{"id":374753,"date":"2026-01-17T06:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/374753\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T06:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:55:16","slug":"champions-and-challenge-cup-the-knockout-scenarios-for-welsh-clubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/374753\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions and Challenge Cup: The knockout scenarios for Welsh clubs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scarlets are currently fifth and will know on Friday night what they need to do against Northampton on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nigel Davies&#8217; side will be knocked out of the top-tier tournament if Pau earn three, four or five match points when hosting Bulls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If the South African side were to win at Stade du Hameau then Scarlets could sneak fourth place and earn a tough away trip in the Champions Cup by causing a huge upset in the East Midlands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Any match points earned by Bulls \u2013 draw or bonuses \u2013 would leave the west Walians needing to respond in kind to ensure they drop down to the Challenge Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In fact, Scarlets will not be guaranteed a slot in the Challenge Cup even if Bulls endure a pointless trip to Pau.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They would also need to avoid a hammering at Franklin&#8217;s Gardens to ensure progress on points difference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If they lose in Northampton but still qualify for the Challenge Cup then they will be seeded 12th and travel to one of the runners-up from the second-tier pool stages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Champions Cup, Pool Four fixtures<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pau v Bulls &#8211; Friday, 16 January (20:00 GMT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bristol v Bordeaux-Begles &#8211; Sunday, 18 January (13:00 GMT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Northampton v Scarlets &#8211; Sunday, 18 January (15:15 GMT)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scarlets are currently fifth and will know on Friday night what they need to do against Northampton on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-374753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}