Then there were six: How the Black Lion-less Rugby Europe Super Cup will work

The Rugby Europe Super Cup enters its fifth edition, marking a new chapter for the franchise competition as four-time champions the Black Lion have opted to sit it out, opening the door for a new winner to emerge.

Following Tel-Aviv Heat’s departure after 2023, the Georgian union chose not to enter its franchise in the Super Cup and instead turned its focus solely to the EPCR Challenge Cup.

With the Georgian franchise’s withdrawal, six teams remain in the competition: Portugal’s Lusitanos, Spain’s Castilla y León Iberians, Romania’s Romanian Wolves, the Netherlands’ Delta, Belgium’s Brussels Devils, and the Czech Republic’s Bohemia Rugby Warriors.

Launched in 2021, the Super Cup was created to bridge the gap between the club and Test levels, giving players the chance to play high-level rugby before joining their national teams.

Portugal’s impressive 2023 World Cup run owed much to their Super Cup experience — a trend mirrored by Georgia, whose Lelos made major strides thanks to the competition. Twelve players from their famous 2022 win over Wales featured for Black Lion.

For players such as Tomás Appleton, Luka Matkava, Nuno Sousa Guedes, Luka Ivanishvili and Manuel Cardoso Pinto, the Super Cup proved a vital platform in their development as Test-level players, as noted by Portugal’s former head coach Patrice Lagisquet.

“The Super Cup has been a great addition to the growth of rugby in Portugal because it has allowed us to expose newer and younger players to this level of training and this level of matches.”

While most franchises involved remain amateur, Castilla y León Iberians and Lusitanos have pushed towards semi-professional programmes, giving players a more professionalised environment. The Iberians have allocated sports grant contracts to 32 players, as Spain’s director of rugby José Antonio Barrio confirmed in a recent interview with RugbyPass.

Barrio discussed the competition’s role for both the Iberians and the Spanish national side.

“We are working closely with World Rugby in terms of playing opportunities for our Iberian franchise. The Rugby Europe Super Cup is, for now, our main competition, but the contracted players will still have a ten-game void to fill, and we do hope something can be worked out in the near future.”

For the Brussels Devils, this year’s tournament doubles as a warm-up for the World Rugby Repechage, with Belgium head coach Laurent Dossat working alongside franchise boss Sébastien Guns. While most of Belgium’s leading players compete in France, several will join the Devils to gain game time ahead of the repechage, as Guns told Belgian outlet Sportipik.

“It changes things a little bit, as we’re going to be able to call some of our internationals who are lacking playing time at their [French] club, who are also going to come and take part in these matches.”

Not all unions are moving in the same direction, however. The Dutch Delta has undergone a complete overhaul, with the franchise now operated by a group of local clubs rather than the union itself. Following the World Cup qualification fiasco, Rugby Nederland handed over management and ownership to Haagse RC, RC ‘t Gooi, The Dukes, RFC Haarlem and RC Eemland.

As for the format, unlike previous seasons, the six participants will compete in a single pool in a round-robin format. After five rounds, the top four teams qualify for the semi-finals, hosted by the higher-ranked sides. The winners will then contest the final for the right to be crowned Super Cup champions in late January.

The Super Cup kicks off on October 12, with the second and third rounds taking place over the following two weekends before a break in November. The final two pool rounds are set for the first two weekends of December, with the semi-finals scheduled for January 17–18.

Matches will be shown on Rugby Europe TV and RugbyPass TV, and tickets are available via each union’s official website.