LONG READ Time for Australian sides to learn to love the grind of Super Rugby

With five rounds of Super Rugby Pacific now complete, we can officially say we’re past the ‘start’ of the season and about to begin the next middle phase of consolidation before moving onto the run home to the finals.

Over the next three rounds, all remaining teams will have had their first bye by Round 8 over the Easter weekend, which also brings the curiosity of only three games being played across the extra-long weekend in Australia and New Zealand. Feels like a missed opportunity.

The first five rounds have confirmed conclusions already being made about the competition this year. We know it’s already incredibly tight. Five teams have recorded three wins, and another four teams have two wins. Most teams have now dropped a game to teams below them on the table, reinforcing the general feeling that anyone can beat anyone on the day.

The three Australian sides in the top six have certainly shared the spoils. The ACT Brumbies beat the Western Force but lost to the Queensland Reds. The Reds and NSW Waratahs have now both beaten and lost to each other. The Reds have also beaten the Brumbies in a set of three straight wins of improving quality.

But now comes the hard part – the boring, unremarkable, middle part – of the season where titles are definitely not won but almost certainly lost by teams that can’t get into the grind of training, preparation, travel, playing, rinsing and repeating.

Teams destined for finals will set their season up from here. Teams who miss out will look back on avoidable things they did wrong in this part of the season.

The question for the Australian teams is whether they’re ready to love the grind.

Force desperately need to find that final quarter

If there’s a pattern to the Western Force at the moment, it’s that they fight hard early in the second half to get back into contests or even take narrow leads, only to undo all their hard work with a crucial turnover or skill error at a really bad time, which inevitably sees the opposition kick away and win.

It happened against the Blues in Perth, against Moana Pasifika in Pukekohe – albeit they’d built up enough of a half-time lead to hold on – and again against the Highlanders in Dunedin.

With a string of top teams to come, their season might rapidly disappear if they can’t find results soon.

But it didn’t happen against the Hurricanes in Napier on Friday night, because their turnovers and gift opportunities for the home team meant they couldn’t hold onto the ball to mount any comeback. When they did score twice in five minutes inside the last 10 minutes, the game was already gone.

With a bye this weekend, the Force sit 10th and thankful that Moana’s points difference is worse. Both teams have just one win to their name and are in very real danger of losing contact with the teams directly above them.

At McLean Park, the Force led at half-time, and even extended that to 11-5 soon after, but then could only watch on as the Hurricanes ran in three converted tries in 15 minutes. The Force couldn’t even capitalise on a ‘Canes yellow card, with Warner Dearns’ charge-down and runaway try a minute later. At 31-11, it was going to take a hell of a comeback.

The worry for Force supporters is that Simon Cron is running out of levers to pull, to try and find the missing spark that can get them going in 2026. His tight five plus Carlo Tizzano are perfectly equipped for this level and are actually performing pretty well. Cron played a few different backline selection cards last week, starting Kurtley Beale at 12, bringing George Bridge back into the centres and starting Max Burey at full-back.

But again, the Force couldn’t find an attacking shape that troubled the Hurricanes’ defence. Cron said last week he probably wasn’t prepared to throw league convert Zac Lomax into the Round 7 clash against the Chiefs on 28 March, with only a fortnight’s rugby crash-course available beforehand. Desperation has forced coaches to do funny things before, though.

Whatever the move is, the Force have to try something, or address the final quarter fade-out that has long plagued them. They’re rapidly running out of time to do it. With a string of top teams to come, their season might rapidly disappear if they can’t find results soon.

Brumbies get caught trying to out-Fiji the Drua

Playing in Ba, in the north-western and hottest part of Fiji, the ACT Brumbies knew they were going to be in for a hard time taking on the Drua, even playing at a football stadium hosting its first ever game of Super Rugby.

Humidity levels well above 80% mandated drinks breaks, and a rainstorm felt inevitable when the game kicked off. When it arrived at the start of the second half, the Brumbies had to quickly adapt to conditions, probably like trying to play rugby in a bath. Game management and decision-making was always going to be crucial, but so too would timing of their use of the bench.

