LONG READ Who will be the URC signings of the season?

As one unrelenting hamster wheel of a season ends, another looms on the horizon. The United Rugby Championship begins on 25^th September and already, new signings across rugby’s most geographically and tactically diverse league are bedding in.

Some of the heavyweight franchises have splashed the cash while others have been more conservative in their recruitment. Big-name Springboks are returning to South Africa. Young upstarts have been promoted to senior terms. Wallaby veterans are heading for Wales. And international regulars have joined the competition from further afield.

Here, RugbyPass predicts the pick of the off-season movers.

Thomas du Toit (Sharks)

Probably the best prop in the world. In fact, one of the best rugby players in the world full stop. “Thomas the Tank” is a destructive force on either side of the scrummage, and a ball-carrying beast around the paddock. Has tormented a slew of elite looseheads at club and Test level, while amassing an astonishing record of 30 tries in 74 matches for Bath, helping drive Johann van Graan’s side to an unprecedented treble of trophies in 2025.

Twenty-one of those muscular finishes came across 51 Gallagher Prem games; an output beyond many of the league’s top-class wingers. For context, Cadan Murley and Manny Feyi-Waboso, who started for England against Du Toit’s Springboks in July, average a Prem try every 129 and 108 minutes respectively. The great Cheslin Kolbe scores every 156 minutes in a South Africa shirt. Du Toit touched down once every 119 Prem minutes. These are serious numbers.

The Tank rumbles back to the Sharks after three successful years in England. Concerningly, since their change in ownership, the franchise have made a habit of warehousing experienced Boks with debatable impact on team culture, continuity of selection and overall performance, but Du Toit should not fall into that bracket. He arrives in Durban aged 31 and at the very peak of his considerable powers. Will be a weapon of mass destruction.

Jamie Ritchie (Glasgow Warriors)

Such was Ritchie’s immediate impact in Perpignan, the Catalan club anointed him captain in his first – and ultimately only – season. Scotland’s skilled and cussed back-row opted for a move home to be closer to his family, and has wound up at Scotstoun rather than Edinburgh, where he came of age as a teenage professional and young father, and spent more than a decade.

No longer national skipper nor an automatic pick in Gregor Townsend’s back-row, a place in the Warriors squad will allow Ritchie to showcase his best rugby in Scotland again. Glasgow have an established blueprint which has carried them to finals and a trophy and should suit Ritchie’s style. His tenacity and nous in the contact area will enhance their defensive breakdown and generate lightning-quick ball to nourish their vaunted attack. He tackles like a demon, distributes well and has proven very effective kick-chasing down the tramlines.

Glasgow got a vast return from Henco Venter en route to their URC title in 2024 and Ritchie, younger and with a greater pedigree, is cast in a similar mould. Will be fascinating to see what he can add to the rival pro-team when he returns from injury.

Ciaran Frawley (Connacht)

As the tussle for Ireland’s number 10 shirt rages on, Stuart Lancaster has underlined his point, again and again: Ciaran Frawley is coming to Connacht as a fly-half. While Andy Farrell places most of his eggs in the Sam Prendergast basket and Jack Crowley returns to fitness to wrest back the jersey, Frawley has found his opportunities in the playmaking position brutally limited. He did not start a single match at 10 for Leinster last season, and appeared there just once for Ireland, in the July international against Japan. That was his first Test start in Johnny Sexton’s old spot and he had to wait to the age of 28 to claim it.

Frawley’s versatility, combined with the logjam at Leinster, has not helped his cause. There were suggestions he was too laid back to run the show from 10 and Farrell has spoken of Frawley “coming out of himself”, driving strategy and growing into a figurehead behind the scenes.

He fetches up in Galway with a point to prove – here, at last, he will be the man, the top dog at 10, backed to deliver by a coach, in Lancaster, whose attack shape produced some of his finest rugby. It’s a mouth-watering opportunity.

Cullen Grace (Scarlets)

Keep Grace fit, and he should fly. Keeping him fit will be the obvious caveat, however, since the one-cap All Black has been ravaged by injuries for much of his career. Highly rated by Scott Robertson during his trophy-laden tenure as Crusaders head coach, Grace’s continued spells on the sidelines denied him the opportunity to add to his solitary New Zealand Test six years ago. Most recently, a knee injury destroyed his 2026 campaign but he will see out the NPC season with Canterbury before flying north in October.

