Rainbow Cup North v South final venue announced

Benetton Rugby’s home ground, Treviso’s Stadio di Monigo, will play host to the PRO14 Rainbow Cup “North v South” final on Saturday, 19 June.

And, 1,000 fans should be allowed to attend the match, under current Italian regulations.

The match ill be contested between the winners of the north and south “sections” following the cancellation of the inter-hemisphere matches a few weeks ago.

From South Africa, one of the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers will face the best team in the European half of the competition.

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Martin Anayi, CEO of PRO14 Rugby, said: “We are incredibly grateful to our friends and colleagues in Italian rugby for their role in creating this opportunity to host the North v South Rainbow Cup final.

“In a very short space of time we have been able to find a terrific way to tie the two tournaments together as originally envisaged and provide a glimpse of the future as the top team from the existing PRO14 meets the best that South Africa has to offer.

“When the cross-hemisphere fixtures were removed from the original Rainbow Cup schedule due to travel restrictions our disappointment was matched by our clubs, their fans and our broadcasters.

“However, our team has worked hard to reconfigure the competition with this historic final and we can now deliver on the unique excitement that the PRO14 Rainbow Cup originally promised.”

This decision means that the dual tournaments operating in Europe and South Africa will tie together to produce one winner. The northern representative shall be the team who finishes first in the table among the 12 teams in the PRO14 Rainbow Cup while the southern representative shall be the side who ranks first in the Rainbow Cup SA competition.