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Rugby Australia want Bledisloe Cup Anzac Test back on the table


Leroy Carter of New Zealand and Fabian Holland of New Zealand hold the Bledisloe Cup during the The Rugby Championship & Bledisloe Cup match between New Zealand All Blacks and Australia Wallabies at Eden Park on September 27, 2025 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
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Appetite for a Bledisloe Cup Anzac Day Test has returned as officials scramble to capitalise on the wildly successful Super Round return.

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Three sell-out crowds of 25,000 fans watched five Super Rugby Pacific games between Friday and Sunday at Christchurch’s new, inner-city roofed One NZ Stadium.

It created over $6 million of spending and unprecedented competition fandom in the precinct and a timely feel-good hit for the competition.

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A multi-year deal to return to the city is being sought but, after three lukewarm years in Melbourne and no Super Round in 2025, there is now fresh interest on both sides of the Tasman to host it.

But Rugby Australia are thinking bigger, with a one-off Bledisloe Cup Test back on the radar for April 25, allowing Super Round to slide to another weekend and maximise exposure of a competition that’s battled for legitimacy.

Fresh New Zealand Rugby leadership are keen to explore the concept after it was floated by RA in 2024, but shot down as unviable.

“Some of those conversations are already live … as the weekend went on the conversation moved from ‘how good’s this’ to ‘how are we going to manage things like that in the future’,” Super Rugby Pacific boss Jack Mesley said.

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The weekend began with World Rugby chair Brett Robinson taking a clip at ARL Commission counterpart Peter V’Landys, declaring rugby remained the game of the Pacific despite the likely exit of Moana Pasifika from the competition next season.

Rugby league is building in popularity in New Zealand’s south island, where the case for the country’s second NRL team is growing.

But after players, coaches gave widespread endorsement and the 14,000 travelling fans – of which about one third came from Australia – flooded the city in rugby jerseys Mesley said it served as a timely reminder.

“I’m Mr Positive about our competition and there’s a lot of good news stories in Super Rugby Pacific,” he said.

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“Those people that might read some of the press that don’t believe me, hopefully they walk away with as much optimism as I have in the quality of our product.

“We need to get our product in front of more people, more often.”

City officials, who signed off on a three-year Supercars deal that began last week, expect the economic boost to exceed their forecasts but will crunch the numbers before committing to Super Round’s return.

But Crusaders chief executive Colin Mansbridge was bullish, quoting Christchurch rapper Scribe who performed on Friday’s opening night.

“He said to me, after his show … ‘how many venues do you know like this? How many stadiums do you know like this? Not many, if any’,” he said.

“You absolutely have to have Super Round here next year. Are we announcing it today?

“Players were saying, ‘this is like playing in Europe’, and there wasn’t enough Sweet Caroline, other than that the fans loved it.”

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16 Comments
K
KwAussie 44 days ago

With the disruption this would make to Super rugby I can’t see this as a good idea. This year the SR games have been great with upsets and close battles. Not sure why you’d want to change that

B
Bruiser 44 days ago

The ABs would need to assemble 2 months earlier than is practical. The Super round was outstanding…leave it alone. If anything play a Bledisloe on Kings Birthday weekend

J
Jmann 44 days ago

It’s just too early in the season and too disruptive to SR. I can’t see it happening.

u
unknown 44 days ago

We are masochists !

Perhaps Turkey ?

r
rs 45 days ago

Just bring in coaches that’ll play an exciting brand of rugby. And don’t overthink having quick scrums, it’s doesn’t really make much of a difference. Often, there’s teams are both grinding each other own with few exciting tries scored in the first half. More counterattacking styles of play might add more excitement.


Great that super round was a success. It’s important that domestic rugby grows

J
JW 44 days ago

I really enjoy rugby better when players are fatigued, and taken long and numerous resets really hinders this, but I agree, after 6N precedent of having adds during a game, I’d go the NFL route with scrums as well.


Allow them 1 minute (of adds) and have them set and ready over the ball when TV comes back to live play, and hopefully tie it in with better scrum success (less resets or penalties) and I think you have a winner.

T
Tahs2win 45 days ago

Super round can happen at any round of super rugby. A third bledisloe on Anzac Day is a great idea.

J
JW 44 days ago

Not to the success of this years Anzac round. The aussies tripping over added a lot imo, and would they continue to do that if it wasn’t with an ANZAC meaning?


Also without the Anzac meaning you do not have the Aus v NZ matchups, and I really don’t think two aussie teams are going to draw much of a crowd in Chch.


It all depends on the amount of by in of the fans, and if they can continue to till out every game (which should be the goal of a small stadium like that imo) year after year.

O
Over the sideline 44 days ago

Bledisloe can happen any time. Stick with SRP for April.

B
BleedRed&Black 45 days ago

So yet another brain dead idea from Rugby Australia, the worst run Tier One rugby union, a zombie idea from a zombie organisation. Just when SRP finally has a major success after so much negative publicity, Rugby Australia wants to throw that all away and do even more damage to SRP. RA have said it's a no-brainer, and it is, but not in the way they want it to be.


If RA get their way planting a Bledisloe game on ANZAC weekend will reduce the first nine rounds of SRP to nothing more than a sequence of trial games for the AB's and Wallabies. SRP already has a strong reputation for this. This will make it ten times worse. Then RA want to destroy the SRP round before ANZAC day weekend so the AB's and Wallabies can assemble. Then they want to kick SRP out of ANZAC day weekend, forcing a full stop on the comp. Then they want to destroy the round following their Bledisloe Cup as the SRP teams try and reintegrate their AB's and Wallabies. The first three months of SRP will be wrecked by this utterly stupid idea.


Instead of having SRP get to a point where it has developed some momentum, instead of the games being crucial for the playoffs, instead of giving SRP its biggest weekend before the playoffs, RA want to throw all that away so the Bledisloe Cup can Bigfoot that weekend and reduce the months up to it to nothing more than a training run for the Bledisloe. Other than the catastrophic damage it will do to SRP, a competition struggling for survival, there will be no more revenue than a Bledisloe later in the year, and because of the damage it will do to SRP, the publicity around it will be entirely negative. Yet another appallingly destructive, entirely counter-productive idea from the worst run national organisation in a very poorly run sport.


This latest demonstration of RA’s gross incompetence is entirely a product of the fact that it now control three of their four SRP teams. No dissent from them. If NZR think about conforming with RA's push towards disaster, as they have so often in the past and might be doing now, then hopefully NZ's SRP clubs will oppose it tooth and nail. After all the damage RA and NZR have done to SR over the decades they should know that nothing good comes out of those organisations, and if it comes out of RA it is ten times worse.

t
tj 45 days ago

This year’s Super Round got it right, when you take it to rugby heartland, the atmosphere, turnout, and energy are on another level.

I
Icefarrow 45 days ago

League growing in the South? 🤣

Massive difference between going to a game and joining a club.

S
SB 45 days ago

It would be quite cool to see a Bledisloe test earlier in the year but no idea how the calendar will allow it.

O
Over the sideline 45 days ago

I dont see the need for an extra Bledisloe test. Loved the Super round in Christchurch.

J
JW 45 days ago

I mean it’s one way Aus can bring something to the table, filling out an MCG (if they want to be cruel to fans) or homebush each year.


But obviously super round was this good, would only remain this good by having aussies trip over, with the ANZAC angle. So you a swapping one for the other, is it worth it to ruin super round?


Would two aussie teams draw a crowd at a nuetral venue?

P
PickOllieMathisOrKeepLosing,Rob. 45 days ago

JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN

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