The men’s Rugby Europe Trophy title winners will be decided this weekend.
After this last round of games, the team to be promoted to the men's Championship 2027 will be confirmed. Based on the results of the two-season cycle (24/25 and 25/26 editions), Czechia, Poland and Sweden
This season's leaders Czechia have won four from four in the six-team competition so far and know that if they can secure an away victory at fourth place Denmark then the title will be theirs.
If Denmark can cause a shock though, second placed Poland and third placed Sweden will be waiting to pounce and they are playing each other.
Erritsø Rugby Club is the venue for the Denmark-Czechia match up with it kicking-off at 2pm local time (12pm UTC) on Saturday.
Czechia finished third overall last year, but the top half of the table was tight and they will want to go two better this time.
Poland and Sweden have both won three games and lost one so far and their meeting is at Arka Gdynia Rugby at 8pm local time (6pm UTC) on Saturday evening.
The Polish know that a victory against their Swedish opponents that they will get the coveted promotion.
Meanwhile, the round two fixtures in the women’s Rugby Europe Championship take place on Saturday.
Late in March, defending champions Spain (a 39-0 bonus point win over Belgium) and Netherlands (a 59-0 bonus point victory over Portugal) got their respective campaigns off to flying starts and they will be looking to back that up.
In round two, Spain are on their travels to Portugal and the Netherlands are away to Belgium.
Both the host countries will hope that home advantage helps to get them a foothold in the games, but both will start as underdogs.
Campo de Rugby da Moita will be the venue for the Portugal-Spain clash at 4pm local time (3pm UTC).
When Spain headed to Portugal last year it was a battle and they only managed to win 19-7 so Portugal will be looking to make it similarly tough this time around.
Looking back at that contest, Spain started off like a train before Portugal got a foothold in things.
Spain got off to the perfect start after just five minutes when full-back Clàudia Peña Hidalgo scored the opening try.
The same player showed her quality to go over again in the 12th minute and stand-off Amalia Argudo converted that one to make it 12-0.
Spain winger Claudia Cano was then yellow carded which could have given Portugal a way into things, but no points were scored while she was off the field.
And, on the half hour mark, with Spain back to 15 players they scored try number three.
The scorer this time was centre Alba Vinuesa and with Argudo’s conversion Spain were well in control at 19-0.
Many onlookers would have expected Spain to kick on from there and really put a few points on the board, but credit to Portugal.
They tightened things up defensively and there was no more scoring until the 74th minute.
When those points did come they were from Portugal via a try from replacement front-rower Elsa Santos. Full-back Daniela Correia, who in the 68th minute had missed a penalty, made no mistake with the conversion as things finished 19-7 to Spain.
The Belgium-Netherlands match will be at 5pm local time (3pm UTC) at the Sportcomplex Sint-Gillis and it will be interesting to see if the visiting team can keep up the high levels they found against Portugal a fortnight ago.
Finally, in the men’s Rugby Europe Conference on Saturday, Ukraine and Moldova meet at 12pm local time (9am UTC) and Israel are in Malta at 2pm local time (noon UTC).
By Gary Heatly
