By PerryGo
April 16 2003

No, not Ace Tiatia’s disciplinary record again (impressive though that is). Surprising as it may seem, we’re talking about the chances of Quins making it into next year’s Heineken European Cup… Many of us Harlequins fans have learned to be content of late with that other European competition, you know, the one that you can’t fail to qualify for. It has some advantages going for it – a nice day trip to Caerphilly springs to mind – but you can tell the grown-ups don’t think much of it since it barely gets a mention in the Sunday newspaper reports.

Now, if only I could remember the name of it. Something to do with Bic Ball Point Pens…

Since inaccuracy (of fact, as opposed to opinion, as you’ll have noticed) is anathema to PerryGo, I decided to extensively research this competition before putting pen to paper. Easier said than done, as it happens. The first problem is to figure out the name of the blessed thing.


It used to be quite straightforward. Or at least, it was the season we won it, 2000/2001. Then it was called the European Shield. Damn great thing that none of the threequarters could lift when the team was presented with it.

No-one was interested in sponsoring it then, but once it had been won by Harlequins potential sponsors were queuing up for the 2001/2001 season. We were the first non-French team to win it, after five years of the competition. In case there are any front row forwards out there who want more detail, I can confirm we were also the first English club to win it too.

Actually, there weren’t actually lots of potential sponsors, but one was better than none…

So, Parker Pen came out of the woodwork to exploit the marketing opportunity to connect cheap pens with cheap rugby by sponsoring the European Shield for 2001/2002. Sale (sorry, Sharks) won the newly re-named Parker Pen Shield last season.

Now I hope you’re listening carefully, as I will say this only once. From now on, the wheels begin to come off the story a bit.

This current season, the Parker Pen Shield was replaced by the Parker Pen Challenge Cup, so if previously you would have been in the Shield you now go into the Cup. But then, if you get knocked out of the Cup at the outset, or if you’re Italian (much the same thing) you then go into another competition. Which is, of course, called the Parker Pen Shield. Clear?

I hope it is to you. It wouldn’t be too bad were it not for the fact that the industry is littered with erroneous descriptions of these two competitions. For example – and justify this one to me if you can, please – the official Zurich Premiership website persistently refers to the Parker Pen Challenge Cup as the Parker Pen Shield when describing European qualification criteria. Oh no, I tell a lie – one section is headed European Shield instead. By which it also means Parker Pen Challenge Cup, of course.

Maybe this is all a conspiracy to confuse Rotherham. This year they can be refused entry on the grounds of having failed to answer correctly a series of questions on which European competition they go into if they get promoted.

It all sounds a bit like one of those sevens competitions where if you keep losing you keep progressing (so that by the end of the afternoon they give you a trophy for having lost every game you played). Presumably so you’ll go home. Or drink some more. Which is probably why you lost all those games in the first place.

Anyone know the Italian for “Good news, chaps – we lost the last match so we’re through to the next round”?

You may wonder what relevance all this has to the subject of the article. Or more fundamentally, you may still not have figured out the subject of the article.

Despite being troubled by the prospect of a relegation dogfight for most of the season, it turns out that we are not out of contention for a spot in the big boys’ competition next year, thanks to a thing called the Zurich Wildcard. It was in researching how this all works that I discovered the confusion on the official ZP website.

Like everything else in rugby, it’s unbelievably (and unnecessarily) complicated to figure out. Especially when you have to start with certain unwritten assumptions. Like when they say ‘Shield’ they mean ‘Cup’…

Anyhow, as best I can figure it (start a thread if you think I’m wrong and I’ll probably agree with you) the first three places in 2003/2004 European Cup qualification go to the top three finishers in the League. Or as they put it, the Zurich Premiership Final Winner (that’s the pointless play-off thing) plus the Final Runner-Up, plus the Semi-Final Runner Up. The top three finishers in the League, in other words…

The remaining number of places are allocated in the following order:

Parker Pen Challenge Cup Winner
Zurich Wildcard Winner
Powergen Cup Winner
Zurich Premiership fourth place finisher
Zurich Premiership fifth place finisher

If you thought the earlier stuff was complicated, wait for the next bit.

Now if the European Cup is not won by an English club, which it now won’t be, then the Zurich Premiership only gets five places next year instead of six. Or, as the official site so eloquently puts it: “In the event that Premier Rugby receives only five places in the Heineken Cup, it follows that the Heineken Cup winners would not have been English”. Hmmm.

That means three places taken by the top three and two more up for grabs. But what happens if one of the top three wins the Parker Pen Challenge Cup, as Wasps might? Once again, we look to the site for wisdom: “Should any club qualify as two or more of the above, it will take the highest seeded position for which it qualifies and relinquish another qualification. In these cases the clubs in position below such relinquished places will move up to occupy the higher seeded position”.
So, if Wasps stay third in the table and win the Parker Pen Challenge Cup they take the higher seeded position for which they qualify and relinquish their ‘fourth’ qualification spot. That means the Zurich Wildcard Winner (of which more anon) takes over the fourth qualification spot and the Powergen Cup Winner gets the fifth and final spot.

With me so far?

But even then it gets more complicated, because Gloucester, who will be in the top three in the League, won the Powergen Cup, did they not? Which means they ‘relinquish’ spot six in favour of a higher spot. So everyone else moves up.

So to try to cut a long story short, IF Wasps stay third in the table AND win the Parker Pen Challenge Cup, the last two Heineken Cup slots will go to the Zurich Wildcard Winner and the Zurich Premiership fourth place finisher.

Now, the Zurich Wildcard is determined by home and away Semi-Finals followed by a Final, played out between the ‘top four clubs who have not automatically qualified’. As things will stand at the end of the League season, the only clubs who could have ‘automatically qualified’ would be the top three (since the Final of the Parker Pen Challenge Cup comes after the Zurich Wildcard Final…).

So as things currently stand, the Zurich Wildcard would be played out between Leicester, Leeds, Northampton and Harlequins.

Of course, if the current positions should change and, say, Saracens or Bath were to finish in positions four through seven in the Zurich Premiership, they would compete in the Wildcard but then even if they failed to win it, would qualify anyway if they subsequently won the Parker Pen Challenge Cup. In which case, the last two spots would still go to the Zurich Wildcard Winner and the Zurich Premiership fourth place finisher, but whoever finished just below them in the league would have been denied the opportunity to take part in the Zurich Wildcard…

But then again, if Saracens or Bath won both the Zurich Wildcard AND the Parker Pen Challenge Cup AND Harlequins finished in positions four through seven in the Zurich Premiership too AND were defeated by the Parker Pen Challenge Cup winner in the Zurich Wildcard Final, then Harlequins would qualify as a ‘lucky loser’.

Or at least, I think so.

Assuming that when the Premiership say ‘Shield’ they mean ‘Challenge Cup’.

If not, all the qualifying places would appear to go to Italian teams.