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Leinster handed devilish start to 2025/26 URC campaign
By Jon Newcombe
The United Rugby Championship 2025/26 fixture list has been officially released in record quick time, with eight-time champions Leinster heading to Cape Town in round one.
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League-leaders Leinster’s curtain-raiser against 2022 champions Stormers promises to be the match of the opening round, but the challenges do not end there for Leo Cullen and Jacques Nienaber. The week after their clash at the DHL Stadium, Leinster will head to Pretoria to face two-time runners-up and this season’s second-place finishers, the Bulls, at Loftus Versfeld.
Once this season’s URC favourites have returned from South Africa, they will be greeted by another slew of Springboks in Dublin, with Siya Kolisi’s Sharks, who have finished third this season, visiting. To cap off a gruelling opening month in the competition, Leinster will host bitter rivals Munster the week after.
The Stormers-Leinster game is one of three matches taking place on the opening night, with Ulster up against the Dragons and Glasgow vs the Sharks.
On Saturday, the Bulls take on the Ospreys, Parma host Edinburgh, Scarlets play Munster, and Cardiff and Connacht are at home to the Lions and Benetton, respectively.
The release of next season’s fixtures arrives 128 days ahead of the opening weekend, beating the previous benchmark by a fortnight, enabling teams more planning time ahead of another season played across five different territories.
The format of the competition remains unchanged, with the top eight teams progressing to the play-offs, beginning May 29th. The semi-finals will be played on June 6th, followed by the Grand Final on June 20th to crown the 2025/26 champions.
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The full fixture list, which includes the usual festive derby rounds, can be viewed here>>
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This is brilliant. I think Leinster will send their strongest available squads for the SA tour. Stormers and Bulls should be fully loaded too hopefully, so heavyweights for the title will duke it out early.
From Leinsters POV they need big beast matches to drive their standards up in order to be more robust when challenged in the bigger matches later. If they can get a clean sweep from that opening month then they are in good stead in the league section to repeat top place. The SA teams can use the Leinster encounter as a huge pre season motivator to stake their own claim and injure their rivals. After 3 heavy weight clashes with SA bigger beasts Munster will be looking to put the knife in.
Sadly no. Stormers will be missing their internationals due to Rugby Championship clash and Bulls may be disjointed having only just got their internationals back and not having trained with them a few weeks.
Article says tough start for Leinster but in reality there is no better time for then to tour SA
Strongest available will still be the b/c’s given lions players and internationals needing a rest