URC 2025/26 · Round 17
Lions
Connacht
Emirates Airline Park, Johannesburg
Championship Standings
The Lions are 4th on 48 points after ripping Glasgow apart 54–12 last weekend — five straight URC wins, all at Ellis Park, and now a genuine home-quarter-final shout. Connacht sit 9th on 44, one point outside the play-off cut and desperately needing a road scalp to keep knockout hopes alive. A Lions win slams the door on Connacht and books a home quarter; a Connacht upset blows the play-off race wide open.
| Pos | Team | P | W | L | PD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Glasgow Warriors | 15 | 11 | 4 | +150 | 55 |
| 2 |  Stormers | 15 | 11 | 4 | +130 | 51 |
| 3 |  Leinster | 15 | 10 | 5 | +70 | 51 |
| 4 | Lions | 15 | 9 | 5 | +78 | 48 |
| 5 |  Ulster | 15 | 9 | 6 | +105 | 47 |
| 6 |  Munster | 15 | 9 | 6 | +5 | 46 |
| 7 |  Cardiff | 15 | 9 | 6 | −5 | 46 |
| 8 |  Bulls | 15 | 9 | 6 | +97 | 45 |
| 9 | Connacht | 15 | 8 | 7 | +19 | 44 |
| 10 |  Ospreys | 15 | 6 | 7 | −28 | 34 |
| 11 |  Sharks | 15 | 6 | 8 | −30 | 34 |
| 12 |  Edinburgh | 15 | 5 | 10 | −70 | 28 |
| 13 |  Benetton | 15 | 5 | 8 | −104 | 28 |
| 14 |  Scarlets | 15 | 4 | 10 | −90 | 23 |
| 15 |  Dragons | 15 | 2 | 10 | −123 | 21 |
| 16 |  Zebre Parma | 15 | 2 | 13 | −204 | 14 |
Lions
W5, L0Five straight, all at Ellis Park, and the margins are ballooning — +12, +14, +37, +16, +42. The 54–12 demolition of table-topping Glasgow was the statement result of the URC season: Glasgow arrived on 55 points with the best points differential in the league and left with a 42-point beating. Swys de Bruin’s side are averaging 41.6 points scored and 17.4 conceded across the run. They are, on current form, the most dangerous home team in the competition — full stop.
Connacht
W3, L1The story of Connacht’s season is a late surge that’s rescued a dead campaign. They’ve won four of their last five URC matches — including a 15–10 scalp of Glasgow in February — and last weekend produced the biggest result of their year, knocking over the Stormers 33–24 at Cape Town Stadium. That’s the first leg of a two-week South African tour done; now they back it up at altitude six days later, coming off a 45–22 Challenge Cup quarter-final hammering in Montpellier 13 days ago. The form is real, but the schedule is brutal.
Head-to-Head Record
3 – 0 – 1
Lions wins · Draws · Connacht wins (last 4 meetings)
Lions (3)The Lions have dominated this fixture recently — three wins from the last four, including the most recent meeting at Ellis Park (26–7 in April 2025) and a 38–14 win in Galway in 2024. Connacht’s one win in the sequence was a 33–30 edge at Ellis Park back in 2022, which is the only time an Irish side has taken the Lions on the highveld in recent memory. Ellis Park is historically a very unfriendly stop for Connacht, who’ve never beaten a SA side in Johannesburg since 2022.
Recent Results
| Date | Competition | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 2025 | URC | Lions 26–7 Connacht |
| Mar 2024 | URC | Connacht 14–38 Lions |
| Jan 2023 | URC | Connacht 43–24 Lions |
| Apr 2022 | URC | Lions 30–33 Connacht |
Average score in the last 6 meetings: Lions 29.5 – Connacht 24.3 across the four meetings. At Ellis Park specifically the split is 28–20 to the Lions. The last meeting in Joburg was a 19-point home win.
