The 2024–25 United Rugby Championship will be the 24rd season of the professional rugby union competition known as the United Rugby Championship, and the fourth season under that name. It will begin on 20 September 2024 and will end on 14 June 2025.[1]
The season consists of 21 rounds: 18 rounds of regular season play, followed by three rounds of play-offs.
There are four regional pools: The Irish Shield pool (featuring the four Irish teams), the Welsh Shield pool (featuring the four Welsh teams), the South African Shield pool (featuring the four South African teams) and the Scottish/Italian 'Azzurri/Blue' Shield pool (featuring the two Italian and two Scottish sides). The pools serve two functions; they guarantee a full slate of derby matches for each team, and they award a minor Regional Shield trophy to the top team in each pool, which thereby functions as a national championship in three of the four pools, and a cross-border regional championship in the Scottish–Italian pool. The winner of each Shield will be determined solely from the games played amongst the teams within their regional pool, mirroring the format of the old Interprovincial Championship in Ireland.[2]
Teams play six matches against their regional pool rivals home and away. The remaining twelve matches are made up by a single round robin, consisting of an even number of six home and six away matches against all the sides from the other pools.[3]
For the Championship itself, there is one main league table. The top eight sides in the table will qualify for the quarter-finals, followed by semi-finals and a grand final, with teams seeded 1 to 4 with home advantage for the lowest seeded side. The Regional Shield pools have no direct link to the play-offs and by extension the Championship itself, and it is technically possible to win a Regional Shield but not contest the play-offs, as the Welsh sides showed in 2022 and 2023.[3]
Regional shield standing will be based entirely on performances against other teams within the same conference.[2] Therefore, only six games for each team will count towards the regional shields.
If teams are level at any stage, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:[5]
number of matches won
the difference between points for and points against
the number of tries scored
the most points scored
the difference between tries for and tries against
the fewest red cards received
the fewest yellow cards received
Green background indicates teams currently leading the regional shield. Upon the conclusion of the regular season, these teams win their respective regional shields.
Pink background indicates teams that are in play-off places and earn a place in the 2025–26 European Challenge Cup Yellow background indicates the team that won the 2024–25 European Challenge Cup and thus qualify for the 2025–26 European Champions Cup, but are not in a play-off place Plain background indicates teams that earn a place in the 2025–26 European Challenge Cup.
Q: qualified for play-offs. H: home field advantage secured for quarter-and semi-final. h; home field advantage secured for quarter-final X: cannot reach play-offs. E: qualified for Champions Cup.
Ireland
Italy
Scotland
South Africa
Wales