2022–23 United Rugby Championship

The 2022–23 United Rugby Championship was the 22nd season of the professional rugby union competition United Rugby Championship. It began on 16 September 2022 and ended on 27 May 2023. For sponsorship reasons it was known in South Africa as Vodacom United Rugby Championship or Vodacom URC, while in the Northern Hemisphere it was known as the BKT United Rugby Championship or BKT URC.

The final which was held on 27 May 2023 was between defending champions the Stormers and Munster with Munster winning 19–14.

Format
The tournament 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 three functions; they guarantee a full slate of derby matches for each team, they are the primary route for qualification for the European Rugby Champions Cup, 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.

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.

For the Championship itself, there is only one main league table (the conference system used in previous Pro14 years has been dropped). 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 2023.

A total of eight sides will qualify for the following season's European Rugby Champions Cup, but by a slightly different distribution method than the play-offs, while the remaining eight sides will qualify for the EPCR Challenge Cup. All points won in the competition contributed to rankings in the regional pools, with the top side in each regional pool automatically qualifying for the European Rugby Champions Cup. The remaining four places then go to (if not already qualified) the winners of the URC, the European Champions Cup and the European Challenge Cup, (if either or both of the European champions is a URC team that is not already qualified as URC Champion or URC Regional Shield winner) followed then by the highest ranked teams in the main table (who haven't already qualified by other means). A similar format was used to determine playoff contenders in the Super Rugby competition.

Regional Pools and European qualification
The Regional pools of the regular season are the primary mechanism by which teams qualify for European competition, with the winner of each regional pool guaranteed qualification for the European Rugby Champions Cup, ensuring at least one South African, one Welsh and one Irish side qualify for the premier European competition. As Scotland and Italy are sharing a single regional pool, at least one team from those two countries combined is also guaranteed entry, but neither country individually is so guaranteed. The remaining four places will be awarded to those with the four best overall regular season records, regardless of which pool they take part in. As such, it is possible that a team will qualify for the ERCC without reaching the URC play-offs by topping its pool, but finishing ninth or lower overall. If the club that wins the URC championship has not qualified for the Champions Cup on the above criteria, it will qualify instead of the last of the qualified teams that did not win its pool. The same will apply if a URC team wins the 2022-2023 Champions Cup or Challenge Cup and qualifies for the 2023-2024 Champions Cup without having qualified by its league position.

Priority order for European Champions Cup Qualification is therefore :


 * 2022–23 United Rugby Championship champion
 * the four URC Shield winners (if not already qualified as URC Champion)
 * the European Rugby Champions Cup champion (if a URC team but not already qualified as above)
 * the European Rugby Challenge Cup champion (if a URC team but not already qualified as above)
 * the next highest-ranked teams during regular season play not already qualified as above, until eight overall qualifiers have been selected (between 1 and 4 can qualify under this head).

In theory, a team as high as third overall could therefore fail to qualify for the Champions Cup if it fails to win any of the four available titles (URC, its Regional Shield, Champions or Challenge Cup), and they are all won by much lower ranked URC teams, while the team in last place, if it wins a European competition, can qualify for the following year's Champions Cup. In practice, a team may qualify from an overall 9th or 10th position as the shield winner in a weak regional pool, but the emphasis on derby matches, and the points available in them, tend to ensure that the lowest placed shield winner cannot finish lower than tenth.

All 16 teams, however, are guaranteed entry into one of the two competitions. The lowest a team can finish overall while winning its URC shield and qualifying for the Champions Cup is thirteenth.

The following teams have therefore confirmed their qualification for the European Rugby Champions Cup for the 2023–24 season as URC Champions:


 * , who defeated Stormers 19–14 in the URC Grand Final to become URC Champions.

