Pro14 Rainbow Cup

Pro14 Rainbow Cup
Countries	Ireland Italy Scotland Wales South Africa
Date	23 April 2021 – 19 June 2021
Champions	Benetton
Runners-up	Bulls
Matches played	40
Official website
www.pro14.rugby
← 2020–21 2021–22 →

The Pro14 Rainbow Cup (also known as the Guinness Pro14 Rainbow Cup for sponsorship reasons) was a professional rugby union end-of-season cup competition played in 2021 that consisted of two separate tournaments: the Rainbow Cup for twelve European clubs and the Rainbow Cup SA for four South African clubs. The winners of each competition then played a final match to determine the overall winner. The tournament operated as a shortened 'Spring season' to allow for the integration of the four new South African teams into the United Rugby Championship ahead of the 2021–22 season.

In winning the play-off final against the Bulls of South Africa, Benetton Treviso became the first Italian side ever to win any of the successor championships to the Celtic League.

The 2020–21 Pro14 was reduced to twelve teams as the two South African teams - the Cheetahs and Southern Kings - were not allowed to travel internationally in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2020, the Southern Kings ceased operations and the South African Rugby Union council began exploring the possibility of the four South African former Super Rugby teams - the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers - joining an expanded Pro14.^[1]

PRO14 Rugby announced in December 2020 that the 2020–21 Pro14 regular season would conclude after 16 rounds, and the top team from each conference would advance to a final in March 2021. The Pro14 Rainbow Cup then commenced in April and introduced the four new South African teams.^[2]

With South Africa hosting the British & Irish Lions tour in July–August 2021, the tournament also served as a warm-up event for the British, Irish and South African players hoping to be involved in the tour.^[2]

Between February and March eight South African franchises played in a "preparation series" also known as the Preparation Series to get valuable game time before the Rainbow Cup.^[3]

Due to several issues surrounding travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic, it was announced in April 2021 that the Rainbow Cup would adopt a dual tournament format and there would be no cross-hemisphere fixtures.^[4]

The competition format changed several times but eventually consisted of two separate tournaments running side by side. In the northern hemisphere's Rainbow Cup, the 12 Pro14 teams in Europe competed from 23 April until 12 June 2021. There were 6 match weekends over an 8-week period with each team receiving one additional bye week.

In the southern hemisphere's Rainbow Cup SA, each of the four teams played each other twice, a total of six rounds were played between 1 May and 12 June 2021. There was one fallow week in which each team received a bye week.^[4][5]

A final between the best placed Northern and Southern Hemisphere teams followed both tournaments on 19 June.^[6]

The Rainbow Cup saw three law variations trialled: Replacement for a red carded player after 20 minutes, Captain's Challenge and Goal-line dropouts. The replacement for a red carded player after 20 minutes allowed a side who has had a player sent-off to replace them with one of their named substitutes after a period of 20 minutes. A captain's challenge, similar to appeals used successfully in cricket and tennis, allowed each team to request a television match official review an offence in the build up to a try being scored or an act of foul play, or any referee's decision after the clock passes 75 minutes; where the referee's on-field decision was not changed, that team would no longer be able to challenge a decision thereafter. Goal-line dropouts were used if the ball is held-up over the line, knock-ons that occur in goal or when the ball is grounded by the defending team in the in-goal area after a kick through. All these law variations have previously been trialled in both Super Rugby Aotearoa and Super Rugby AU.^[7]

The captain's challenge law attracted widespread criticism, particularly after an incident in Munster's game against Cardiff where Munster's CJ Stander called for a captain's challenge on a Cardiff player returning the ball into a ruck, a minor technical offence. It was not adopted in subsequent tournaments.^[8][9][10]

World Rugby adopted the goal-line drop-out law more widely in the 2021–22 season and it has since become permanent.^[11]

Connacht Leinster Munster Ulster Edinburgh Glasgow Warriors Blues Dragons Ospreys Scarlets class=notpageimage| Location of Pro14 Rainbow Cup teams in Great Britain and Ireland.

Benetton Zebre class=notpageimage| Location of Pro14 Rainbow Cup teams in Italy. Bulls Sharks Lions Stormers class=notpageimage| Location of PRO14 Rainbow Cup SA teams.

