be drawn together despite the seeding, therefore, Jersey Reds will not face Ulster A. The quarter-finals are to be held over the weekend of 10/11/12 March 2017, the semi-finals are to be held over the weekend of 31 March and 1 & 2 April 2017 and the final will be played on 22 April 2017.

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

Quarter-finals

The draw for the quarter-finals was made on 23 January 2017, with the matches to be played on the weekend of 10–13 March, 2017.

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).