The Super Rugby clash between the ACT Brumbies and Pretoria-based Bulls on Friday epitomizes the higher stakes at play as the tournament enters its last three regular season rounds.
Both teams have recently given up the lead in their respective national conferences and now find their playoff chances hanging by a thread.
The Brumbies have surrendered the lead in the Australian conference to defending champions the New South Wales Waratahs and have fallen back to sixth place in the overall standings, three points behind the Waratahs and only two points ahead of the seventh-placed Lions.
The Bulls have been displaced atop the South African conference by the Cape Town-based Stormers, also trail the conference leaders by three points but have also fallen to eighth, one place behind the Johannesburg-based Lions.
The playoff hopes of the Brumbies and the Bulls could be decided as early as Friday and several other teams, notably the seven-time champion Crusaders, face matches of similar importance as nine teams vie for six playoffs spots.
A Brumbies win in Canberra would secure their place in the top six for another week while a loss would likely drop them out of the playoffs zone. The Bulls can clamber back into the top six with their eighth win of the season, though that would also depend on the outcome of Saturday's match between the Lions and Waratahs.
A Lions win would likely move them into the top six and would also open the possibility of the Brumbies regaining the lead in the Australian conference. The Bulls' challenge to the Stormers for supremacy in South Africa also depends on the outcome of Saturday's match in Cape Town between the Stormers and Cheetahs.
In New Zealand, the Wellington-based Hurricanes would likely lock in a home semifinal if they can beat the Christchurch-based Crusaders. They lead the New Zealand conference and overall standings by 13 points from the Hamilton-based Chiefs who face the Dunedin-based Highlanders on Saturday in a match crucial to both of those teams' playoffs hopes.
The Chiefs are fourth overall, the Highlanders fifth and are separated by a point on the championship table. The Highlanders are five points clear of the sixth-placed Brumbies.
Whatever the outcome of Saturday's match both teams will likely remain inside the top six.
The importance of the 16th round and the two other rounds left in the regular season will force teams still in playoffs contention to treat all of their remaining matches as being almost of finals importance.
"If we lose one, we drop one and I'd say finals is probably out of contention," Brumbies scrumhalf Nic White said, summarizing the pressure faced by several teams. "It's huge for us. Every game is a grand final."
The two-time champion Brumbies are in their current predicament because of narrow losses to the Chiefs, the Auckland-based Blues, the Waratahs, the Melbourne Rebels and the Stormers. Wins in any of those matches would have lessened pressure on the Brumbies as they face late matches against the Bulls, the Western Force and the Crusaders.
"We've lost a couple of tight ones but they're the only ones we've lost, the tight ones," White said. "If you get too caught up thinking about what we're going to do when it gets tight, we're forgetting about what we need to do to put them away early on."
The Crusaders have only a slim chance of reaching the playoffs after losing to the Waratahs last weekend in a repeat of the 2014 final. They must win their remaining matches against the Hurricanes, Blues and Brumbies and then rely on an unlikely combination of other results to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.
The Hurricanes can afford to be relaxed with their big lead in the championships which leaves them needing only a handful of points from their matches against the Crusaders, Highlanders and Chiefs to clinch home advantage in the playoffs.
But captain Conrad Smith said his team wouldn't take the Crusaders lightly in Friday's match at Nelson.
"I can see it working in their favour. They'll have a pretty fresh attitude in terms of having nothing to lose," Smith said. "There'll be a few guys that'll be wanting to prove a point. That makes them pretty dangerous."
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.