As the 18-game United Rugby Championship edges closer to completion, attention begins to turn to the play-offs.
A 16-team competition comprising of two teams from Scotland, two teams from Italy, four teams from Wales, four from South Africa and four teams from Ireland, the URC ultimately culminates in an eight-team play-off, ending with a final.
The current URC system was implemented from the 2021/22 season onwards, though play-offs have been used in this competition since its inception back in 2001/02 as the Celtic League.
Read on as we tell you how the United Rugby Championship play-offs work.
How do the United Rugby Championship play-offs work?
As mentioned previously, eight teams currently qualify for the knockout stages of the URC, known as the Finals Series Stage. The geographical pools are separate to this and not taken into consideration.
These teams are made up of the eight sides in the competition who finish from first to eight in the standings.
The quarter finals will be played over one match at the home grounds of the teams who finished first to fourth, with the fixtures seeing first face eighth (QF1), second host seventh (QF2), third host sixth (QF3) and fourth face fifth (QF4).
The winning sides will move onto the semi finals, with the winner of QF1 facing the winner of QF4 and the winner of QF2 facing the winner of QF3, with the highest ranked club from the league standings in each fixture given home advantage.
The winners of each semi final will then face off in the final, with the highest ranked team from the league stages given home advantage. The winner of the final is crowned as the overall URC winner.
Should the final be level after the designated 80 minutes, extra time will take place, consisting of two periods of 10 minutes. If this is still level, the team who scored the most tries in the match would be awarded as the winners.
If both sides have scored the same amount of tries in that scenario, then an extremely rare penalty shootout would take place.
Do teams get a trophy for finishing top of the United Rugby Championship table?
Though top-of-the-table do get home advantage in all of their play-off games and get matched-up with the lowest ranked sides throughout, there is no current award for the team who finishes at the overall top of the standings.
However, the four teams who finish at the top of their 'geographical pools' are awarded a regional shield, which - up until 2023 - guaranteed those sides qualification for the EPCR Champions Cup.
