Glasgow Warriors will play any home United Rugby Championship (URC) final at Murrayfield, with league bosses confident the Taylor Swift roadshow will have packed up and left long before then.

Home advantage all the way through the playoffs is looking less likely now for Franco Smith’s side than it was a month ago but contingency plans have been put in place just in case.

Warriors, the fourth seed, will play their quarter-final against the Stormers at Scotstoun this Saturday evening and would also use their own stadium for any potential semi-final, should they make it through and Ospreys also defeat Munster to reach the last four.

With the higher seed always enjoying home advantage, Glasgow would only host the final should they be up against either Benetton or Ulster.

With Scotstoun’s 8,000-capacity too small, the club and the URC investigated the possibility of playing at Celtic Park, as they did when Warriors lost to Leinster in the 2019 Pro14 final.

That has been ruled out, however, due to ground improvement works at Parkhead, with Ibrox and Hampden also unavailable.

Murrayfield will welcome Taylor Swift this weekend for three sold-out concerts but Martin Anayi, the URC chief executive, is confident the stadium will be back in shape before any grand final on Saturday June 22.

Anayi said: “We would play that at Murrayfield if they [Glasgow] got through to the final [as the home team].

“We spoke to Celtic Park after having a final there a few years ago between Glasgow and Leinster. They’re doing some refurbishments inside the ground so that wasn’t available. So we’ll play it at Murrayfield.

“At this stage we might as well be Swifties as Taylor Swift comes up [in discussions] about our final more than anything else!

“She’s obviously doing an unbelievable world tour right now. It’s the yin and yang of playing in June.

“The yin, if that’s the positive, is that you see younger audiences engaged and coming to watch rugby, while the yang might be that it’s a little bit more difficult to secure some of these big stadiums.

“But we’re in good shape with Murrayfield I think.”

In a wideranging end-of-season state of the nation, Anayi also revealed that the league would give consideration to having all games on the last day kick off at the same time in future seasons.

Edinburgh missed out on the playoffs after losing to Benetton, a result that saw Ospreys – who played later in the day – sneak in at their expense.

“In Pro12 and Pro14 we had simultaneous kick-offs [in the final round],” he added.

“There is so much riding on these games that it would make sense to do that from a sporting point of view.

“Where we are in the world of broadcast, it tends to be something that they like spread throughout the weekend. It’s about balance between what we as fans want, which is probably to see the games kick off at the same time, and what our partners require a business need, which is having them spread out.

“It’s certainly something that would have enhanced what was a pretty cool end to the season. It tends to be broadcast-led. When we move into the next TV cycle, which is 2025-26, we’ll try to fill that in and see where we get to.

“Everybody in our office and around the world was waiting for that last try in the last game and that’s what you want - you want that jeopardy, you want that unknown quantity to your league and you want every game to mean something. 

“I feel that in the last round we had almost every game being really meaningful and that’s great credit to the clubs pushing all the way through the season.

“There have been some upsets, there have been some teams going down to South Africa and not getting the wins they’d hoped for and vice-versa. And that’s what we want and that’s what fans want, isn’t it, that jeopardy?”

There are also no plans in place to shrink the number of playoff spots available.

“Eight was brought in by our clubs, our sporting community, and we all collectively agreed to the format,” added Anayi.

“I think it gave our teams a sense of continuing to play right throughout the season - there’s always something to play for. The top four are clearly getting home advantage, so there’s something for each layer of that top eight to play for.

“And then obviously from the EPCR point of view the top eight qualify through to the Champions Cup, unless like the Sharks did one of our teams win the Challenge Cup, and then it goes to the top seven. 

“I genuinely feel that actually the competition is in rude health. We’ve had almost every game being really meaningful and that’s what you try and aspire to in terms of getting jeopardy in your league, meaningful games in your league. I feel like we’ve had that and teams have gone right through . . . .

“I think we had 11 teams that could have qualified through to the final eight, and Ospreys with a two per cent chance of getting through did eight with all the results that went their way and they got the five points. So I’m really pleased with how it’s gone, genuinely. I wouldn’t change it.”