3rd November 2026
Good morning team, and welcome to another edition of Tuesday’s news. We are closing in on the end of the rugby season for 2026 with the 4th round of the Nations Championship getting underway this weekend in the northern half of the competition. More on that in just a moment. Before we get into it though, if you missed the games on the weekend, you can catch up on them in Bris’s excellent Monday News here.
The year that has been
It’s been a very interesting year, and a very long one, as a reminder, Super Rugby Pacific kicked off on Friday 13 February with the Highlanders hosting the Crusaders, and the Waratahs hosting the Reds. Interestingly, both home won, and then remembered that they were the Highlanders and the Tahs, and stuffed up the rest of their seasons to finish 8th and 9th on the table. Super Rugby saw us through to Saturday the 20th June when the Hurricanes the biggest possible exclamation point on their season by winning the final against the Chiefs by 60-5 in what has to be one of the most convincing grand final wins in any serious competition.
Super Rugby promised a bit for the Aussie sides who collectively recorded 7 victories against New Zealand teams, including the Reds, Brumbies, and Force getting wins against the Crusaders. Unfortunately, the wins tended to be earlier in the season before the Kiwis shook off their summer slumber, and starting shifting through the gears, ultimately occupying the first four spots on the ladder, and knocking out the Reds and Brumbies in the first week of the finals. From an Aussie perspective, the rest as they say is history.
Super Rugby Pacific 2026 – Regular season results.
Super Rugby W
Super Rugby W finally got underway on the 6th June with the Waratahs looking to extend their run as champions, and to continue their unbeaten run against the other Australian sides. The Waratahs didn’t have it all their own way though, losing to a very competitive Force team by 28-21 in a great match in northern Perth, and a fired up Reds team by 26-19 at Leichardt Oval. They did get the last laugh though, travelling to HBF park in Perth to down the Force 33-22, and then making the long trip to Fiji to knock over the Drua by 34-17 at Four R Stadium. It shows the quality and depth that the Waratahs have to put aside two losses and the travel from Perth to Sydney to Perth to Fiji in successive weeks to take home trophy again.
In addition to the Waratahs taking home the chocolates again, he season saw the emergence of some serious next generation talent with Amelia Whitaker, Waiaria Ellis, Faliki Pohiva, Lily Bone, and Jemma Bemrose really making an impact alongside more established stare like Maya Stewart, Desiree Miller, Siokapesi Palu Sekona, Faitala Moleka, Eva Karpani, Kaitlan Leaney, Caitlyn Halse, and the now retired Emily Chancellor and Cecilia Smith. Despite a coupe of losses to the kiwis, it was a good year for Women’s rugby in Australia and with more players now on full time contracts, we should see more improvement in 2027.
International season
The Men’s international season kicked off for the Wallabies on July 4th with a narrow loss to Ireland in Sydney. Borrowing from last weeks episode shows us the season so far for the Wallabies with 5 wins a draw, and 4 losses to date.
What’s interesting is the spacing of the games, with no more than 2 weeks off between matches, and an almost continuous season from July to October, and now after 2 weekends off, we are heading into a final 4 week block of games against England, Scotland, Wales, and a top be determined opponent in the final weekend of the Nations Championship on the weekend of Friday 27th to Sunday 29th November.
A relentless season
I’m not sure whether it’s me, or the spacing of the games, but it feels like the rugby season has been longer and more continuous than previous years. In previous years it felt more like we had Super Rugby, then the Rugby Championship, and then a decent break before the northern tour. Maybe it is me, but this year has felt different.
The Nations Championship – Northern Edition
The Nations Championship has been excellent so far and the results of the first three rounds are shown in the image below. Fiji chose to play their home games in England, giving up a significant local field advantage and paying the price in terms of results with 3 losses including to an improving Wales. Similarly Japan gave up their home field advantage and travelled to Newcastle in the second week of the southern series to play Ireland.
So, after the first three rounds, the tables for the northern and southern hemisphere teams (let’s just ignore what side of the equator Japan sits on) are shown below.
The final push – four weeks to glory
The 4th, 5th, and 6th rounds of the Nations Championship start this weekend, and on face value, there should be 4 good contests, and two that look more one-sided. The results of the Ireland vs Aregentina, and the England vs Australia games will go a long way to deciding the final table for both hemispheres.
There are some cracking matches coming up over the next 3 weeks, with Scotland hosting New Zealand, France hosting South Africa, and Ireland hosting South Africa looking like great stand alone test matches, and likely to seriously influence the final ladder positions and final week of matches.
Looking at the tables, and the next 3 weeks games, there are a lot of games that really are harder to pick than a broken nose. Maybe New Zealand are slight favourites to win their next three games compared to either of France or South Africa, whereas the Wallabies could win none, or all three as we discussed at some length last week.
Whichever way we look at it, there is a load of rugby coming our way over the next 4 weekends, and it will be a great way to see out most of 2026.
That’s a wrap
An admittedly shorter episode today after I got side-tracked replacing the tap and drainage for our kitchen sink earlier on Monday evening leaving less time for rugby writing than normal.
As always, thanks for making it this far, have a great day, and catch you in the comments section.
Cheers
RAWF
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