Team	Country	Coach / Director of Rugby	Captain	Stadium	Capacity
Benetton	Italy	Kieran Crowley	Dewaldt Duvenage	Stadio Comunale di Monigo	6,700
Cardiff Blues	Wales	Dai Young	Ellis Jenkins	Cardiff Arms Park	12,125
Connacht	Ireland	Andy Friend	Jarrad Butler	Galway Sportsgrounds	8,129
Dragons	Wales	Dean Ryan	Rhodri Williams	Rodney Parade	8,700
Edinburgh	Scotland	Richard Cockerill	Stuart McInally	Murrayfield Stadium	67,144
Glasgow Warriors	Scotland	Danny Wilson	Fraser Brown Ryan Wilson	Scotstoun Stadium	7,351
Leinster	Ireland	Leo Cullen	Johnny Sexton	RDS Arena	18,500
Munster	Ireland	Johann van Graan	Peter O'Mahony	Thomond Park	25,600
Ospreys	Wales	Toby Booth	Justin Tipuric	Liberty Stadium	20,827
Scarlets	Wales	Glenn Delaney	Ken Owens	Parc y Scarlets	14,870
Ulster	Ireland	Dan McFarland	Iain Henderson	Ravenhill Stadium	18,196
Zebre	Italy	Michael Bradley	Tommaso Castello	Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi	5,000

Team	Country	Coach / Director of Rugby	Captain	Stadium	Capacity
Bulls	South Africa	Jake White	Duane Vermeulen	Loftus Versfeld	51,762
Lions	South Africa	Ivan van Rooyen	Dan Kriel	Ellis Park Stadium	62,567
Sharks	South Africa	Sean Everitt	Lukhanyo Am	Kings Park Stadium	52,000
Stormers	South Africa	John Dobson	Steven Kitshoff	Cape Town Stadium	55,000

Pro14 Rainbow Cup watch · edit · discuss
	Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	Try bonus	Losing bonus	Pts
1	Benetton	5	4	1	0	125	78	+47	14	10	2	0	22**
2	Munster	5	4	0	1	170	75	+95	23	8	3	1	20
3	Glasgow Warriors	5	4	0	1	121	117	+4	17	15	3	0	19
4	Leinster	5	3	0	2	124	87	+37	19	10	2	1	15
5	Cardiff Blues	5	3	0	2	124	123	+1	16	16	2	1	15
6	Connacht	5	3	0	2	109	133	–24	15	18	2	0	14
7	Scarlets	5	1	2	2	110	115	–5	13	15	2	1	13*
8	Ospreys	5	2	1	2	103	88	+15	14	11	2	1	11**
9	Edinburgh	5	1	1	3	126	140	–14	18	19	2	2	10
10	Ulster	5	1	1	3	85	116	–31	12	18	2	2	8*
11	Dragons	5	1	0	4	117	156	–39	14	22	2	1	7
12	Zebre	5	0	0	5	88	174	-86	10	23	0	3	3
* Cancelled fixture: Scarlets awarded four match points. ** Cancelled fixture: Benetton awarded four match points.
If teams are level at any stage, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:[12] number of matches won; the difference between points for and points against; the number of tries scored; the most points scored; the difference between tries for and tries against; the fewest red cards received; the fewest yellow cards received.
Green background (row 1) is the play-off places and earn a place in the final against the 1st placed Rainbow Cup SA team.

Pro14 Rainbow Cup SA watch · edit · discuss
	Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	Try bonus	Losing bonus	Pts
1	Bulls	6	5	0	1	183	117	+66	22	12	4	1	25
2	Stormers	6	2	1	3	137	143	–6	16	19	2	3	17*
3	Sharks	6	3	0	3	153	179	–26	30	22	3	1	16
4	Lions	6	1	1	4	127	161	–34	16	22	3	1	8*
* Cancelled fixture: Stormers awarded four match points.
If teams are level at any stage, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:[13] number of matches won; the difference between points for and points against; the number of tries scored; the most points scored; the difference between tries for and tries against; the fewest red cards received; the fewest yellow cards received.
Green background (row 1) is the play-off places and earn a place in the final against the 1st placed Rainbow Cup team from Europe.

All kickoff times are local.
League stage

Bye/s: Edinburgh, Leinster, Ospreys, Zebre

Bye/s: Benetton, Dragons, Munster, Scarlets

Bye/s: Cardiff Blues, Connacht, Glasgow Warriors, Ulster

All kickoff times are local.
League stage

The first-placed teams from each tournament, Benetton and Bulls, played in the final in Treviso.^[14] Benetton won 35–8 in front of their home crowd for a historic first win of an international competition for any Italian club.^[15][16]

• Official website