Up to 60 Wallabies and All Blacks players will be missing from Super Rugby Pacific in the round before the inaugural Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup clash in Brisbane next year.
A stand-down arrangement for Test players around the April 25 clash emerged as the 2027 Super Rugby Pacific schedule was released on Tuesday, with the historic addition of a first Bledisloe Cup clash wedged midway through the season.
Following the collapse of Moana Pasifika, the Super Rugby Pacific competition has been cut back to 10 teams but extended to 17 rounds, with each franchise getting a lucrative extra home game. The competition will also feature an expanded three-week finals, with the top two getting the first weekend off.
Super Rugby Pacific will see the return of Sunday afternoon fixtures in Sydney for the first time since 2018, with the Waratahs playing the Crusaders and the Force in daylight games in rounds nine and 12. There are 10 Sunday afternoon games across the competition, up from four last season.
The first sighting of Angus Crichton as a Waratah – and Michael Cheika’s first game back as Tahs coach – will come in Canberra on Friday, February 12, in NSW’s opening clash with the Brumbies. Crichton could potentially square up against Wallabies star Len Ikitau in the midfield, with the latter returning to the Brumbies after a year playing for Exeter in England.
Super Round returns to Christchurch after a highly successful event last season, but it has been shifted forward two weeks to round eight to accommodate the introduction of the much-anticipated Bledisloe Cup clash on Anzac Day in Brisbane.
All teams bar two will have a bye on the weekend of April 23-25th, which will be centred on the Sunday afternoon Test match at Suncorp Stadium.
The Reds and Blues will play on the eve of the Bledisloe Cup clash at the same venue, in the sole round 11 fixture. The sides successfully lobbied to be part of the weekend by continuing their traditional Anzac round rivalry game.
Organisers explored a split round, as employed by the NRL around State of Origin matches, before settling on the simpler solution of giving eight teams the bye at the same time. The Reds and Blues have the bye in round 10.
Though it hasn’t yet been officially announced, multiple informed sources with knowledge of the plans of RA and NZR confirmed all players selected in the Wallabies and All Blacks squads will be unavailable for the four Super Rugby games played in round 10, and the Reds-Blues game as well.
Bledisloe Cup players selected will go into their respective national camps immediately after round nine and spend two weeks before Anzac Day preparing for the Test.
Squads will likely be around 30 players each for the Wallabies and All Blacks, meaning most Australian and Kiwi franchises will have to reach deep into their ranks – and possibly even club rugby – to field a 23-man side.
Minus their internationals, the Waratahs will meet the Highlanders, the Force play the Crusaders and the Brumbies play the defending champion Hurricanes. The depleted Chiefs will arguably have the toughest gig, up against a full-strength Fijian Drua.
“The expansion of the comp is really good,” Super Rugby chief executive Jack Mesley said. “It’ll enable our clubs to host more games each year and with one mostly centralised bye, it makes for a more equal comp.
“We announced a while ago the change to the finals format, which is a real plus for us as well. And then the makeup of the actual regular season, we’ve been pushing hard for more Sundays and to try to get them a bit more balanced.
“We had more Sundays last year, but they were pretty much all in New Zealand, so it’s great to have some Sundays in Australia.”
Mesley said the mid-season run of Super Round and the Anzac Bledisloe Test, which will be preceded by selection debate, will provide great energy for the competition.
“I reckon the conversation is going to be, ‘Who’s going to be making those teams into that Anzac Bledisloe?’” Mesley said.
“There’s lots of derbies; we’ve purposefully tried to get as many derbies into that round nine where we think selection will come post-round nine. So we’ve got a few really juicy head-to-heads in that as Dave Rennie and Les [Kiss] will be watching that keenly to announce into the Bledisloe.”
The Brumbies will take two games to Manuka Oval for the first time since 1996, when Joe Roff scored four tries against the Natal Sharks.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Friday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
Iain Payten is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
About the Author
