A less gruesome incident in a Heineken Cup match last week, however, reminds us that the next area of “dirty” play meriting disciplinary attention may be a much less violent one.

Defending Heineken Cup champions Leinster picked up a bonus-point win over Brive Saturday by a comfortable 27-10 margin, but it wasn’t easy going all the way through. In the 37th minute, Leinster were ahead only 7-0 when center Gordon D’Arcy chipped ahead near the sideline. His kick was likely a bit too long as it was easily caught on the full for a mark by the opposition … but not before D’Arcy was floored face-first after bumping into the arm of a Brive player whie pursuing his kick.

A penalty kick was awarded to Leinster with the choice to be taken from either the spot where the kick was taken or where it landed, as is appropriate for a late tackle or charge on a kicker. The only problem was that, as a frustrated Brive captain indicated in vain, it didn’t look much like anyone actually tried to stop D’arcy. He may have touched an arm, but … well, we’ll let the words of a Setanta Sports television commentator, who was covering the match for the Irish network, speak for themselves: “They’ve been done. They’ve been conned by experienced Mr. D’Arcy there.”

Now, we can’t read D’Arcy’s mind, but discussion on a Leinster supporter forum compared him to Michael Phelps.

One might argue that a little bit of gamesmanshaip to draw a penalty is part of the sport, and that it doesn’t hurt an opposition player the way eye-gouging and other serious offenses do. On the other hand, though, one might argue that penalty “simulation” might need the type of increased attention from disciplinary bodies that it is beginning to receive in soccer/football.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t track down footage of the D’Arcy incident available online for you, but we can offer a glimpse of what rugby union could start to look like if simulated foul play isn’t dealt with proactively:

To be fair, the Leinster-Brive Match wasn’t all flops. Here are some more exciting moments from the match to restore your faith in the sport:

• The sides were locked at twenty-six points apiece after regulation, so two ten-minute extra periods were played.
• With the draw unbroken after extra time, the number of tries scored in the match was the next tiebreaker. This was moot, however, as each side had scored two tries during the match.
• each side nominated five kickers to attempt one placekick at goal each from the 22-meter line in front of the posts.
• After each side made four goals, the kicking competition went into “sudden-death” mode (wherein the first side to miss a goal loses, so long as the other side made a goal in the same round) with a new set of kickers. In the third round of this segment, Cardiff flanker Martyn Williams pushed an attempt wide to end the marathon and send Leicester into the final to be played in a couple of weeks.

The format was unpopular with many given that it forced players specializing in things other than goalkicking to do as much with the match at stake, but it was still exciting. Aside from the tense finish, the match also served to answer a few fans’ curiosity regarding how a tie is resolved in a knockout match after extra time.

Or did it? Actually, even though the format seen last weekend is used in the Heineken Cup, the format will be reconsidered next year. Further, other competitions don’t do it the same way, so seeing the shoot-out last weekend actually tells very little about how the matter is settled throughout the sport.

If you’ve read this far, we assume you’re interested in hearing how all of the competitions settle a draw in playoff situations where a winner must be determined, so here’s a partial list of competitions and their tiebreaking methods:

• The Guinness Premiership (England’s top domestic competition) has a similar format as the Heineken Cup, but the kicks vary in placement by round with some in front of the posts, some 15 meters from the left and right touch lines, and some 5 meters from each touch line.
• In the Super 14 (featuring top sides from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa), two formats are used, on for the semifinals and one for the finals. In the semis, the sides play two ten-minute extra time periods, after which the deadlock is broken by number of tries scored in the semifinal. After that, though, the similarities with the Heineken Cup and Guiness Premiership end, as the winner is decided by who finished higher during the regular season. The final works the same for the most part, except that the championship is shared as a draw after two periods of extra time if the scored are still level.
• The Magners League (featuring top sides from Ireland, Wales, and Scotland) doesn’t have to deal with the issue, as they don’t have knockout matches and determine their winner after the regular schedule. This year, in fact, Munster clinched the title two matches left to play
• We couldn’t find a clear statement of the American Super League’s format, but we know from the 2008 final that “sudden-death” extra time is played after two extra time periods until one side scores to win.
• The tiebreaker methods used in the Top 14 (France’s top domestic competion) and Super 10 (Italy’s top domestic competition) elude Armchair Playmaker’s limited translation resources. Readers who are more adept at French and Italian are encouraged to chime in!

How do they handle it in rugby league? We’ll spare you the details, but note that for most competitions a “golden point” sudden-death period is either played after 80 minutes (as is done in the National Rugby League in every match) or after two short two extra time periods. The golden point seems to work pretty well–in fact, Leicester seems to support the idea after suffering through the alternative.

