There will be several historic firsts as the latest edition of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship transitions from a spellbinding league finish into a Finals Series on Friday that will have wider appeal from a geographical viewpoint than ever before.

For the first time, all five participating nations will feature in the eight-team Quarter-Final phase, with the Welsh getting their first representation in this phase of the competition since it morphed from being the PRO14 into the VURC three seasons ago.

With Benetton beating Edinburgh last week in what was effectively a Play-Off game, Italy will also be featuring in a VURC Play-Off for the first time. Although the cross-hemisphere nature of the competition made it unique, in the first two seasons only three nations were represented in the playoffs.

In the first season, there were three South African teams, three Irish teams, and two Scottish teams, whereas last year there were four Irish teams, three South Africans and the sole Scottish representative, the Glasgow Warriors. This year the national representation is three from Ireland, two from South Africa (the Hollywoodbets Sharks drop out), and one each from Scotland, Italy, and Wales.

The Welsh representatives, the Ospreys, snuck into the last eight by a whisker, with their bonus point win over Cardiff in their last regular season game enough to break the hearts of the Emirates Lions, who’d moved into the playoff bracket courtesy of a losing bonus point against the DHL Stormers in their final match in Cape Town.

It makes sense that having a Welsh team in the Quarter-Final phase adds Welsh eyes to the viewership and ditto Italy. URC chief executive Martin Anayi is particularly excited about the Welsh presence as he remembers what success did for Welsh interest when the Scarlets won what was at that point the PRO12 in the 2016/17 season.

“We definitely saw when the Scarlets were winning the league that attendances were up,” said Anayi.

“The Welsh audience wants to support a winning team. When we had Scarlets winning the league we were in pretty good shape in Wales and Ospreys are the side ranked second with league wins. We had good audiences through those years so success is a good driver in URC with Welsh teams.

“Hopefully the teams are going to be strong in the next couple of years and we will see that bounce back. The interest hasn’t actually diminished in Wales, it’s still growing. It’s just not growing as fast in the other countries, it is our job to increase that.”

With all the teams in Wales looking youthful and therefore promising for the future as Welsh rugby goes through a generational changing of the guard, Anayi has reason to be optimistic.

The prospects of the Welsh interest extending into the semi-final phase though aren’t great in the short term, as the Ospreys’ eighth-placed finish sends them to champions and log winners Munster for Friday night’s opening game in Limerick.

It has been such a competitive season in the VURC though that no one will be writing the Ospreys off. They beat the Stormers in Cape Town, the only team to win at the DHL Stormers’ home ground in the competition this season and only the second team to win there since 2021.

The theory is that if they can win at DHL Stadium, they can win anywhere, including Thomond Park.

The DHL Stormers, who haven’t had the stars align for them quite as much as they did in the previous two seasons, will be hoping that alignment can start happening again with an Ospreys win against Munster as they would then be in line to host a semi-final in Cape Town as they are seeded higher than the Ospreys and are in the same side of the Finals Series draw.

First though the Stormers would have to score their first-ever win at the Glasgow Warriors’ home ground of the Scotstoun in one of two games on Saturday that rival each other for the status of plum fixture of the quarterfinal round. The other is the match that takes place just before that in Dublin between Leinster and Ulster.

In previous years it would have been unheard of for the two Irish provinces, who have been in the top three in each of the two URC seasons, to be pitted against one another this early in the playoffs. But that is the kind of season it has been, with lots of unexpected results, and Leinster have fallen off their perch of the previous seasons to drop to third, while Ulster finished sixth.

The recent match in Belfast between the two sides, won by Ulster in dramatic style with a long-range last-gasp penalty kick, was a high-quality exhibition of rugby and perfectly showcased just how strong Irish rugby is currently. Leinster will start as favourites at the AVIVA Stadium but Ulster will be buoyed by the knowledge that they have beaten their rivals twice this season.

The pressure in this game should squarely be on Leinster given that they lost narrowly in the Investec Champions Cup final for the third successive year and really need to win the URC to get some form of silverware out of the season.

