Super Rugby Pacific Preview & Betting Guide

Super Rugby Preview

Who won the Super Rugby?

The reigning champions are the Crusaders from New Zealand, who defeated the Chiefs (New Zealand) 16-12 in the 2025 final, which was contested at the Apollo Projects Stadium in Christchurch.

When is the Super Rugby?

Whilst the dates for the 2026 tournament are yet to be announced, it is expected to follow suit with previous years, starting in February and running through to the finals series in June.

Who are the favourites to win the Super Rugby?

When the bookmakers price up the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific, you can expect the New Zealand teams to dominate the market given their record in this tournament.

The Crusaders' win in 2025 was the thirteenth time they have won this tournament, and you would expect them to be the favourite to retain their title, a feat they have previously achieved six times.

Who will win the Super Rugby?

Head over to the OLBG Rugby Tips to see who they are tipping to win, not only the outright winner but also matches throughout the tournament.

Additionally, if you only want to view the tips from the top tipsters, those who have shown a profit on rugby over the past year, then head over to the Best Rugby Tipsters page.

What is the Super Rugby Format?

We still await news on whether the league will return to twelve teams in 2026 or whether it will remain eleven after the axing of the Melbourne Rebels last year.

The regular season sees the teams play fourteen times, seven at home and seven away. Six of those fourteen will be against different opposition, the other eight games will be played again four teams, playing each of them twice.

At the end of the regular season, the top six teams advance to the Finals Series, whilst their season is over for the other five (or six) teams.

In the Finals Series, the first round (Qualifying Finals) sees 1st vs 6th, 2nd vs 5th and 3rd vs 4th, with the three winners and the highest seeding loser advancing to the semi-finals.

It's a straight knockout to the final from there, with the location of the finals series to be announced.

Super Rugby Broadcast & Scheduling Info

The Super Rugby Pacific matches can be watched live on Sky Sports if you are located within the UK or Ireland.

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Super Rugby Past Winners

One thing that is for sure is that the New Zealand teams excel in this tournament. There have been twenty-eight completed tournaments, and a team from New Zealand has won twenty-one of those.

That means there have only been seven winners from outside of New Zealand, with four from Australia and three from South Africa, and, of course, the South African teams no longer take part in the tournament.

The most successful team has been the Crusaders, whose win in 2025 took them to thirteen titles, which is by far the most productive, with the next best being the Blues on four wins.

Last ten Super Rugby Champions

Super Rugby Favourite Statistics

With the changes that the tournament has undergone over the years with restrictions on which teams can compete and which cannot, the number of teams in the tournament means the number of games has changed a lot, and you probably have to take the favourite statistics with a pinch of salt the further you go back.

For some sort of consistency, it's probably best to focus on the 2022 season onwards, at least you are dealing with the same or a similar format. Even so, the numbers have jumped around since then, the success rate of the favourites in the 2022 season was 79% which jumped to 84% the following season, then took a dive to 74% in 2024 and dropped further to 69% in 2025.

So the performances of the favourites have been somewhat sporadic over the last four seasons, and last season were the worst figures when looking at the past ten seasons.

In terms of teams who currently play in the tournament, it is no surprise, given their success, that the Crusaders are the most reliable favourites, winning 81% of their games (113-23-4). The Western Force are next on the list with 79% (15-3-1), although from limited games as favourites.

Super Rugby Odds Statistics

Here we look at how teams perform between certain odds. What we know a bettors is that those shorter in price should win more games, simple as that!

The bars shown in blue are where the odds fall within or exceeded their expected percentage, whilst those in orange fall below expectations.

Those really short look as though they fall in line with what is expected; those under 1.50 all show blue lines, which means they hit the expected.

Those between 1.50 & 1.89, however, not so much with three of those four ranges returning win rates of under the expected, so whilst the shorties play ball, those 1.50 or bigger are not as reliable.

Tournament Betting Comparison

Here is a comparison between some of the top rugby union tournaments (Leagues) for winning favourites.

As you can see, the Super Rugby tournament just about squeaks into the top half of the comparison table with 74.70% of winning favourites over the past ten seasons.

That is not too far off the URC, which sees 75.51% of successful favourites behind the two international tournaments so for club Rugby it comes out second on the list of those compared.

Super Rugby Teams

We currently sit at eleven teams for the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific tournament; however, they are hopeful of replacing the Melbourne Rebels to give us a full quota of twelve teams.

