The Vodacom Bulls face a very interesting poser ahead of their intriguing Investec Champions Cup final pool clash against French side PAU on Friday night.
With almost no hope left in the Champions’ Cup, should they look to qualify for the EPCR Challenge Cup, or cut their losses and write off the European season as a loss.
Well, that would be the normal way of looking at these things if this was a regular season, but on a seven game losing streak, the Vodacom Bulls will be desperate to get that "W" as soon as they can.
They have selected one of the strongest touring squads to leave South Africa since entry into Europe for the final game, against a French side that is sitting second in the Top14 and will be no pushovers at home.
But it is more likely the Bulls inward focus on stopping the rot now takes precedence over everything, even though it may make it a tough road forward in the Champions Cup.
In Pool 4, already three sides have qualified with excellent results - those are the defending champions Bordeaux-Begles, last season’s finalists Northampton Saints and the Loftus demolishers Bristol Bears.
That leaves one spot open to be claimed - but whoever takes that spot will be at a severe disadvantage because they will get a very low seeding going into the round of 16.
Currently PAU, who beat Scarlets last weekend to register their first win in Europe, are on five points, with Scarlets in fifth on two and the Bulls in last spot with two points.
The way the qualification works is that the top four move through to the Round of 16, while the fifth placed side drops into the EPCR Challenge Cup and the sixth placed side ends their participation altogether.
At this stage, if everything stays the same this weekend, the Bulls would no longer play in Europe and use their time to look to resurrect their Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign.
But things could get interesting if they do get the win at the Stadium de Hameau with the Pyrenees mountains as a backdrop.
YOUR touring squad to face Pau this weekend in the Champions Cup and Edinburgh next weekend in the VURC 🐂@Vodacom | @ChampionsCup | @URCOfficial_RSA #TheUnbreakableLine pic.twitter.com/0RX7IPi4xS
— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) January 12, 2026
Depending on whether there is a bonus point, they could move past Scarlets and PAU with the victory, and then face a very unenviable Round of 16 trip against one of the top sides in the competition away from home.
But the scenario is just as interesting should they lose against PAU and drop down to the EPCR Challenge Cup. While the second tier competition isn’t anywhere near the status of the Champions’ Cup, the Bulls could use it - with the away fixtures it will bring for the rest of the competition - to try and get some momentum back in the season.
Perhaps the best scenario would be to stay in sixth and drop out of Europe altogether, as the chances of going any further in either competition depend on victories away from home and more travel to Europe.
That thought though, doesn’t take into account the intense pressure on the side at the moment given their losing run, and the shock after they conceded the most points ever at Loftus Versfeld in the modern era, as Bristol scored 61 against them.
Defence has been pitiful and the commitment of the players - many of them who forced former coach Jake White out of the role - is under the spotlight. Whatever the result, the Bulls need to give Johan Ackermann a victory and restore some faith that despite their reputations, they are a side that can compete at this level.
So far in the last seven games the evidence hasn’t been there, and Ackermann is under more and more pressure, being forced to use his faith as a defence mechanism over and over again in interviews.
Either way this is a test for this Bulls side. They have the quality to be able to win away from home, but whether the confidence, cohesion and continuity are there waits to be seen.
Whatever happens next is up to them, and while in theory their final pool game is a bit of a dead rubber, there is so much more riding on it at the moment.