Fatigue. Jeopardy. Fantasy. These are the buzzwords driving Super Rugby Pacific’s remarkable surge in 2025, with faster games, tighter margins and nifty law changes boosting crowd attendances, TV ratings and greater success for Australian sides.
After five weeks of competition, Australia and New Zealand each have three teams in the top six, a remarkable level of parity given NSW finished with the wooden spoon in 2024, no Australian side has won the Super Rugby competition in over a decade and the trans-Tasman Bledisloe Cup hasn’t left the All Blacks’ stranglehold since 2002.
Related: Power shift with Pasifika edge brings Super Rugby back to life
Yet each of Australia’s four franchises have made flying starts to 2025. The Waratahs (fifth) won their first three games for the first time since 2009, the Western Force went unbeaten until round three, the ACT Brumbies (fourth) upset the Blues at Eden Park to break a 12-year hoodoo, and a reborn Queensland Reds (third) have rock’n’rolled to 3-1.
This golden month is what woebegone Wallabies fans have been praying for before the “golden decade” of a British & Irish Lions tour this winter, men’s and women’s World Cups at home in 2027 and 2029 and sevens rugby at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane – a cavalcade of major events Rugby Australia think can reverse a current $80m debt.
RA CEO Phil Waugh is recently back from the Six Nations tournament in Europe. “All they’re talking about is who’s going to be selected for this Lions tour,” he said. “It’s where scarcity meets enormity – 12 years since the 2013 series, 40,000 people flying out and almost 500,000 tickets already sold. It’s a special time for rugby fans.”
The way Australia’s players are priming for the Lions challenge is also lifting spirits.
The " target="_blank" class="link"> Reds-Waratahs clash last weekend was a blitzkrieg of classic running rugby. NSW struck after just 120 seconds before the Reds roared back with five tries, all witnessed by a pulsating crowd of 20,072 at Suncorp Stadium. It was the biggest Reds home crowd since 2021 and part of a 34% rise in Super Rugby crowds in 2025.
“That style of rugby is compelling to fans,” said Super Rugby CEO Jack Mesley. “The games are faster and closer so more people watch and they watch for longer.” The 2025 season is also the highest scoring in Super Rugby history, with 62.4 points per game, yet an average winning margin of 9.6 and 44% decided by four points or less.
After his appointment in July last year, Mesley asked fans what they wanted in SRP. “They wanted more rugby and less wasted time for scrum resets and minor injuries, more protection for halfbacks and less time for kicking penalties and conversions. They also wanted greater backing of referees on field and less delays with the TMO.”
Fans like what they’ve seen so far. Free-to-air viewers on Nine have risen 36% with double-digits growth on Stan – vital growth with a new broadcast deal on the table from 2026. The rugby style has been rugged and expansive, with most games unfolding at breakneck speed and teams prioritising attack, kicking for corners in a quest for converted tries rather than chipping away with penalty kicks or field goals.
It makes player fatigue a major factor within the 80-minute dervish of each game and better tests squad depth in a 16-round regular season before a six-team finals series. Local coaches are duly rotating squads to rest key Wallabies, with Reds flanker Fraser McReight on leave this week, Brumbies star Rob Valetini back from injury but Waratahs pin-up Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii still out for the ACT-NSW duel on Saturday.
Every team had a win in the first month and ex-champions the Blues and Hurricanes are currently in the bottom half while the once languishing Tahs and Reds are up top. “It puts jeopardy in the competition,” said Mesley. “We want ladder turbulence so fans gather at the water cooler each week thinking their team has got a chance.”
The introduction of Fantasy Super Rugby Pacific has deepened fan interest as well. “From a standing start, we’ve got 66,000 people playing and 1.3m transfers so far,” said Mesley. “Live, rugby’s 15 on 15 format makes it incredibly team-oriented but Fantasy plays to the power of individual athletes and fuels interest in rival sides.”
The local revival bodes well for an Australian-born coach snaring the Wallabies job when a replacement for Joe Schmidt is announced in the next three weeks. In a frantic run of four games in 12 days (28 June to 9 July), all four Australian sides will play the British & Irish Lions before the three-Test series begins on 19 July.
The innovation continues either side of that Wallabies-Lions Test at Suncorp. The first is a Lions v Anzac XV in Adelaide, and the sequel – a 22 July fixture vacated when RA folded the Melbourne Rebels – will be confirmed as a First Nations Pasifika XV outfit, a worthy nod to the rise of Super Rugby Pacific’s two Pacific-based sides in 2025.
