URC to introduce number of format changes ahead of next season

Next season's URC is due to start on October 20, on the weekend of the World Cup semi-finals in France.

Thu, 01 Jun, 2023 - 12:57

John Fallon

The organisers of the United Rugby Championship are making a number of changes to the format for next season with teams set to finish their campaign with a derby match.

And further efforts are being made to accommodate the four South African teams with each of them making just two trips north next season.

All four — the Bulls, Stormers, Lions and Sharks — will spend more than a month in the northern hemisphere around November where each of them will play four matches.

Each of them will then return north again in the latter half of the season for two-match tours.

As in previous years, the 12 teams from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy will each make one trip to South Africa where they will play two matches.

The biggest proposed change for next season will be the staging of derby matches for the final round of games when the 18th round will feature each team playing one of their neighbours.

At the moment it’s believed that the final round of fixtures between the four Irish provinces are waiting to be finalised but this is expected to be done soon.

These closing weekend fixtures are then likely to be reversed for the following season if the derby showdowns in the final round are deemed successful.

The four Welsh sides will go into battle in what could turn out to be a double-header at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, while in South Africa, there will also be two derby clashes as the organisers of the URC bid to instil local rivalry into the final round of games in a bid to further enhance the business end of the competition.

The two Scottish and two Italian sides may end up playing each other on the final day as they are due to play home and away derbies against their neighbours over the Christmas period.

And an effort is being made to provide some degree of regularity to the South African sides.

They will return home from their four-match northern hemisphere tour for a couple of Christmas derbies but will then go into close season until mid-February while the northern hemisphere teams are playing off two rounds of European games and the opening two rounds of the Six Nations.

But while there is a big effort to integrate the South African teams and provide some level of consistency to the season, anomalies still exist and the consequence of them coming north for four-match tours early in the season leave some of them with a lengthy run of home games at the business end of the campaign.

The Bulls are currently set to play their last five games at home next season, while the Lions will be at home for four of their last five games, only facing a short 60km trip from Johannesburg to Pretoria to take on the Bulls in the 18th round, but these proposed fixtures could be changed to ensure a better mix of home and away games.