9th Oct 25 - Rugby update

Winners and losers from the URC's Weeks 1 and 2, Super Rugby's 2026 schedule and R365 is in the news without doing anything.

After a couple of weeks off to recover from writing the URC previews (it was a lot to squeeze into the rest of life), I’m back with some thoughts on what’s been happening in Rugby World. Let’s start with my fav, the URC

URC’s Winners and Losers from Weeks 1 and 2

Winner: Zebre’s strong start

How great is it to start the year with a positive story out of Italy! Zebre have started with two wins, 8 points ahead of Leinster and an ability to win close games. Is there an argument that they should win more convincingly against two teams who struggled for different reasons? Yes, but wins are wins and when you have struggled to earn any since the start of the tournament then you should take what you can get.

I still have questions over the attack and whether it will match their improved defence, but the pack and especially Tommaso di Bartolomeo have started well and will put up more of a fight. Their next match away to the Ospreys will be interesting. The Welsh team are relatively hardened from their tour and will look to give their best at home, but Zebre will turn up looking to add to last year’s wins on the road.

Winner: League competence

Before the season started I was hopeful the Dragons would be at least competent this year because of the influx of experienced players (most were over 29). And lo, the Dragons have not been terrible and indeed coulda shoulda have beaten the Sharks last weekend. Even in their seemingly heavy loss away to Ulster, they showed signs of structure and understanding that was missing for much of last season.

Along with Zebre’s good start, it’s great to see all of the teams mostly playing rugby that has the potential to win someday. Yes, the Sharks, Lions, Scarlets and Edinburgh under performed in their matches, but it was for understandable reasons (namely “missing players”, “missing halfbacks”, “forgot to play for the first half” and “this is who we are”). I’m excited to see more competitive matches and hopefully a few more upsets.

Loser: Edinburgh’s false start

A performance like this should not be a surprise to Edinburgh’s fans. Yes, Zebre do play well against them including a win and a draw last year, but Edinburgh simply struggled to get started. Territory and possession were about even, as were the set pieces, but Edinburgh did less with what they had (including 10 minutes against 14). They made 16 more carries but 57m fewer post contact metres. Their tackling percentage of 78% was well below the league average, whereas Zebre’s was significantly higher at 91%.

No doubt Edinburgh were looking to rectify things against Ulster the following week but Storm Amy had other ideas. They have now had an extra week to reset ahead of a difficult trip to a buoyant Munster team who appear refreshed by the new leadership. Edinburgh often have start-stop seasons, but they now need to get started properly and a repeat win in Munster should give them the spark they were clearly missing.

Winner: Welsh rugby?

Everyone came into this season thinking Welsh rugby was in a bad place because the WRU doesn’t seem to care what Welsh rugby actually wants. And the results would suggest it has not been great with a win and a draw from the first 7 matches. But there have been bright spots: the Dragons are competent, Cardiff can now keep the ball and attack, and some individuals have started to shine such as Alun Lawrence (who is now good at carrying and tackling) and Harri Deaves who is becoming the player he hinted at last season.

It’s early days, but the initial signs suggests that Welsh rugby at least has some potential and, dare I say it, will need more than 2 professional teams to remain relevant. It will be interesting to see if the performances can solidify into more positive results or if they will fall back again once all of the other squads are up to speed.

Loser: The Bulls’ defence

They may be top, but leaking 71 points in two home matches is awful. Last season the Bulls conceded 20 points per game at home while only Dragons averaged more than 30 (31). The Ospreys were a little lucky with a couple of theirs and Leinster are not exactly a bad team, but the Bulls have some serious work to do to stop teams.

Only the teams they have beaten have conceded more points (it’s wild that includes last year’s finalists) and playing away to Ulster could be a good test. The Bulls should still be favoured to win (they are massive men) but the fast artificial pitch allows teams to play fast and that is what Ulster are looking to do. If the Bulls don’t tighten up then expect Ulster to make the most of any holes they find.

Winner: Leinster’s preseason tour of South Africa

✔ Give more players playing time

✔ Practise set plays

✔ Visit Table Mountain

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✔ Go on Safari

@leinsterrugbyMaybe at the Dublin Zoo? 🦁🦒🦓 #leinsterrugby #safari #fyp

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Loser: Anyone over-reacting to what has just happened

There is still a long way to go and a lot of the top players haven’t even played yet. Anyone trying to make a story out of what has happened has no idea of what has actually happened. Are Leinster in trouble? No, they usually lose in SA. Are the Stormers the team to beat? Maybe, if their defence is legit. Will the Dragons win a match? Fingers crossed. None of what has happened may mean anything in the end, but we can say it suggests a great season ahead.

Super Rugby’s imbalanced schedule

Thanks to Jack O'Rourke’s heads up, Super Rugby has just published it’s schedule for 2026. Of course, I did the geekiest thing I could do and worked out who has the biggest pain in the ass to look forward to. Two of the issues I looked at before were the variations in schedule strength (how hard the matches are) and the distances traveled.

Distance traveled

As in 2025, teams based in New Zealand generally have to travel a lot less far than the others, while the Drua and Force have to travel the furthest because they are based a long way from anywhere. (A single very long road trip and a single long home-stay would help reduce the distance significantly).

There have been a couple of big swings between the seasons. After a pretty travel-light season in 2025, the Chiefs, and to a lesser degree the Blues, will see much inflight entertainment in 2026 as they play in Australia three times. The Force will actually travel a lot less than in 2025, but it’s still over 35,000 km so it probably won’t feel like much less.

Strength of Schedule

The strength of schedule looks at hard the games will be based on the results from the previous seasons. Therefore, if you are playing away to the most successful recent teams, you SoS will be higher than a team mostly playing struggling teams.

As you can see, Moana Pasifika and the Highlanders are expected to have the toughest schedule, while the Chiefs and Brumbies will have the toughest. The home and away strengths follow the same trends, but the Force will have tougher home games and the Drua will have tougher away matches.

If you look across the travel and SoS, you see that the Force, Drua, Moana Pasifika and Highlanders have the toughest set of fixtures, while the Hurricanes, Chiefs, Brumbies and Crusaders have the easiest. The fact those last four finished top 4 last season tells you how hard it will be for anyone else to break in and challenge for the title.

R360 - nothing has changed

This week the unions of the most powerful rugby nations told their players that they will be ineligible for international matches if they signed up to the R360 league. The ‘news’ was that R360 has always said they wanted their players to be able to play international rugby and the unions’ message was a blow to their aspirations.

As I set out a few weeks ago, I don’t think R360 ever cared about conflicts with the international game. From what has been shared public (admittedly very little), the proposed timings for the league didn’t align with the existing international windows. Whatever they plan on doing, R360 were always going to bulldoze through everything else to make it happen. This may enrich a handful of people, maybe even some players, but it is definitely not interested in the health of the game.