Super Rugby Tips, Predictions & Match Previews

It is played in the Southern Hemisphere between clubs and franchises from Australia and New Zealand while Fiji and a Pacific Islands side have joined from 2022 onwards. South Africa, Japan and Argentina have left the tournament.

The Crusaders are defending premiers having edged out the Chiefs in the 2025 Grand Final.

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Check out all the teams and their respective information in the table below.

Super Rugby began in 1996 as the Super 12, bringing together provincial franchises from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in the first fully professional cross-border rugby union competition in the Southern Hemisphere. The original format featured 12 teams playing a round-robin season followed by semi-finals and a grand final. Early dominance from New Zealand sides, particularly the Blues and Crusaders, quickly established the tournament’s intensity and commercial appeal. As broadcast revenues and player salaries grew in the professional era, the competition expanded to 14 teams in 2006 (Super 14), then 15 in 2011 with the introduction of the Melbourne Rebels.

Between 2016 and 2019 the tournament underwent aggressive expansion, reaching 18 teams across multiple conferences that included franchises from Argentina and Japan. While this broadened the global footprint, it also created travel strain, uneven time zones and structural complexity that diluted competitive balance. South African teams later exited to align with northern hemisphere competitions, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced the suspension of the international format, replaced temporarily by domestic and trans-Tasman competitions. That disruption accelerated a strategic reset.

From 2022 onward the competition was rebranded as Super Rugby Pacific, consolidating into a streamlined, regional model focused on New Zealand and Australian franchises, alongside the introduction of Moana Pasifika and the Fijian Drua. The revised structure prioritised competitive integrity, simplified scheduling and Pacific engagement, restoring intensity to the trans-Tasman rivalry while embedding Pacific Island representation at elite level. The result has been a faster, more commercially stable competition built around geographic logic, broadcast cohesion and high-tempo rugby aligned with modern audience expectations.