Right out of an expanded Uganda Cup, Uganda Rugby Union and its member clubs start the journey on a newly passed Nile Special Rugby Championship this weekend.
Starting in the 2024 season, the Premiership was expanded and redesigned into a Championship, with more teams and fewer game weeks, but culminating in playoffs.
“This rebrand comes after the expansion from 10 teams to 12 teams. The ten teams from the 2022-2023 premiership will retain their status, and they will be joined by both the Warriors and the Kitante Eagles.
The Kitante Eagles were the playoff winners in June, with the win coming against the seasoned Warriors. They will join Pirates, Heathens, KOBs, Hippos, Impis, Rhinos, Barbarians, Rams, Mongers and Buffaloes.”
The senior teams will be playing alongside their reserve/development sides. The fixtures will be scheduled so that every team will play each other once, home or away – culminating in 11 game weeks.
At the end of game week 11, playoffs shall commence, with the top eight going toe-to-toe in the quarterfinals, where we shall inadvertently define the semifinalists and finalists.
On the dreaded end of the log, the bottom four sides would play in relegation deciders. The 9th place plays 12th, and the 10th place plays 11th. The losers of these games would be cut from the following season.
This format mirrors the short-term competition in 2021 as the country was easing out of the COVID-19 pandemic, although there were no playoffs that year. The top team, KOBs RFC, at the end of 9 game weeks, were crowned Champions at Kampala Rugby Club that year.
A brief history of the playoff format
According to data from Isa Metrics, the end-of-season playoff format has been employed on three occasions in the last 20 years (2004, 2005 and 2013), with the Heathens emerging winners on all three occasions.
The 2004 season had a home-and-way regular season for the premiership’s Super Six teams. KOBs and Heathens battled in a final at Kyadondo, and the Heathens won. The competing teams were – KOBs, Heathens, Rhinos, Pirates, Impis and Buffaloes.
2005 saw the Super 6 play alongside six teams in the shield. The top four went on to the Semifinals and finals after that. Impis, Pirates, KOBs, Heathens, Buffaloes and Rhinos were the teams.
For the 2013 season, teams played a single round and then proceeded to the playoffs for the top 4, at the end of which Heathens claimed a fifth consecutive trophy.
The eight teams played a single round of rugby among the top four before the semifinals. The eight teams were – Heathens, KOBs, Pirates, Rhinos, Buffaloes, Mongers, Impis and Summerkamp.
In the years when this format was adopted, the reason given has been leaning towards a lengthy international schedule. It, therefore, gives hope to the players that there will be internationals at the end of the Championship.
URU, in November, entered into an MoU with Tunisia Rugby, which sees Uganda host the Northern Africans for a two-game bout. In addition, there is the Elgon and expected 4-team Victoria Cup.
Courtesy Photos