Hopefully, that satisfies your curiosity about how a draw is avoided when a draw will not do. Meanwhile, here are a few views of last weekend’s historic moment:

Here’s how the cameras caught it:

And here’s how it looked from at least one spot in the crowd:

We’re not sure it’s fair to focus on a missed goal from a player of Martyn Williams’ stature, especially considering that he probably never expected to be kicking at goal that day, so we’ll end here with a cheerier moment from early in Williams’ standout career (this one from more than a decade ago, before he ever donned a Cardiff shirt):

While we’re at it, splendid video clip site RugbyDump has provided highlights from last weekend’s Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup grand finals:

That ought to be enough to keep a fan busy!

To the dedicated European Rugby Union fan, this is old news. To a more casual observer, though, the question might be: What are all of these comps, and why are the same sides in them? For that casual observer, we offer a run-down of the labyrinthine structure of the European rugby union competitions. Get comfortable. This is going to take a while.

Okay, let’s start with the top domestic comps:

The Guinness Premiership (henceforth GP) is the top professional competition in England. It features 12 sides, all English. In the past, it’s been known by other names due to sponsorship, such as the Zurich Premiership. The side that claims the wooden spoon in this competition is relegated to play in the lower National Division One competition the following year, while the National Division One champ is promoted to the GP. Incidentally, the National Division One is made up of professional and semi-professional sides, and the next levels are National Division Two and National Division Three (the latter of which is divided into North and South).

In France, the top professional domestic competition is the aptly named Top 14. If you need further explanation as to how many sides compete in it, you would make a great rugby league prop forward. The bottom two sides in this comp each year slide down to Rugby Pro D2, who sends its top two sides up to the Top 14. Both of these levels of competition are managed by Ligue Nationale de Rugby, which translates to “National Rugby League,” a name that might remind some of the shameful history of the French Rugby Federation’s collaboration with the Vichy regime to wipe out rugby league in France.

But we digress. Anyway, Ireland (both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), Scotland, and Wales all compete together in their top professional competition, the Magners League, so it’s more of a quasi-domestic competition. There are currently ten sides in the Magners League: Four Irish (including Northern Ireland), Four Welsh, and two Scottish. Because the sides in this competition are regional and provincial sides, there is no promotion or relegation system (though sides are occasionally eliminated by restructuring implemented by their overseeing unions). Not too long ago, it was called the Celtic League.

In Italy, the Super 10 is the top rugby union level. There does not appear to be a standard system of promotion and relegation with the next level, the 12-team Serie A.

If you got all that, then it’s time to share the multinational competitions that sides rom more than one of these comps play in:

The Heineken Cup/H-Cup features 24 sides from the above domestic competitions (based on the previous year’s results), which are arranged into six pools of four who play six pool matchs plus quarterfinal, semifinal, and final knockout rounds. The GP and Top 14 each put their top six sides in it, and the top three Irish, top three Welsh, and top two Scottish sides from the Magners League go in as well. One more entrant comes from France, England or Italy (whichever of the three nations produced the top finisher among them the previous year), and the last is from a play-in round between the top Super 10 and Magners League sides who have not already qualified. At this point, you may want to rest up before reading further.

The European Challenge Cup is the next level of pan-European competition. It’s essentially a second-tier Heineken Cup. All of the sides from the GP, Magners League, and Top 14 that don’t make it to the Heineken Cup go into the European Challenge Cup, as do four clubs from the Super 10 that didn’t make the Heineken Cup. Then, just to mix things up, they chuck in a Romanian side, Bucureşti, which is formed specially for the European Challenge Cup. Five pools of four sides each are formed and each side plays six pool matches to determine who makes the quarterfinal knockout rounds, which are followed by semis and the final. Oh, and among its previous names is the Parker Pen Cup.

Ok, we’re almost done. The EDF Energy Cup involves only the 12 GP sides and the four Welsh teams from the Magners League, which is why it’s also called the Anglo-Welsh Cup. Not long ago, it was the Powergen Cup. Four pools of four sides each (three English, one Welsh) are formed, each side plays three pool matches, and each pool winner makes the semifinals to see who moves on to the final.

So there you have it. A lot of clubs from a fair few nations playing ina lot of competitions. The last source of occasional confusion comes from the timing of the comps. They all overlap wildly. In 2007-2008, for example, the Heineken Cup started pool matches in November (not counting the play-in round in May) and will end this weekend. The European Challenge Cup runs a similar schedule, which started last November and ends 25 May with a Bath v. Worcester final. The EDF Energy Cup began last October and ended in April (the Neath-Swansea Ospreys beat Leicester in the final) The GP started last September and will end next weekend, and the Magners League started at the end of August and ended on 10 May (Leinster won it based on table results as there are no knockout matches).

The Top 14 started in October and will end in June, and the Super 10 started in October and will end this weekend. This year was a little out of the ordinary due to the World Cup, but you get the idea.

If you can keep all of that sorted, you’re up on rugby union in Europe. If you can’t, I don’t think you’re alone.