Espaeria Cup

The fabled 2022 **Espaeria Cup** will be competed in St James at the four grounds of **Flumdos Park**, Magnapor Rugby Stadium, James City Stadium, and St James Park. St James Park will host the finals and the winning team will receive 500,000 USD to be used on their state’s rugby development programmes. Second place wins 250,000 USD, third wins 150,000 USD, and fourth wins 100,000 USD. No other teams win money. The top four also get to vote on the coach of the **Great Auks**, who is either kept in the position, or is replaced by a new coach.

The structure will be group stages, quarter finals, semi-finals, and finals. A bronze final is also played. The team that wins the tournament then plays the Great Auks (who change their lineup if the winning team has any Great Auks players in them) for the Auk Trophy at St James Park. The last time a state won the Auk Trophy was in 1959, when Mathia defeated the Great Auks 9:8. The Auk Trophy is competed for twice in the four years a team holds the Espaeria Cup. The last back-to-back winners were Westermere, who held the trophy back-to-back in both 2002 and 2006 but lost to a strong St Edmunds-Upon-Baxley side in the final in 2010. Each tournament is usually decided in a close match, with the largest winning gap in a final being 24 points, when St James defeated Naridia 64:40 in 2014. Currently, **St Mary**’s holds the trophy, after beating Naridia in the final in 2018 with a score of 24:18. Espaerian rugby became an official professional sport in 1982 and Peregwyn Fortress won the first Espaeria Cup of the professional era.

## Results

### State records

 St James
 Westermere

## Records

Highest points difference in a final – St James 64:40 Naridia

Highest points difference in a match – St James 107:0 Mathia

Most Espaeria Cup wins including the non-professional era – St James (70)

Longest winning streak – Westermere (5)

First win – St Mary’s

Most matches without a win – Bordeux (54)

Fastest red card – Jonah Long (25 seconds) (St Edmunds-Upon-Baxley)

Most tries in one competition – Jimmy Baxley (Senior) (12)

Most points in one competition – Frans Steyn (87)

Most tackles in one competition without a miss – Henry Chase (80)

Longest tackle streak – Gareth Jones (181)

Most overall points – Frans Steyn (590)

Most viewed match – St Mary’s vs Naridia (2018)

Least tries conceded in one competition by the winning team – St James (3)

Most points conceded by a winning team – St Edmunds-Upon-Baxley (158)

Least Espaeria Cup wins – Bordeux (0)

Most tackles missed in one competition – Jonah Long (90)

Most penalties conceded by the winning side – St Mary’s (63)

Smallest average points score in a competition by the winning side – Westermere (15)

## Controversy

The 1986 Westermere Espaeria Cup, won by Mathia, is known as the most controversial Espaeria Cup in Espaerian history. The teams of St James and Westermere were tipped to be the favourites, yet the draw meant that the sides would face each other in the quarter finals, with St James winning narrowly in possibly the best match of the tournament (20:19), but the side faced Mathia in the final, and after 80 hard minutes and the referee making a total of 89 ‘mistakes’, St James lost 10:12. In 1995 it was concluded that the referee, Oliver Cairns, had been paid a total of 300,000 USD to assist Mathia to the victory of the entire tournament. Twenty unnamed members of the Espaerian Rugby Union were fired and arrested on counts of corruption and fined a total of 20,000,000 USD. Oliver Cairns was fined 500,000 USD and was stripped of all refereeing qualifications. Cairns was later arrested for trying to requalify as a referee in order to influence the result of the Baxley Rugby Challenge. Each Mathia game was won in the last 10 minutes with a late try or penalty, and it was found that Cairns was refereeing each of their matches. Mathia strongly demands that Espaeria recognises its 1986 win as legitimate, but most people do not. Mathia went on to win the 1994 Espaeria Cup legitimately.

Another controversial Espaeria Cup was when St James Head Coach Fabien Galthié wrote an open letter to the ERU over decisions to ban head coaches from attending the match pitch-side in the Espaeria Cup. In solidarity, all head coaches refused to go to coaching boxes and became water boys for their teams. This Espaeria Cup (2002) lived in infamy when the ERU refused to back down until Sir Rodney James, then head and owner of both the ESC and ERU, forced the ERU’s hand. Fabien Galthié is the longest serving head coach of any team in Espaerian history (29 years).

The 2006 Espaeria Cup was filled with tragedy, when Westermere star Liam Saville was killed in a car accident travelling to training for the final. Saville had been captain of Westermere when they won the 2002 Espaeria Cup, and was a regular starter for the Great Auks, playing at outside centre.

## Hosting

Host states often attempt to make sure that they receive huge amounts of tourism and advertisement, having spectacular opening ceremonies, as well as large competition-themed shows and events. The host team often organises a training session made up of every player competing. Anything to do with their state team is banned, and players attend wearing their club training kit. Players form 7s teams and have a mini competition. Usually broadcasting rights are given to the host state’s network, but St James agreed a deal with NTN to broadcast the 2022 Espaeria Cup, and some teams have even made special deals with the broadcaster, such as St James who made the Jamesian Heroes documentary, outlining St James’ rugby heritage and analysing the state’s deep love of rugby.

Stadiums are usually upgraded for the Espaeria Cup, with many host states building a new one if it is their first or second time hosting the tournament. St James spent 300 million USD on upgrading St James Park before the Espaeria Cup, as well as a further 100 million USD on a tournament village.

Multi-state hosting has never been stopped but has only happened twice, when St Mary’s and St Edmunds-Upon-Baxley hosted the Espaeria Cup of 1982, and when St Edmunds-Upon-Baxley and Naridia hosted the 2014 Espaeria Cup. When a competition is jointly hosted, there are two opening matches at the same time. These opening matches are usually less popular with audiences. The last host state that won an Espaeria Cup was Naridia in 1998.

## Sponsorship

Sponsors often invest heavily into the competition, but they are not allowed to add their name to a state’s name. One case was when Naridia was sponsored by NTN and became known as NTN Naridia, but this was ended as it was felt that state names should not be changed because of sponsors. Sponsors can be on team kits, and usually the kit sponsor makes a special edition for the competition. Other key sponsors are the tournament’s main sponsor, in 2022 it is St James Motor Yachts.

## Selection

### Player Selection

Player selection is often hotly debated, and teams are picked based off of where a player is born, not where the club the player competes for is. One example is Magnapor Moon-eyes prop Alric Zakashan, who was born in Westermere so qualifies for Westermere. His parents were both born in St James and moved back to the state after Zakashan was 2 years old, allowing him to qualify for St James. Family relations going back two generations also allow qualification, for example, Henry Chase’s maternal grandparents are from St Mary’s, and his paternal grandparents are from Westermere, so despite being born in St James, he qualifies for St Mary’s, Westermere, and St James. He has been selected by all three sides at the same time in the past two Espaeria Cups but has decided to commit to St James throughout.

### State Selection

States do not automatically qualify for the Espaeria Cup, sides must play 5 matches in the year before the competition. The results of the matches are used to help with the group draw, which is done a year before the competition.