Grace is only 26 and regarded in New Zealand as a no-nonsense back-row. He’s also a terrific lineout operator, as an extra jumper on his own ball and a prolific poacher of the opposition’s, sparking comparisons with the totemic Kieran Read. Like Read, he has captained his province too.

The Scarlets have recruited well from New Zealand in the past, and Grace could be the latest star turn from Super Rugby Pacific.

Jamie Benson (Ulster)

An enticing switch which makes sense for many reasons. Benson, talented as he is, was never going to unseat Marcus Smith as Harlequins’ go-to fly-half but is too good to warm the bench or flit from position to position around Smith’s availability. His mother grew up in Belfast so he is not only Irish-qualified but has an affinity for the club and the province. Clearly, he is keen to explore that link more seriously.

Ulster needed to bolster their playmaking department. Jack Murphy performed admirably last season but Benson, one year his senior, will provide stern competition for the fly-half berth and can operate as effectively at full-back where he’d offer a different profile to Mikey Lowry or Ethan McIlroy. He can also provide more of a game-driving presence in the midfield than Ulster’s gamut of talented and physically imposing centres.

Benson was unflinchingly impressive in a pretty wretched previous campaign for Quins and ought to make an instant impact at the Affidea.

Tommaso Allan (Zebre Parma)

An intelligent move to bring one of Italy’s most experienced Test backs to Parma. Backing up Paolo Garbisi at fly-half or slotting in at full-back, Allan has played a key role in the rise of Italy as an international force. At 33, he brings a formidable CV to Zebre featuring close to 100 games for Perpignan, spells in the Prem with Harlequins and URC with Benetton, and sits five caps short of a century in Azzurri blue.

He will also bring control and direction to a free-wheeling attack, and be an important figurehead for the rich seam of talent which often emerges through the club ranks.

Cheslin Kolbe (Stormers)

The Kraaifontein hot-stepper is back on the Cape. A boyhood Stormers fan and beacon of light for his community, a return home will mean the world to Kolbe. Though his game time will be managed, Kolbe will add monumental firepower to John ‘Dobbo’ Dobson’s backline, with Cobus Reinach, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Damian Willemse and Warrick Gelant among the luminaries already settled in South Africa’s Mother City.

One of the finest wingers on planet rugby with his dazzling footwork, searing pace and a snarl which belies his modest size in one-on-one collisions and under the high ball. Kolbe left Cape Town for France in 2018 after Rassie Erasmus took charge of the Springboks and swiftly brushed aside the concerns of the previous regime that Kolbe was too small for Test rugby. After decorated stints at Toulouse and Toulon, then three years in Japan, the 32-year-old joins Siya Kolisi and Wilco Louw in re-signing for the club. ‘Dobbo’ is getting the band back together and will be eager to milk as much as meaningful rugby as possible from each of his prodigal Springboks.

Marika Koroibete and Lalakai Foketi (Ospreys)

This will be a seminal campaign for Mark Jones’ side; their eagerly anticipated return to St Helens set against the continued uncertainty over their regional future. Jones believes the game lives in the first three phases and his coaching has produced some excellent attacking flair.

The glory days of Galacticos strutting around the Liberty are long gone, but the great Marika Koroibete represents a phenomenal capture. At his peak, one of the deadliest wingers in the game. And though he is 34, his body is strong, and will have benefitted from the relative tranquility of five seasons in Japan with Panasonic Wild Knights. Ospreys fans – Wales fans of all hues – need good news stories and this, emphatically, is one of them. Twenty tries in 63 Tests and an even stronger record at club level, two Rugby World Cups, and countless iconic moments at the very highest echelon of the game. It’s a box-office signing.

If Koroibete gives the Ospreys a serrated edge in attack, the arrival of Foketi with his class and intelligence will strengthen their tactical muscles. Out of favour in Australia, he spent this year at the Chiefs in New Zealand and acquitted himself brilliantly in the midfield. On the day his Ospreys deal was announced, he played a magnificent role in the Chiefs’ semi-final dismantling of the Crusaders.

Foketi and countryman Lawson Creighton will soften the blow of Jack Walsh’s departure as Jones looks to Australia for reinforcements.