This week's biggest matches to watch on Rugby Pass

The Six Nations may be over for another year but don’t be downhearted – there’s still plenty to watch this weekend with round-the-clock Aviva Premiership, Top 14, Super Rugby and NRL action.

NRL: Sea Eagles vs Bulldogs (Saturday, March 25, 1:30pm HKT)
It might be 13th vs 10th on the table but this will be no Wooden Spoon scrap. Both teams showed last week that they’re not to be taken lightly this season – the Doggies’ defence held firm against the Warriors in Dunedin to record a 24-12 win, while the Sea Eagles went up to Townsville and wiped the grins off the faces of the 1300 SMILES Stadium faithful with an unexpected second half slaughter of the Cowboys. The Sea Eagles’ newly minted Lottoland fortress should be going off on Saturday afternoon as they look to prove last week was no fluke against one of the tougher defences in the competition.

Super Rugby: Brumbies vs Highlanders (Saturday, March 25, 4:45 pm HKT)
Revenge game! Vast swathes of Canberra will still be spewing about last year’s qualifying final, an epic arm-wrestle at GIO Stadium which the Highlanders won but maybe shouldn’t have. The Brumbies’ chance to avenge that 15-9 scoreline has come around quickly and they won’t have a better chance with half the Highlanders squad on the injury list at the moment. That certainly showed in their loss to the Hurricanes last weekend, while the Brumbies scored a rare win in Sydney to go 2-2 for the season. Expect this to be a close one, more physical than pretty.

Top 14: Racing 92 vs Clermont (Saturday, March 25, 9:45pm HKT)
Defending champions Racing 92 dropped to ninth in the Top 14, six points off the play-off places, after their match at Montpellier last week was postponed at the 11th hour following the merger bomb and its farcical fallout. While the planned union with Stade turned out to be a dud, its aftermath has hardly done the club any favours, as they return to action against second-placed Clermont. This match is nominally a home fixture for the ciel-et-blue, but it has been moved to Lille’s Stade Pierre Mauroy, more than two hours away from the club’s usual ground of Stade Yves du Manoir. Some 30,000 tickets have been sold for the match, so there’s sure to be quite an atmosphere. The question is, can the players feed off it and pick up a crucial win as the run-in gathers pace?

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Premiership: Northampton Saints vs Leicester Tigers (Saturday, March 25, 11:00pm HKT)
The two big East Midlands derbies are always eagerly awaited clashes in the English Premiership’s fixture list, but this one has added meaning as it is Aaron Mauger’s last match in charge of Leicester, little more than two months after his first match in charge following the sacking of Richard Cockerill. A number of Leicester players were surprised and saddened by the news this week that Mauger was to leave the club, so they will be determined to give him a good send-off at the home of one of their biggest rivals.

Premiership: Saracens vs Bath (Sunday, March 26, 10:00pm HKT)
It’s third versus fourth at a sold-out Allianz Arena – and it is sure to be a humdinger, with both sides determined to consolidate their places in the top four, and a place in the end-of-season playoffs. The pressure will be most keenly felt by Todd Blackadder’s visitors, who are coming into the weekend with both Leicester and Northampton breathing down their necks.

Top 14: Stade Francais vs Toulon (Monday, March 27, 3:00am HKT)
Toulon players wore pink armbands last week during their match against Grenoble to show their support for the striking Stade Francais players – but any goodwill between the two teams on the pitch will be temporarily set aside when this match kicks off at Stade Jean Bouin. Toulon has not won on the road since September and will be keen to make amends for letting their hosts off a 17-0 hook last time out. Of almost equal interest to events on the pitch may be the frosty relations between Stade president Thomas Savare and his opposite number Mourad Boudjellal, after the latter openly criticised the merger plans.