Extended Form
Lions11W, 5L, 1D
URC wins over Ulster, Scarlets, Sharks (twice), Connacht (last meeting), Stormers, Edinburgh, Dragons (twice), Ospreys, Glasgow (last weekend); Challenge Cup wins over Lyon and Section Paloise (draw). Losses: Bulls (H, 17–52), Benetton (H), Cardiff (A), Zebre (A), Ospreys (A, 24–24 draw).
The Lions have lost once at Ellis Park all season — the 52-point Bulls derby ambush — and are unbeaten at home in the last 10. They’re 5–0 on the highveld in the URC since mid-February and have beaten Stormers and Glasgow, the two best non-Bulls sides in the competition, in the last eight weeks. This isn’t a hot streak anymore; it’s a settled team peaking at the right time.
Connacht9W, 7L
URC wins over Glasgow (H, 15–10), Zebre (A), Scarlets (H), Ulster (A), Ospreys (H), Stormers (A, last week); Challenge Cup wins over Sharks (Pool), Newport (Pool), Montauban (R16). Losses: Munster (A), Cardiff (A), Dragons (A), Leinster (A), Ospreys (CC, A), Montpellier (CC QF, A, 45–22).
Connacht’s away record has been patchy — they’ve won at Glasgow, Zebre and now Cape Town, but lost at Cardiff, Munster, Leinster, and Dragons. The Stormers win was a genuine shock on last weekend’s evidence. The Montpellier collapse 13 days ago is the concern: when their pack gets shoved backwards, they fold quickly — they conceded 45 and shipped six tries.
Lions XV
Lineup not yet announced. Off the back of a 54–12 dismantling of Glasgow, de Bruin is unlikely to tinker much. Morné van den Berg at 9 and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu at 10 have been the form halfback pairing in the URC; Henco van Wyk at 12 and Quan Horn out wide are the attacking focal points. Ruan Venter — 7 URC tries, joint-second in the competition — anchors the back row. Chris Smith leads all URC scorers with 137 points and will be first-choice kicker.
Connacht XV
Lineup not yet announced. Connacht will be on a short turnaround after the Stormers win and need to decide whether to rotate or ride momentum. Sean Jansen is joint third in the URC try charts with 9 and is their key ball-carrier. Cathal Forde and Hugh Gavin have been the centre partnership; Josh Ioane has been steady at 10. Expect Cian Prendergast at 6 and captain Jack Aungier leading the pack.
Key Matchups
The biggest gap is at 9–10: Van den Berg and Feinberg-Mngomezulu are playing at a level above anything Connacht can match, and at altitude Feinberg’s boot stretches defences that Ioane’s simply can’t. Connacht’s route to a result is through Sean Jansen and Mack Hansen generating broken-field chaos — they need to win the collision early, or the Lions’ tempo game runs away from them. The breakdown battle between Venter and Jansen (the URC’s two most prolific loose-forward try-scorers) is the sub-plot worth watching. But fundamentally, the Lions have better players in every forward position and a game-breaker at 10; on current form the gulf is substantial.
Match Forecast
The scorecard lands at +21 — a mismatch tier result. Every dimension favours the Lions, most of them strongly. The altitude-and-fatigue modifier alone is worth +5: Connacht played 80 minutes in Cape Town six days ago and shipped 45 points in Montpellier 13 days ago, and now they fly to 1,753 metres to face the form team of the URC. The Lions, meanwhile, are unbeaten in five at home, averaging +24 per game, and just put 54 points on the side that sits top of the table. Extrapolate the trajectory and a 30-point home win is the baseline, not the ceiling.
The only realistic upset path is a Connacht pack grinding out territory for 20 minutes and forcing the Lions into discipline errors — but on Montpellier’s evidence, that pack isn’t capable of squeezing a side this well-drilled. Mack Hansen can manufacture one moment of magic and Sean Jansen is a genuine carry threat, but the Lions’ 9–10 axis and a +24-average home run suggest the scoreboard is firmly theirs. Bonus-point territory from the hour mark; the question is whether it’s a 25-point or 40-point margin.
Lions by 28 with a bonus point — Connacht’s tour ends at the altitude cliff.