This week's biggest matches to watch on Rugby Pass

It’s all on this weekend with the Super Rugby season getting underway, the Six Nations returning after a weekend off, and a full Aviva Premiership programme. Here are six games you don’t want to miss.

Super Rugby: Highlanders vs Chiefs (Friday February 24, 2:35pm HKT)
Super Rugby’s back, baby… and what better way to get back into the swing of things than with arguably the greatest Super Rugby rivalry of modern times. That the Highlanders have won the last six in a row against the Chiefs belies how close so many of their recent encounters have been – both games last year really could have gone either way. There will no doubt be a full house at Forsyth Barr Stadium and they’ll all be making a bloody racket for the Highlanders. That 16th man could be the difference.

Super Rugby: Cheetahs vs Lions (Saturday February 25, 9:05pm HKT)
You heard it here first: the Cheetahs are going to be the surprise package of Super Rugby 2017. In recent years the Currie Cup has been a reliable indicator of Super Rugby fortunes the following year, and it was none other than the Free State Cheetahs who got their name on the trophy in 2016. Is it destiny? We’ll find out when they go up against the Lions, last year’s form South African team (and 2015 Currie Cup champions), in Bloemfontein on Saturday.

Six Nations: Scotland vs Wales (Saturday, February 25, 10:25pm HKT)
Battered, bruised and patched up after the rumble in Saint-Denis a fortnight ago, the Scots return to fortress Murrayfield on Saturday to face a Welsh side they have only beaten once in the past 10 years. Vern Cotter’s men, already shorn of the services of captain Greig Laidlaw and number eight Josh Strauss, can expect a second dose of brutal directness from Wales, for whom those wild, impetuous running days of 2005 – a Welsh Grand Slam year – seem now to be a distant, misty-eyed memory. Still, if those electric Scottish backs get their hands on some quality ball, they could cause the Welsh defence some serious problems.

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Six Nations: Ireland vs France (Sunday, February 26, 12:50am HKT)
A trip to Dublin will offer a real test of France’s self-proclaimed return-to-flair credentials after they fairly battered their way through Scotland in Paris a fortnight ago. The Irish pack, on home turf for the first time in this year’s Six Nations, are guaranteed to front up to the mighty French forwards, who bulldozed Scotland at Stade de France. But it’s Les Bleus offloading ability that is likely to cause the men in green the greatest problems. The hosts will want to tire out that big French pack by moving them all over the park, then take advantage of increasing space in the final quarter.

Aviva Premiership: Bristol vs Bath (Sunday, February 26, 9pm HKT)
Bottom-of-the-table Bristol has brought in former South Africa assistant coach Alan Solomons as a consultant for the final seven matches of the season, in a last-ditch bid for Premiership survival ahead of Pat Lam’s arrival next season. And he could not have picked a more important match for either side – not necessarily in terms of league position, though it is vital to both sides for very different reasons, but for historical, deep-seated westcountry-rival reasons. Like many derbies, this may not always be pretty – but what it lacks in aesthetics it will more than make up for in pride and passion.

Six Nations: England vs Italy (Sunday, February 26, 11pm HKT)
Eddie Jones has promised personnel changes for a match that pretty much everyone sees as a foregone conclusion. There has even been speculation that he may blood Owen Farrell as starting captain. But it’s elsewhere that most of any changes are likely to occur. Jones has not named the same wings in any of England’s last six games, but, for the first time in his tenure, he has the full complement of Jack Nowell, Johnny May, Anthony Watson and Elliot Daly to choose from. With Mako Vunipola also back in training at Pennyhill Park, expect a very different team from the one that edged Wales last time out. Italy, meanwhile, has made four changes – including promoting the incredibly talented Michele Campagnaro from the bench to the starting line-up.