LONG READ The numbers show Super Rugby Pacific just got even tougher

Super Rugby Pacific is a tough competition, but based on the opening three rounds, it’s gotten even tougher.

Across an admittedly small sample size, two very clear trends have developed, fuelling commentary this is the most exciting start to a Super Rugby campaign in recent memory.

The initiatives introduced in 2024 to keep the game the moving – which worked very effectively last season – seem to have been dialled up again. Referees are consistently ushering water carriers from the field, play is often continuing away from injured players, and scrums or lineouts are regularly being hurried up and set when it’s clear an injured player has no role in that set-piece. Quite why lineouts were being delayed so a full-back could retie a shoelace, or an outside centre could reapply some strapping tape to a finger is a mystery.

Games are regularly finishing well inside two hours of elapsed time, and players making reference to tired bodies, fighting the effects of their own, or exploiting opposition fatigue is happening several times a weekend.

Secondly, the very upward scoreline inclinations are showing no signs of levelling out. Already, there have been 140 tries scores across 15 games, at just over nine per game.

For recent context, by this time last year, only 132 had been tries scored – but across 18 games, with six games per round, as the Melbourne Rebels were still part of the tournament. Two whole tries fewer per game were being scored.

We’ve already seen it, there’s jeopardy, teams can come back from anywhere. There is no given at the moment.

To take the comparison further, where in 2025 the average scoreline is currently 38-30, this time last season it was only 34-21. Teams were winning by bigger margins and conceding fewer points in doing so.

Last season, the losing team was kept to 25 points or fewer 13 times in the opening 18 games. This season, there are just seven instances of teams being held to 25 or fewer over the 15 matches. The Blues are the only team to be kept to 21 or fewer twice – 14 their opener against the Chiefs, and 21 the next weekend against the Highlanders.

Again, we’re only three rounds in, but just one bonus point win separates the Queensland Reds in second place, and the Crusaders in ninth.

So, what’s the reason for the early-season points spree? Why have games been so high-scoring, so free-flowing, so seemingly played as all-out attack?

Well, that’s probably harder to quantify. No coach wants to concede points, and no defence coach wants to concede more points than this time last year. Certainly not with pre-season still visible in the rear-view mirror.

It is harder to say why, and it’s not even clear the coaches themselves can explain it.

“Winning ugly as they say, but it was also a beautiful win,” Queensland coach Les Kiss said after his side had to score in the 80^th minute to beat the Western Force 28-24 in Perth.

“Can they exist in the same space? I’m not sure.

“That’s what this comp’s going to offer. We’ve already seen it, there’s jeopardy, teams that can come back from anywhere. There is no given at the moment. And that’s in every game so far.

“Super Rugby is alive and healthy and kicking, and it showed it again today.”

The competition is tough, because you’ve got to spit out performances every week, and to be able to do that consistently you’ve got to have good depth.

At this early point in a season, it’s not unusual to hear a coach use descriptors such as rusty and clunky, or talk of his team having to blow off cobwebs. Yet there was Kiss trying to polish an ‘ugly win’ into a thing of beauty. It speaks to how close teams are already seeing Super Rugby Pacific, and how the consolidation of Rebels players is impacting the competition further than just the four Australian sides.

There have already been examples of coaches being strategic around team selection and travel, and even targeting certain games more than others.

“We moved on pretty quickly (from the round two win over the Blues),” Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph said on Friday night after his side held on for a 31-29 win against the fast-finishing Moana Pasifika.

“We didn’t even really review the Blues game because in my mind, this game was going to be a lot more difficult.

“The competition is tough, because you’ve got to spit out performances every week, and to be able to do that consistently you’ve got to have good depth.”

The Drua remain winless heading into this weekend, when they’ll host the Chiefs in Lautoka. After losing to the Brumbies in Suva on opening weekend, tight losses followed in Napier and Sydney.

In a bid to get game time into as many players as possible early in the season, the Drua have been making mass changes amid short turnarounds and long transit legs. That has left combinations and cohesion lacking at times, but with two four-point losses and a five-point loss to start their season, Drua coach Glenn Jackson knows it’s nowhere near panic stations yet.

“No, I wouldn’t say it’s must-win yet. This competition’s going to be a lot tougher than previous competitions, in terms of where we’re at,” he said after Friday’s defeat at the Waratahs.

“I think you’ll probably need seven wins and a fair few bonus points (to make the play-offs).

I don’t think we’re at must-win for the competition; it would just be must-win for the boys, to reward the hard work they’ve put in.

“One thing is when we’re losing, we’re picking up bonus points which are going to be really important at the end of the year, but as we know, this competition without the Rebels now has become extremely tough, and every point is going to be important.

“So, I don’t think we’re at must-win for the competition; it would just be must-win for the boys, to reward the hard work they’ve put in.”

The bonus points view is a good one. The majority of bonus points earned in the first three rounds last season were for scoring three tries more than the opposition, while three quarters of bonus points in 2025 have gone to the losing side getting to within seven points of the victors.

With eleven games to come, Jackson can still see plenty of opportunity to pick up the number of wins he suspects his team will need. And those three bonus points the Drua already have could easily be what puts them ahead of others with similar records.

And already, we’ve seen a surprising number of games decided minutes either side of the final siren. Four of the five round three games featured tries scored after the 75^th minute.

“The games are coming down to the wire,” ACT Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham noted after their loss in Hamilton, and in which an 80^th-minute gaffe handed the Chiefs a bigger winning margin than perhaps they deserved.

“Every game I’ve watched this year has been determined in the last ten minutes.

“Something I know we’re searching for as a competition, we want to make sure that every game is competitive right to the end, and I think what I’ve seen in the competition so far is every team has prepared much better than last year.”

So, what does it all mean for round four? Goodness knows. Unpredictability is what you want in a tournament. If, on any given weekend, any team can beat any other, then your competition is in a good place. Unless you’re a coach, of course.

And even just three rounds in, the Super Rugby Pacific supremos already know they’re in for a tricky season.