Seedings Confirmed For British & Irish Cup Quarter-Finals

Following the conclusion of the pool stages, the seedings for the 2013/14 British & Irish Cup quarter-finals have been confirmed.

The six pool winners and the two best runners-up are ranked 1-8 in each case based on their playing record in the pool stages (in accordance with the below criteria), thus rewarding the teams with the best playing record over final standing.

Teams ranked 1-4 are guranteed a home quarter-final. The quarter-final draw will take place next Monday (January 27).

The final pool standings are as follows:

1. LEINSTER ‘A’
2. Leeds Carnegie
3. Cornish Pirates
4. Bristol Rugby
5. Plymouth Albion
6. MUNSTER ‘A’
7. Rotherham Titans
8. Pontypridd
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9. London Scottish
10. London Welsh
11. Cross Keys
12. Llanelli

Note: The 2013/14 seeding process reflects a change from that used in previous seasons. Under previous formats, the six pool winners were ranked 1-6 and the runners up 7 & 8, resulting in the best placed runners-up being automatically seeded 7 & 8 despite the possibility of having a superior playing record to those seeded 1-6.

The rankings shall be determined in accordance with the following criteria and in the following order:

(a) competition points; or
(b) where the competiton points are equal between two or more teams, the team(s) that has achieved the greater number of wins; or
(c) where these are equal, the aggregate points difference from all matches in the pool stages for each of the teams that have an equal number of competition wins;
(d) or where these are equal, the team that has scored the greatest number of points in the pool stages; or
(e) where these are equal, the team that has the better result(s) from the match(es) between the teams; or
(f) where these are equal, the greater number of tries scored in the match(es) between the teams shall determine the rankings; or
(g) where the tries scored are equal, the aggregate points difference in the matches between the teams in the pool stages shall determine the rankings; or
(h) where the aggregate points difference is equal the fewest number of players shown a red card in the pool stages shall determine the rankings; or
(i) where the number of red cards are equal, the fewest number of player shown a yellow card shall determine the rankings; or
(j) where the number of red cards are equal, by the toss of a coin.