And even though they got immediate impact – led by Ryan Lonergan and Declan Meredith, probably the form half-back pairing in Australia currently – and were able to hit back with two tries nearing the hour mark, the signs this game was getting away from the Brumbies were already there.

Though the rain slowed the contest to a more comfortable level, the ACT side still found themselves caught playing a game that suited the Drua more than it suited them. Where the Brumbies could have kicked for territory more and forced the Fijians into a more set-piece game – like how they won in Suva last year, actually – they kept playing ball in hand and playing wide, often finding themselves turned over in areas of the pitch that invited Drua counter-attack.

They only had to look at how the Drua kicked penalty goals and kicked for 200 more metres than the Brumbies, from the same number of kicks, to know that the name of this game was always going to be about playing down the other end.

The next few weeks will be all about consolidation – reminding themselves they win more games than they lose simply by sticking to what they do best.

The silver lining might be that it does somewhat prepare the Brumbies for Chiefs this Friday night back in Canberra, with that high counter-attack and turnover game such a big part of the Hamilton outfit’s approach.

It’s also a chance for the Brumbies to quickly get back into their routines with a couple of home games to come now, after three long travel legs in five weeks. And they need to, with two straight losses now following their three straight wins that began their season.

The next few weeks will be all about consolidation for the Brumbies – and reminding themselves that they win more games than they lose simply by sticking to what they do best.

Queensland strong but still searching for identity

Early-season byes often aren’t much help to teams, but it’s certainly noticeable how well the Reds have emerged from theirs in Round 2 following that disappointing opening showing against the Waratahs in Sydney.

At the time, Les Kiss said the bye might actually be a good little circuit breaker for them, a chance to put the first-round loss and some indifferent pre-season trial form behind them, get some bodies back, hit the reset button and go again.

Since then, they have beaten the Highlanders at home in Brisbane, the Brumbies in Canberra for the first time in years, and now they’ve squared the ledger with NSW in a pretty comprehensive showing in front of a building home crowd.

The common point in the three straight wins has been the week-on-week improvement they’ve shown – even if it’s still a bit difficult to tell discernibly what their approach as a team is for 2026.

That’s not a criticism, but rather an observation of how teams take time to gel. Even with a relatively small turnover squad-wise, the Reds’ lengthy injury list at the start of the season, coupled with fly-half Carter Gordon’s return from long-term injury (which may actually have helped ‘un-league’ him, in hindsight), has meant that their general timing and on-field combination has been a bit off.

It’s definitely improving, though. Gordon is imposing himself on the game more already. Little things like his left-to-right pass show his timing is coming back and the Reds are certainly benefitting from the width he’s been able to put into their attacking shape.

Everything else from there has been pure footballing instinct, and that’s what Queensland would be most pleased about. They’re finding ways to get into games, or get ahead in games, and now an ability to close them out. They’d still say they’re a way off their best, but the signs are really good.

The Reds have got themselves into a good position entering this middle part of the season, where if they can keep grinding out results and improving their combinations, an organic identity will emerge.

Are they Australia’s best team yet? That’s going to remain in dispute – but they’re closer than they were last week.

Waratahs have forgotten what worked in early rounds

Oh, for a time machine at the ‘Tahs training base.

If Queensland took the early bye to reset and realign, NSW seemed to have used their Round 3 bye to erase muscle memories and forget what they were doing well. Since then, they’ve been really disappointing, forced changes upon themselves at the selection table, which caused yet more disruption, and then seemed to take an almost negative ‘just don’t lose’ mentality to Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night. Of course, it didn’t work.

What do they do now? They’ve got the Blues, Brumbies and Chiefs coming before another bye, and it looks a tough ask on current form.

But they’ve got to find something in these next few games, and find a way to keep grinding ahead, otherwise their season will get away from them as well.