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Super Rugby Pacific schedule strength: Who wins the run home?
By Ned Lester
Just five rounds remain in the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific regular season, and there’s still plenty of water to go under this bridge.
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The Chiefs and Crusaders may have created an eight-point buffer at the top of the table, but this season has proven time and time again that anyone can beat anyone, and therefore, no seeding is safe.
However, not all schedules are created equal, and as the final month of round-robin action approaches, some teams face a Himalayan hill sprint to push their case for a playoff berth. Others, relatively speaking, have an easier go of it.
To better understand each team’s playoff chances, we’ve trawled through each team’s schedule, finding their opponents’ win percentages and then averaging them out to see who has faced the most challenging schedule to date, and for whom the worst is yet to come.
Here are the results.
Schedule strength to date
- Blues – 60.7% win rate of opponent
- Drua – 55.1
- Force – 54.4
- Highlanders – 52.2
- Reds – 51.7
- Moana – 51.2
- Hurricanes – 47.1
- Chiefs 45.7
- Waratahs – 45.1
- Brumbies – 43.2
- Crusaders 42.5
Four of the reigning champions’ 10 games this season have come against the two top of the table teams, who each boast an 80 per cent win rate. No other team has played the Crusaders and Chiefs twice – yet. Eight of the Blues’ 10 games have come against top-six teams.
On the other end of the spectrum are the Crusaders, who have played half of their games against teams currently outside of the playoff picture.
There may be some alarm bells ringing in Canberra and Sydney as well. With a relatively forgiving schedule in the rearview, the Waratahs and Brumbies will be hoping they’ve done enough to get points on the board while the sun shines, as stormier waters lie ahead.
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The real winners of the season to date are the Force, who currently occupy a playoff spot despite having had the third-most difficult season schedule so far.
Super Rugby Pacific
P
W
L
D
PF
PA
PD
BP T
BP-7
BP
Total
1
Chiefs
10
8
2
0
37
2
Crusaders
10
8
2
0
37
3
Brumbies
10
6
4
0
29
4
Reds
9
6
3
0
27
5
Hurricanes
10
4
5
1
22
6
Force
10
4
5
1
22
7
Waratahs
9
5
4
0
21
8
Moana Pasifika
10
4
6
0
20
9
Blues
10
3
7
0
17
10
Highlanders
10
3
7
0
17
11
Fijian Drua
10
2
8
0
11
Schedule strength remaining
- Highlanders – 61.3
- Brumbies – 60.2
- Crusaders – 56.4
- Waratahs – 56.3
- Hurricanes – 54.2
- Drua – 52.1
- Chiefs 48.9
- Moana – 46.3
- Force – 41.4
- Blues – 40.2
- Reds – 40.1
Look away, Highlanders fans. Sitting 10th on the table as it stands, it will take a Herculean effort for Jamie Joseph’s side to get into the top six from here. The Southerners face Moana Pasifika and the Hurricanes before rounding out the round-robin with derbies against the Crusaders and Chiefs.
The Reds, on the other hand, can dare to dream of home playoff fixtures, should they execute down the stretch. The Queenslanders face the lowly Drua twice in their final slate of five games.
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As fringe playoff teams, the Force and Moana Pasifika look well-placed to end the season well, with both outfits within reach of one of their best-ever seedings in Super Rugby. The schedule gives those teams a slight edge on the Hurricanes, who own the fifth seed by the smallest of margins.
The ladder-leading Chiefs face an ever-so-slightly tougher schedule than the one they’ve faced to date, but are well-placed to lock up the top seed given their top-of-the-table buddies, the Crusaders, have the third-toughest run home. The two sides will meet next weekend in a contest that will go a long way in deciding the top seed.
The Brumbies, currently third, find themselves facing a battle-hardening run home, with three tough Australian derbies yet to play before finishing up against the Crusaders. The challenge for Stephen Larkham’s men will be to stay in the top three to keep home-field advantage in the qualifying finals.
The Waratahs currently only sit on the outside of the playoff picture looking in because of a bye in round 11, but will need to find the winning formula away from home in order to keep their playoff hopes alive. While they host the Reds and Crusaders, the Sydneysiders will travel to Canberra, Perth and Auckland over the next five weeks.
Having impressed with their competitive introduction to Super Rugby Pacific, the Drua now face the wooden spoon in 2025. However, they are in line to host three of their final four contests, and we know how dangerous they can be at home, so watch this space.
The big story here, though, is the reigning champions, the Blues. Currently sitting ninth with a measly three wins from 10 games, a trip to Fiji is the only time they’ll leave Auckland in the next five weeks, even if one of those contests is over the bridge at Moana Pasifika’s stronghold.
The Aucklanders sit five points behind the fifth and sixth-seeded Hurricanes and Force, and while they’d have to leapfrog at least three teams to make it, there is championship pedigree lurking somewhere behind the curtain for Vern Cotter’s team. If the coach can find it, the run home could get very interesting indeed.
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