URC WRAP: Ulster show SA teams how tough it will be

Just how competitive this year’s edition of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship is going to be, and how tough for the South African teams that enter the fray this weekend, was underlined by Ulster upsetting champions Glasgow Warriors in round one.

Indeed, the whole opening round sent out the message that there will be even greater competitiveness this year than there was in the 2023/2024 season, when play-off and Investec Champions Cup qualification was decided on the last weekend of regular league play. Across six games played on the opening weekend, the accumulated difference in points in six games was just 12.

There was one draw, with the signal that the Welsh challenge may be a lot stronger this year, something that sounded fanciful beforehand but is less so now, being sounded by Scarlets, who held Benetton to a 20-all score in Treviso. Benetton, only narrowly beaten by the Vodacom Bulls in last year’s Loftus quarterfinal, and a team on the move as is Italian rugby in general, are considered to be among the likely challengers this season.

The Welsh team that made the playoffs last season, the Ospreys, came unstuck in their Welsh derby against the Dragons, which might not be good news for the DHL Stormers, as a response will be needed when they host the Cape team in Swansea next Saturday night.

Munster, the champions from the season before last, managed to win by only two against Connacht, while Cardiff Rugby had to withstand a plucky challenge at the Arms Park from the usual URC cellar-dwellers, the Zebre from Parma. Much is expected of Cardiff this season, so that result indicates that Zebre must be doing something right and could continue their drive to greater competitiveness that we saw glimpses of in 2023/2024.

But it was the other game on Friday that provided perhaps the big indicator of how exciting the coming months of competition could be, with a nip and tuck game in Edinburgh only just being won by the Leinster team that before last year tended to hog top spot on the log. Sean Everitt’s team will be disappointed to have lost so narrowly but it will give them confidence as they head for Pretoria on Saturday for an early afternoon shoot-out with the Bulls.

The loss means Edinburgh are already under pressure, but pressure is something there is going to be a lot of for all teams in the URC this season. At least that is what the opening games, with the Cardiff winning margin of 5 being the biggest win, told us.

The South African teams all face tough opening games as they start the season a week later than everyone else because of the rescheduling of their scheduled derby fixtures because of the Carling Currie Cup final.

The Stormers and the new Currie Cup champions, the Hollywoodbets Sharks, have the toughest games as they are away to Ospreys and Connacht respectively in games that will kick off exactly at the same time, a few hours after the end of the Castle Lager Rugby Championship finale between the Springboks and Argentina in Nelspruit.

But the two teams playing at home don’t have it easy either - the Emirates Lions will have to rebound from the heartbreak of their narrow defeat to the Sharks in a final they probably put more into reaching than any other team in the competition by beating an Ulster team emboldened by their win over the champions. And Jake White’s Bulls are up against a team coached by, in Everitt, a man who knows them well after both coaching the Bulls and coaching against them.

VODACOM UNITED RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 1 RESULTS

Edinburgh 31 Leinster 33

Cardiff Rugby 22 Zebre 17

Dragons 23 Ospreys 21

Munster 35 Connacht 33

Benetton 20 Scarlets 20

Ulster 20 Glasgow Warriors 19

WEEKEND URC FIXTURES - ROUND 2

Glasgow Warriors v Benetton (Glasgow, Friday 8.35pm)

Leinster v Dragons (Dublin, Friday 8.35pm)

Emirates Lions v Ulster (Johannesburg, Saturday 12.55pm)

Vodacom Bulls v Edinburgh (Pretoria, Saturday 3pm)