Celtic League Shield and/or Provinicial Cup ?

I was just reading about rugby in South Africa and in the The Vodacom Cup, from 2001 to 2004, the teams finishing outside the top 4 in the pool phases played in a secondary competition called the Vodacom Shield.

Would something like this go down well in the Celtic League, top 4 play off for League Champions, but 4-8 play off to decide a Celtic Shield winner. it would give the teams some silverware to play for. The likes of the Scottish sides, Treviso, Dragons and Connacht, all have a good chance of winning some siliverware.

I think it may be a more worthwhile trophy than even the Anglo-Welsh cup, wouldn't have any extra games really either.

or even have possibly a Provinicial Cup (for the 4 Irish provinices), while the Ango welsh cup is being played, have a provincial Double header in NLR open draw, 2 games in one day, then later in the year have the Provinical cup final in NLR between the 2 winners, only 2 extra games in the season, and some real local honours to be won.

Thoughts?

Seems a bit unnecessary tinkering with the league again. Lets just have a few years with no new initatives.

I think both of you make good points - Kingshu it sounds like a good idea - but maybe wait 3 or 4 years at least and see how the league is going before considering tickering with it again

red_stag the league was made to be tinkered with, if it goes more than 3 years with out a change of team dropping out joining th ewhole univerise will explode. For some reason it was joined to th efate of the universe and the beginging by accident.

Univerise exploing is a bad thing to let happen in my opinion, better to add a cup comp.

Na I dont think we need to alter anything, I dont like the play off myself but I see how they kept everything interesting last season so hopefully they will grow on me in time.

I think the most pressing concern for the RaboDirect teams is to make sure both Scottish and Italian and all 4 Irish and Welsh teams get into the Heinaken Cup every season, with only 6 French and English teams each season.
Having 2 English or French teams in one of the 6 pools is a bit silly to be honest.