Eight teams compete for European Trophy

Slightly misleading advertising from Rugby Europe as Croatia are not playing in this weekend's competiton.

Eight teams line up this weekend for the European Trophy with the still uncertainty about both relegation to the Conference for the bottom teams and also promotion to the Championship .

The withdrawal of five teams from this year’s Championship (as Grand Prix is now called) has caused a lack of certainty about the fate of the winning team in this year’s Trophy.

Relegating any of the teams competing in this year Championship to the Trophy to replace the Trophy winners would obviously be unfair as it would mean that the missing five would have avoided possible relegation by simply not taking part, while the relegation of the five teams – which includes three of Europe’s World Series teams – would be unrealistic.

There is also a similar problem with relegation. Wales and Portugal were due to play in this year’s championship, but due to the withdrawals took part in the Championship. In addition since theannouncement about the tournamentNorway and Denmark have pulled out, so who will be relegatedto be replaced Israel and Austriais unclear.

The remaining teams have been drawn into two pools of four. Ukraine, Sweden, Georgia and Moldova compete in Pool A, and Czechia, Finland, Hungary and Turkey in Pool B on the first day, which will in effect just decide the draw for the quarter-finals on Day 2.

There are no obvious favourites, though Turkey were only promoted from the Conference in 2019. After more than a year’s gap with very little play none of the teams can be said to be “in form”.

Play begins at 10.30 CET on Saturday,with all gamesstreamed on the Rugby Europe website.