Europe's Second Tier

The EPCR Challenge Cup is the second tier of European club rugby. The 2025/26 edition was the twelfth under that name and the thirtieth of the competition in all its forms.

HOW THE FIELD IS ASSEMBLED. Sixteen clubs qualify from the Premiership, the Top 14 and the United Rugby Championship — the sides that did not make the Champions Cup — and two more are invited. In 2025/26 those invitations went to Georgia's Black Lion and to the Cheetahs, who play their home matches in the Netherlands. The URC contributed eight clubs: three Welsh, two Irish, two Italian and one South African. That one South African club was the Lions.

HOW THE LIONS GOT THERE. Through the URC log. An eleventh-place finish in 2024/25 put the Lions into the Challenge Cup rather than the Champions Cup. In EPCR's own team listing for the tournament the Lions appear with Ivan van Rooyen as head coach, Francke Horn as captain, and a home ground of 62,567 — comfortably the largest stadium in the competition. Benetton's Stadio Comunale di Monigo, by comparison, holds 5,000.

THE FORMAT. Three pools of six. Clubs from the same country cannot be drawn together, except France, which places two clubs in each pool who do not meet in the pool stage. No more than three URC sides in any one pool. Each club plays four pool matches. The top four from each pool progress to a single-leg Round of 16, joined by the four clubs finishing fifth in the Champions Cup pools.

THE SCALE OF IT. Fifty matches, 353,247 spectators at an average of 7,065, and 382 tries at 7.64 per game. The largest crowd of the season was 43,205 for the final. The smallest was 1,302, for Zebre Parma against Montauban on a December night in Emilia-Romagna.

WHO WON IT. Montpellier, who beat Ulster 59-26 at San Mamés in Bilbao on 22 May 2026 for a third Challenge Cup title. Benetton's Jacob Umaga was the competition's leading scorer with 86 points and its joint-leading try scorer with six.