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Highlanders match against Rebels could be relocated to Sydney amid COVID-19 uncertainty

(Photo by Teaukura Moetaua/Getty Images)

Pack your bags for Queenstown or Sydney.

That’s the message to Highlanders players from the franchise’s chief executive Roger Clark, who remains confident his side will still play the Rebels this weekend despite Melbourne’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.

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The quarantine-free travel bubble between Victoria and New Zealand was paused for 72 hours on Tuesday following an outbreak of the virus in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Travel restrictions are scheduled to be lifted at 7:59pm on Friday NZT, but six new COVID-19 cases were recorded on Wednesday, taking the total number of cases from the recent outbreak to 15.

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The growing number of cases could see international travel in and out of the state paused beyond its Friday deadline or force Melbourne into a lockdown.

Such measures have the potential to wreak havoc with Super Rugby Trans-Tasman, particularly for the Highlanders and Melbourne Rebels, who are scheduled to play each other at the Queenstown Events Centre on Sunday.

However, Clark has moved to alleviate concerns the fixture won’t go ahead as planned as he revealed the Rebels have relocated from their Melbourne headquarters to Sydney, where they plan to fly to Queenstown from on Friday.

“The Rebels will be based in Sydney from later on today, and so they’ll be ready once the 72-hour timeframe falls off on Friday night,” Clark told media on Wednesday.

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“They’ll be ready to fly to Queenstown on Saturday morning as originally planned, just from out of Sydney rather than Melbourne.”

That should allay fears that Queenstown will miss out on its first Super Rugby match since 2010, but it also hasn’t stopped Clark from devising a contingency plan to relocate the fixture to Sydney if further complications arise over the coming days.

It wouldn’t be the first time a Super Rugby match has been held in a neutral venue as the Sunwolves played the Brumbies and Crusaders in Wollongong and Brisbane, respectively, during the initial outbreak of the virus in Japan last March.

Another option would be to cancel the fixture entirely, something which occurred last year when the Blues and Crusaders had their final Super Rugby Aotearoa match canned amid heightened COVID-19 alert levels.

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However, Clark is confident the match will go ahead, either in Queenstown or Sydney, as he said the “integrity” of Super Rugby Trans-Tasman depends on the event taking place.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to play the game for the integrity of the competition,” he said.

“At this stage, we’re doing everything we can because we’ve put a lot of work into this game and we’ve got a lot of support at every level in New Zealand to play this game and to launch Queenstown as a tourism mecca again for the ski season.

“We’re doing everything we possibly can to make sure this game happens in Queenstown at 2:35 on Sunday.”

Clark added that tickets have continued to sell even as doubts linger over whether the Rebels will make it to New Zealand.

“The support and the ticket sales have been absolutely unbelievable up until about 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, and then they, as you can imagine, slowed down.

“We did sell about 25 tickets in the first hour this morning, so there’s some people that are still confident it’s going to happen.

“Obviously anyone that buys a ticket, if we don’t play the game, we will refund anyway, but, at the moment, ticket sales are great, the community has been absolutely fantastic.

“There’s a lot of goodwill across the country – and in Australia, for that matter – for this game to go ahead, so we’re just keeping our fingers crossed that, form a health perspective, everything goes well.”

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R
RedWarrior 1 hour ago
Three-way race to be number one in World Rugby men's rankings

IF SA and NZ win then its 1,2,3 SA/NZ/IRL Otherwise as you were. This is largely irrelevant beyond bragging rights.


As I have pointed out elsewhere the practical use of the Rankings is to determine the seedings bands for the RWC draw. The draw takes place early 2026 and hopefully the rankings will be taken from then.


Important to be in the top 6, the top 12. (and likely the top 4).

This is because there are now 6 groups in the RWC 2027.

If you are in top 6 you are in Seeding Band 1. That means none of the other top 6 will be in your group.

Seeding Band 2 are teams from 7-12, who will have a top 6 team but no other 7-12 team.

After England's defeat by NZ there is clear water between NZ in 3rd, France in 4th and England in 5th. England are desperate for top4, ill come back and explain why later.

Lets look at Seeding Band 1 and 6th place. If you make 6th, no top 6 team is in your group, you are top dog. If you win your group, you won't be facing a top 6 team in your 1/8th final, you will be facing a weaker team. If you fail to make 6th place you WILL have a top 6 team in your group and if you don't win your group you WILL (probably) meet a top 6 in the 1/8 final. That's massive.


Its Argentina holding 6th now. Assuming England hold 5th, then its a 4 horse race for 6th. Argentina, Scotland, Italy and ...Australia. (ranked 6,7,8,9)

Australia play the Lions in NH summer 2025 they are running out of time to get up to 6th for their own RWC. They MUST make a move now. They must beat Wales and they really must beat Scotland to gain points and take points off them. Could they surprise England or Ireland? England may be the better bet but Schmidt knows Ireland so well having masterminded their downfall in France.

Another one to watch is Italy V Argentina. Italy are ambitious and they will want to start pushing the likes of Argentina. If they win this they are still in the hunt. Well worth a watch either way.


Top4: I think the top 6 will be seeded, all the way through from the draw. If thats the case then the top 4 will be seeded to avoid each other until the semi. Good for more certainty around ticket sales etc. That's a possible reason why England want in there. You're not in there you are hitting a top 4 team in a QF. That's an extra 50:50 match you can do without and avoid by being top 4.


Lets look at what Seeding bands might look like with todays rankings:


Seeding Band 1

IRE/SA/NZ/FRA/ENG/ARG

Seeding Band 2

SCO/ITA/AUS/FIJ/WAL/GEO


Sample Aussie strongest pool opponent and 1/8th final opponent if in top 6

Strongest pool opponent: FIJI

1/8 final opponent GEORGIA

Prognosis: advance to 1/4 and potentially beyond


Sample Aussie strongest pool opponent and 1/8th final opponent if NOT in top 6

Strongest pool opponent: SOUTH AFRICA

1/8 final opponent NEW ZEALAND

Prognosis: You know the prognosis


I am pretty sure this is not lost on Joe Schmidt?


Keep in mind when enjoying the matches.

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