The following teams have confirmed their qualification for the European Rugby Champions Cup for the 2023–24 season upon winning their URC Regional Shield:


 * , as the URC Irish Shield winner
 * , as the URC South African Shield winner
 * , as the URC Scottish-Italian Shield Winner
 * , as the URC Welsh Shield winner

As no URC team won a European trophy (Leinster and Glasgow being runners up in the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup respectively), the reserved places for the winners of those competitions is ignored.

The overall champion and four shield winners are therefore joined by the following teams, who claim the final three places in the Champions Cup:
 * , by league placing
 * , by league placing
 * , by league placing.

As Cardiff, the URC Welsh shield winner, sit below eighth in the overall standings, the eighth placed team, Sharks, could not qualify by League standings, despite finishing in eighth place. By losing their URC quarter-final, Sharks were therefore the eighth and final team eliminated from contention for a spot in the 2023-24 European Rugby Champions Cup.

Ulster Rugby, Munster Rugby and Bulls qualified through their league placings at the end of the regular season. Connacht also qualified for the European Rugby Champions Cup by league placing following the elimination of Sharks, the only remaining team that could deny them the final spot by winning the URC Championship.

Munster "upgraded" their qualification route by winning the URC Championship itself, which technically takes priority over league placing (or winning the Regional Shield), but as they had already secured the place through league placing, it did not materially alter the overall list of qualifiers.

Zebre Parma, Dragons, Scarlets, Ospreys, Edinburgh Rugby, Benetton, Lions and Sharks have qualified for the European Rugby Challenge Cup for 2023–24. For the second season, only the Welsh Shield winner gains Champions Cup qualification from among the Welsh sides, and no Italian side qualify for the Champions Cup.

URC League standings
The overall United Rugby Championship table is the central pillar of the regular season, and the mechanism by which the teams qualifying for the Championship play-off bracket are decided. The top eight teams in the table at the end of the regular season, regardless of regional pool, qualify for the play-off quarter-finals, seeded in the order they finished the regular season.

The season concluded with seven of the play-off contenders from last season making the knock-out stages for a second time, with only Connacht, replacing Edinburgh, entering the post-season for the first time. All four Irish provinces qualified for the knock-out rounds. For the second year, no Welsh or Italian team qualified for the final stages, Benetton being the last Welsh or Italian side eliminated on the final day of the regular season.

Leinster Rugby topped the regular season standings for the fourth successive time, and the tenth time in total, both a record. They have confirmed home advantage and first seeding for the whole play-offs. Ulster Rugby have confirmed home advantage for a quarter-final and semi-final. As the final will be held in the Aviva Stadium, neither side will need to leave Ireland to win the competition.

Glasgow Warriors and Stormers as guaranteed fourth and third placed team, have home advantage for the quarter-finals only.

Leinster, Ulster, Glasgow, Stormers, Munster and the Bulls have qualified for the 2023–24 Champions Cup by virtue of their league position. Cardiff Rugby have also qualified as the highest-placed Welsh team.

The remaining position went to Connacht after the Sharks were eliminated from the Championship playoffs.

Bracket
The play-off draw is seeded based on final positions in the regular season league table.

The higher-ranked teams will have home advantage in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final.

Leading scorers
Note: Flags to the left of player names indicate national team as has been defined under World Rugby eligibility rules, or primary nationality for players who have not yet earned international senior caps. Players may hold one or more non-WR nationalities.

As of 20 May 2024

Attendances by club
Attendance was up by 32% in the season, with a regular season average of 9,500 per game. The all-time attendance record for the URC and Pro14/12 was set in the semi-final between the Stormers and Connacht in Cape Town, with 47,261 spectators. The previous record was 47,125 in 2019 at Celtic Park in the final between Glasgow Warriors and Leinster. The record lasted only three weeks as a sell-out crowd of 56,344 watched the 2022–23 final between Stormers and Munster


 * Regular season


 * Play-offs

URC Dream Team
The 2022–23 United Rugby Championship Dream team is:

Award winners
The 2022–23 URC award winners were: