Super Rugby Pacific Playoff Push Intensifies In Round 9 Showdowns
Super Rugby Pacific Playoff Push Intensifies In Round 9 Showdowns
The Super Rugby Pacific playoff race heats up, as top contenders rise, others fall and every match carries major stakes. Watch live on FloRugby.
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We have risers and fallers in the Super Rugby Pacific table this week, and every team in the competition is trying to find its balance for the second half of the season ahead.
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The path to the playoffs is officially on, as the second half of the 2025 season kicks off this weekend, and some teams are in better positions than others to ensure that their seasons won’t end in eight weeks.
Here’s a look at one big thing you need to know about every Super Rugby Pacific match this weekend, with all matches being streamed live in the United States and Canada exclusively on FloRugby:
NOTE: The Western Force are on a bye this week.
Crusaders At Hurricanes
Can Canes Take The Waves?
It’s well-known that the second-place Crusaders have proven themselves to have arguably the most lethal attack in all of Super Rugby Pacific so far, sharing league high for tries with 40 on the year, while holding sole possession of third in points scored with 257.
Their devastating outburst against the Fijian Drua last weekend in a 31-14 win — the Crusaders’ first in their history in Fiji — proved exactly why.
The 14-time Super Rugby champions scored 31 unanswered points to silence the home support, as Will Jordan and company were sensational, with the All Blacks star notching a hat trick of try assists - part of five Crusaders touching down in all.
Macca Springer also remained in top form, scoring his eighth try in four matches, and the bonus-point victory puts the Crusaders within two points of the table-topping Chiefs.
The Hurricanes have stayed afloat in the playoff race partly due to the fact that they have a stout defense, allowing only 26 tries (3.7 per match) all season, but the Crusaders did get the better of them in Round 1 by a 33-25 margin, as Kyle Preston recorded a hat trick.
Is there a similar result for the rematch in the cards in Wellington?
Chiefs At New South Wales Waratahs
Chiefs And Everyone Else
With the exception of a shock loss to the Fijian Drua earlier in the year, the Chiefs have established firmly that they are the class of the Super Rugby Pacific scene this season, and that was further emphasized when last year’s runners-up got past another tough test against the Queensland Reds in Round 8.
The Chiefs handled the wet conditions well at the FMG Stadium Waikato in a top-of-the-table showdown, with Damian McKenzie’s automatic foot (going 5 for 5 on spot kicks) proving crucial, as the All Black wasn’t fazed by the conditions and propelled his team to a third straight victory.
That’s bad news for the New South Wales Waratahs, whose defensive concerns over the past two weeks have become a sudden five-alarm fire after they shipped 57 points to the Hurricanes before letting up 45 to Moana Pasifika last weekend.
The Tahs’ playoff positioning is hanging in the balance, as they’ve slipped to sixth in the table, with others hard-charging behind them, and if things aren’t resolved in a timely manner, a once-promising season could slip away.
The Chiefs have no plans anytime soon to let up, however, especially as the guarantee of a potential home playoff game starts to become closer to reality.
Moana Pasifika At Blues
Pasifika Power
From wooden spoon territory to competing for the playoff places, the sudden rise of Moana Pasifika over the past month has been nothing short of remarkable to watch — unless you’re a fan of one of the teams they’ve stunned recently.
Moana lost three straight to open the season, as it appeared early on that the high-profile offseason addition of All Blacks legend Ardie Savea had done little to reverse its fortunes as a consistent Super Rugby Pacific basement-dweller since the side joined the competition for the 2022 season.
Instead, Moana has shown incredible heart to rescue its season as of late, winning back-to-back matches for the first time in their history after tearing up the New South Wales Waratahs at the North Harbour Stadium this past weekend, scoring six second-half tries (while getting a hat trick from Feleti Sae-Ta’ufo’ou) and coming back from a 14-point halftime deficit to rally and win 45-28.
The slumping defending champion Blues had to scrape and claw for a narrow 19-18 victory over the Hurricanes last weekend.
Meanwhile, while a win at Eden Park is never a gimme, a white-hot Moana can seriously put the rest of Super Rugby Pacific on notice with a statement victory.
Fijian Drua At Highlanders
Whose Slump Ends?
No two teams in Super Rugby Pacific need a win more badly right now than the Fijian Drua and the Highlanders, who are on four- and three-match losing streaks coming into Round 9, respectively.
The Drua’s long-awaited homecoming back to Suva last weekend was spoiled by the might of the visiting Crusaders, who held the hosts scoreless for over an hour in what’s normally been a fortress for them at the HFC Bank Stadium.
Meanwhile, in Perth, the Highlanders’ ongoing misery got even worse as they were outperformed in the second half by the Western Force and also lost forward Sean Withy to a three-match ban after his knee made contact with the head of a Force player in the second half, which saw him pick up a red card and leave the Highlanders a man down for nearly half of the match.
The Drua need a victory to pick them up off of the bottom of the table, where they sit four points adrift of the 10th-place Blues and 10 points out of the playoff places, while the Highlanders need a win as the gains made from their two wins in their first three matches have been all but erased.
Something will have to give in Dunedin this weekend, but both teams that’ll be on the pitch are nearing their breaking points.
Brumbies At Queensland Reds
Reds Must Respond
The Queensland Reds — who entered Round 8 atop the table for the first time since 2012 — had a major chance to announce themselves as the class of Super Rugby Pacific this season in a titanic clash against the Chiefs this past weekend, but it was the New Zealanders who took top spot back in a downpour in Hamilton.
Still, Les Kiss’ men have been strong all season, and if they want to get back on the right track quickly, beating the well-rested Brumbies in a derby clash in Brisbane would be a great way to do it.
Captain Tate McDermott is set to play his 100th match for the club this weekend, but Wallabies skipper Harry Wilson is set to be out for an extended period of time due to a fractured arm, dealing a blow to the Reds’ late-season setup and title charge.
The Brumbies won three out of four matches prior to their bye last week, with winger Andy Muirhead also slated to become a centurion for his club as two of the most experienced Australian try-scoring threats in the competition look to cap their big accomplishments on a high note against a rival this weekend.
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