Blues

• Stadium: Eden Park
• Capacity: 50,000
• Last Regular Season: 6th (Lost in SF)

The second most successful team in Super Rugby with four championships, those came in 1996, 1997, 2003 and then more recently in 2024. They have made six finals in total, having been beaten finalists in both 1998 & 2022.

ACT Brumbies

• Stadium: GIO Stadium
• Capacity: 25,011
• Last Regular Season: 3rd (Lost in SF)

Six finals for the Brumbies, however, their success rate when reaching the final is not great, their only championships came in 2001 & 2004, whilst they were runners-up in 1997, 2000, 2002 & 2013.

Chiefs

• Stadium: FMG Stadium Waikato
• Capacity: 25,000
• Last Regular Season: 1st (Lost in Final)

Just like the Brumbies, the Chiefs have made it to six finals, and they have gone on to lose four of those. They have been beaten finalists in each of the last three tournaments (2023, 2024 & 2025) as well as in 2009. Their success came in 2012 & 2013.

Crusaders

• Stadium: Apollo Projects Stadium
• Capacity: 18,600
• Last Regular Season: 2nd (Champions)

As already mentioned in this blog, the Crusaders are by far the most successful team in this tournaments, they have been crowned champions in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 & 2025! They also made the finals in 2003, 2004, 2011 & 2014 but were beaten.

Fijian Drua

• Stadium: HFC Bank Stadium
• Capacity: 15,000
• Last Regular Season: 10th

No success so far for Fijian Drua, however, that is not surprising given they only made their first appearance in the Super Rugby in 2022, finishing 11th, 7th, 7th & 10th. They made the finals series in both 2023 & 2024 but lost both at the quarter-finals stage.

Western Force

• Stadium: HBF Park
• Capacity: 20,500
• Last Regular Season: 9th

The Force joined the tournament in 2006, and only two teams have joined since then. They have struggled in the league since joining and very rarely make it to the finals series; they have never made the final itself.

Highlanders

• Stadium: Forsyth Barr Stadium
• Capacity: 30,748
• Last Regular Season: 11th

The Higlanders have made two previous finals, they were sixteen years apart, they were runners-up in 1999, but finally tasted success when crowned champions in 2015.

Hurricanes

• Stadium: McLean Park
• Capacity: 19,700
• Last Regular Season: 4th (Lost in R16)

The Hurricanes have not been to a final since 2016 when they won their one and only championship. Before that, they were runners-up in both the 2006 & 2015 seasons which means they went one better in 2016 than they did in 2015.

Moana Pasifika

• Stadium: North Harbour Stadium
• Capacity: 14,000
• Last Regular Season: 7th

Like Drua, Moana Pasifika only joined the tournament in 2022 so have only had four seasons and they have not had the best of times finishing 12th, 12th & 11th in their first three season, however, they did manage 7th in 2025 winning 6 games, they only won 7 in the previous three season combined.

Queensland Reds

• Stadium: Suncorp Stadium
• Capacity: 52,500
• Last Regular Season: 5th (Lost in QF)

The Reds boost a 100% record in finals, they have only ever made it to one which was in 2011 and then won it, so not as good as it started to sound! They have now been knocked out at the quarter-finals stage of each of the last four seasons.

New South Wales Waratahs

• Stadium: Sydney Football Stadium
• Capacity: 42,500
• Last Regular Season: 8th

The Waratahs have made it to three finals; they were runners-up in both 2005 & 2008 and had to wait until 2014 for their first taste of success, and when trying to defend their crown, they lost in the semi-final a year later.

TBA

• Stadium: N/A
• Capacity: N/A
• Last Regular Season: N/A

Super Rugby Records

With all of the changes of formats and teams, it's hard to put across such individual records like most appearances, most points, most tries, etc, but here are some one-off records in this tournament.

Most points in a match

The top player scored an astonishing fifty points in a single game!

• Gavin Lawless scored 50 points (1997)
• Robert du Preez scored 38 points (2018)
• Hayden Parker scored 36 points (2018)
• Morné Steyn scored 35 points (2010)

Most tries in a match

The record is shared by two players, and then one behind those two is a host of players with four tries.

• Sean Wainui scored 5 tries for the Chiefs (2021)
• Macca Springer scored 5 tries for the Crusaders (2025)

Most Team Points

Three teams have surpassed the 90-point mark in games; here they are.

• Crusaders scored 96 points vs Waratahs (2002)
• Lions scored 94 points vs Sunwolves (2017)
• Bulls scored 92 points vs the Reds (2007)