Rugby Europe Championship Finals weekend is here

It all began on January 31 and now, Over the weekend of March 15 and 16, the exciting men’s Rugby Europe Championship for 2025 will come to an end.

We have already seen Georgia, Spain, Portugal and Romania secure their Rugby World Cup 2027 places via this competition and, on Sunday, we will find out their final placings.

However, before all that the placings between five and eight will be confirmed after two matches on Saturday.

First up on Saturday, Netherlands and Belgium meet in a very important fifth place final at the National Rugby Center in Amsterdam at 1pm local time (12pm UTC).

Head Coach Lyn Jones was asked about how his side would handle the pressure of the occasion, ““ Pressure? What pressure?” We are turning up to play as best as we can against a much-improved Belgian side.

“The World Cup has not been discussed by us. Saturday will bring out the best and worst in both sides and we need to be on top of our game.”

Belgium’s Toon Deceuninck told us about what it would mean from his sides perspective, “We’re very proud and happy to be able to play the 5th place playoff and have a chance to battle for a spot in the world cup qualifying tournament, it would mean the world to this group to get that ticket and keep on dreaming of a World Cup qualification.”

Whoever wins this one will progress to the final Rugby World Cup 2027 Final Qualification Tournament and will still be in with a chance of making it to the big dance down under in two year’s time.

As a result, there is a lot riding on this match and there are likely to be a few nerves floating around.

Both of these sides finished third in their respective pools and then won their last four ties. They are ranked 24^th and 26^th in the world so as well as there being nerves involved it is also likely to be a very close contest.

The next stop is Heidelberg in Germany as the hosts welcome Switzerland to Fritz-Grunebaum-Sportpark for the seventh place final at 3.45pm local time (2.45pm UTC).

Neither of these sides have won a game in the competition so far this year while the Swiss have never won a game at this level.

Swiss Captain Tim Voegtli said ahead of the game, "It’s been a long campaign, and we’ve learned a lot – now we are at the final stage, and we want to get the W! We’ve worked hard, especially over the last couple of days for this exact match. We are excited to go against Germany and really sure of we can do and finish on a high."

Given they finished sixth overall last year and are at home the Germans will start as favourites most likely, but they are 34 in the world compared to Switzerland’s 29 and the visitors will be aiming for a historic result.

Mark Kuhlmann, Head coach of Germany added, "For us, this is an incredibly important game, because on the one hand, we desperately need a positive result, and on the other hand, with a win, we would also collect crucial points for the fight to stay in the league next season."

Onto Sunday then and up first is the Grand Final as Georgia look to continue their recent domination of this event.

Last year their opponents in the final were Portugal, but this time around it is Spain and the match will be played at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium in Tbilisi at 4pm local time (12pm UTC).

When these sides met in Pool A play last month in Madrid, Georgia came out on top 62-32.

Spain will know that it will be hard to stop the Georgians power game, but in a ‘one off’ tie anything can happen and the Spanish side will have taken confidence from their 43-31 semi-final win over Portugal. Georgia, who saw off Romania 43-5 in their last our tie, are ranked 11 in the world with Spain at 17.

Álvaro Garcia, Spain captain said ahead of the final: ‘Spain XV men’s team has not played a European final in a long time, so this game is a very big deal for us. We have worked really, really hard this week and mentally we feel pretty good after winning against Portugal in Lisboa, it was an energy boost. We’re aware that it will be a real battle in Georgia, but we’re ready for it and we will give it 100% to try to beat theCchampions and come back home with the title.”

The second Sunday match - and the final game of the whole event - sees Portugal and Romania meet at CAR Jamor in Lisbon in the Bronze Final.

Iulian Hartig from Romania said,”It was a good week of preparation, we focused a lot on defense and on our breakdown, trying to put a little more speed into our attack. The team wants to present itself differently in this match, we all want to get our revenge and especially to demonstrate that what happened in Botoșani was just a misfortune and we can do much more, we can play rugby in a better mannet. There were very important games for me this season and all I want is to help the team, to give my best and in the
end to come out victorious for finishing this European campaign in good spirits, as a preparation for the July Tests."

Portugal centre, José Lima said, “We have a really important game at the weekend against Romania, we really want to finish well after our disaster against Spain, we really need to finish this campaign on a high. We have to go hard and give everything on Sunday.”

It is at 3pm local time (3pm UTC) and when the sides met in Pool B last month it was Portugal who came out on top 34-6 in Romania.

Romania will be out for revenge and they are ranked 20 in the world with Portugal at 16.