Leinster were knocked out by the Bulls in the semi-final stage in the inaugural season and by Munster last year and will be driven to reclaim the champion status they enjoyed for most of the final PRO14 years.

A rematch with the Bulls, this time at Loftus, is on the cards if they do win, as that is where they will have to go if they win and the Bulls win against Benetton. The Bulls will start as strong favourites against the Italian team as they won comfortably when the two teams played a league game at Loftus a few weeks ago, but as any coach or player will tell you, a playoff is different.

Whereas Benetton were on a two-match tour when they were in Pretoria in May, and had hit their target by beating the Sharks the week before, this time it is a one off and they will be seeking a win rather than a consolation albeit ultimately important bonus point as was the case last time.

The Vodacom Bulls’ bonus point nine-try victory over the weekend against Benetton has solidified a Vodacom United Rugby Championship top-four finish for Jake White’s herd with still a round to play. That means Loftus will host the quarterfinal match on the weekend of 07/08 June 2024.

The only question still left to be answered is just where exactly in the top four the Tshwane outfit will finish, with just one more assignment before the knockouts begin. That is a trip down to the coast where the 2023/24 EPCR Challenge Cup finalists, the Hollywoodbets Sharks await in round 18.

Director of Rugby, White says the league is very competitive and has reached an exciting point.

“This year, the worst we can finish is fourth. That means it’s already a quarter-final. That’s an improvement on where we were last year,”

“We are there. There’s this thing of you can’t win the lotto if you don’t have the ticket. We still got a ticket and while you have a lotto ticket, there’s hope.”

He adds: “Are we where I would like us to be? No, if we had beaten Munster, we would be top of the log. That’s the margins of what we sit with. If we won that game with a bonus-point, we would be first or second. That’s how close it is. But there’s no doubt in my mind about the improvement. The players have grown massively over the last year.”

ONE MATCH SWINGS IT ALL, STILL…

Only six teams have confirmed their places in the playoffs leaving four still in the running for the remaining two spots. Three of those teams are level on points with two set to square up in the final round whilst the two sides who have an outside chance face tough opposition who currently are in the top five, as it stands.

The herd (on 61 points) sits in second place on the log, two points behind table toppers, Munster Rugby and a point ahead of the 2023/24 Investec Champions Cup finalists, Leinster Rugby who are level on points with Glasgow Warriors who are fourth. The Stormers (on 54 points) occupy fifth place, one point ahead of Ulster who just confirmed their playoff spot in round 17. Three teams are tied on 49 points in Edinburgh Rugby (seventh), Benetton Rugby (eighth) and the men from the other side of the Jukskei, the Emirates Lions sitting ninth.

Excitement is in the air for the herd, who are looking to better last season’s run and have their eyes set on a massive finish.

“I am very excited about where we are and the four games that we have left – one round robin and three potential knockouts – if it goes according to what the log looks like now, it could go Sharks, Glasgow, Stormers and Leinster,” says the Vodacom Bulls mentor, White.

“I really do believe that we are good enough to beat any of those teams. That is the challenge, to get it right in four consecutive weekends” he concludes.

THERE IS STILL A SHIELD TO PLAY FOR

Whilst a playoff spot is confirmed, the Vodacom Bulls remain in the hunt for the South African Shield which is decided based on the most wins versus domestic teams. The Tshwane outfit leads Cape archenemies, the DHL Stormers by 3 points and nothing short of a win will seal a Shield victory for Jake White and his herd.

White says his side has set their eyes on a Shield win, over and above their overall objective.

“We want to win the conference (Shield) too, it is something we want to do and be the best side in South Africa. We once were the best side for a long time and lost that for the last two seasons but now we are going for the conference (much like the league) because we want to be the top South African side,”

“This is why there is a lot to play for against them (Sharks) but that doesn’t mean they are going to lie down, look at the names in their team. They are in that space where World Cup winners can go and win something else as well and we know South Africans find another gear when they know they can win something.”

White believes his side will go for it as they have proven in previous occasions.

“There is one thing we have done well since I have been here and that is we play well when we want something and the one thing this group of players has done, whenever we get to a knockout game is to do well… We have probably won more than we have lost when we needed to play for a win.”