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Super Rugby Pacific introduces ‘lucky loser’ as part of new format for 2025

The Blues celebrate winning the Super Rugby Pacific Grand Final match between the Blues and Chiefs at Eden Park in Auckland on June 22, 2024. (Photo by MICHAEL BRADLEY / AFP) (Photo by MICHAEL BRADLEY/AFP via Getty Images)

Super Rugby Pacific will look fairly different in 2025 with 11 teams set to compete over an extended 16-round regular season. The Finals Series will also see the introduction of a “lucky loser” which offers a second chance to one of the teams who finish higher on the ladder.

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On Friday, SRP confirmed the 11 teams that will compete for championship glory in 2025. The ACT Brumbies, Blues, Chiefs, Crusaders, Fijian Drua, Highlanders, Hurricanes, Moana Pasifika, NSW Waratahs, Queensland Reds and Western Force will line up next season.

With the Melbourne Rebels no longer active in the competition, organisers have reduced the amount of teams that qualify for the playoffs from eight to six. The three-week Finals Series will include Qualifying Finals, Semi-Finals and the Grand Final.

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The three winners of the Qualifying Finals will progress to the next round, as well as the “lucky loser” who will get another chance to challenge for the title. That side will be the highest-seeded losing team – one of the sides who place first, second, third or fourth on the ladder.

One semi-final will pit the top-seeded side against the fourth-seed, while second and third go head-to-head in the other elimination clash. The two victors will progress through to the Grand Final, with the higher seed set to host the big dance.

But, before all of that, rankings will be determined by a 16-round regular season, which will see each team play 14 matches and take two bye weeks. Each side will play seven home games and seven away fixtures during the regular season.

Next year’s SRP season will get underway on February 14, which is one week earlier than previous seasons. There will be three family-friendly Sunday afternoon games throughout the season, with competition organisers open to exploring more Sunday fixtures in the future

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“We’re thrilled to reveal the revamped structure, some new features and the start date for the next season of Super Rugby Pacific,” Super Rugby Pacific CEO Jack Mesley said in a statement.

“The fans are always front of mind and while the full draw will be released soon, we wanted to give them an early insight into what they can look forward to in 2025.

“The introduction of three Sunday afternoon fixtures will make it easier for families to experience the excitement of the Super Rugby Pacific, and we can look to build on that offering in future seasons.

“We’re particularly excited about the new Finals Series, which is designed to produce highly competitive matchups while still rewarding the teams that finish at the top of the table.”

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FEATURES OF 2025 SUPER RUGBY PACIFIC

  • 11 teams
  • Teams will play 14 regular season matches, consisting of 7 home and 7 away matches
  • Teams will play four teams twice, with a focus on rivalry matches, and the six other teams once
  • The top six teams on the table at the end of the regular season qualify for the playoffs
  • Qualifying Finals will be 1 v 6, 2 v 5 and 3 v 4, with the higher-seeded sides to host. The three winners progress to the next round
  • They will be joined by a “lucky loser” – the highest-seeded losing team who will also progress through to the Semi-Finals
  • Semi-finals will be 1 v 4 and 2 v 3. The two winners of the Semi-Finals will qualify for the Grand Final

2025 SUPER RUGBY PACIFIC FINALS SERIES

FINALS WEEK ONE – QUALIFYING FINALS

1st seed vs 6th seed

2nd seed vs 5th seed

3rd seed vs 4th seed

FINALS WEEK TWO – SEMI-FINALS

1st seed vs 4th seed

2nd seed vs 3rd seed

FINALS WEEK THREE – GRAND FINAL

1st seed vs 2nd seed

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Comments

7 Comments
T
Teddy 98 days ago

This looks like total dog shyte. The ABs can only go further backwards at this rate.


Any wonder their top dogs are stealing a living over in Japan.

P
Pabst 99 days ago

Lucky loser* should be the new name of the competition. What a mess…

B
B 99 days ago

As long as the competition is genuine in terms of physicality and skill sets.


The play off concept isn't anything new and looks pretty much like... the goal line drop out, 50-22 and TMO/Bunker that rugby union decided to copy from rugby league.


With that said, I'm looking forward to seeing the day when Rugby Union copies another Rugby League concept with a World Club Challenge Cup.


The winner of the Super Rugby Pacific plays the United Rugby Championship winner...

Alliance Stadium would be a good venue for starters.

R
RugCs 99 days ago

This is surely not a serious suggestion, is it?

S
SK 99 days ago

What nonsense. So if you finish first you cannot be eliminated in the qualifying phase. Even if you lost the match to 6th place you will go through as the lucky loser. You could lose the match on purpose or play a B team and lose just to ensure the 6th place side goes through instead of another higher ranked lucky loser.

R
RugCs 99 days ago

That would be funny. There is no sense in that, if a team based on log position cannot be eliminated from an elimination match then what the point of having an elimination match.

B
Bull Shark 99 days ago

Getting desperate.


Get 4 or 5 Japan teams in. Make it a 16 team knockout cup and move on. Ala the champions cup.


Final in a neutral stadium.


Shall I run the show for you guys?

W
Wayneo 99 days ago

🙄

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J
JW 24 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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