Super Rugby Pacific is set to lose its second team in three years and \u2060shrink to a 10-team competition in 2027 following a decision by Moana Pasifika’s owners to disband the struggling franchise at the end of the \u200ccurrent season.<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika management said on Wednesday it was no longer viable to continue the Auckland-based \u200cfranchise, which joined Super Rugby in 2022 with a vision of building \u200cpathways to test rugby for players with Pacific nations heritage.<\/p>\n
“This decision comes after extensive \u200cconsideration of the financial, operational, and strategic realities facing the franchise \u200cas well as professional rugby in New Zealand,” the team said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The decision follows the collapse of the debt-ridden Melbourne Rebels in 2024, which left Australia’s second-biggest city \u200cwithout a professional rugby union presence.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Rugby said \u2060it was aware there may be \u200cparties exploring “financially viable and sustainable plans” for Moana, and it was open to engaging \u200bwith them.<\/p>\n
But the governing body declined to provide further details.<\/p>\n
“NZR remains supportive of Moana Pasifika’s vision to create pathways from the Pacific and \u200bis saddened by the challenges the club faces,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika entered Super Rugby with Fiji-based team Fijian Drua in 2022 with \u2060the support of World Rugby \u200band New Zealand government grants.<\/p>\n
Plans to base the team in the Pacific never materialised and they have effectively operated as New Zealand’s sixth Super Rugby team and the second in Auckland, competing with the established Blues.<\/p>\n
With World Rugby and government \u200cfunding drying up, financial problems have mounted at a franchise which has struggled to build a strong fan base and attract commercial sponsors.<\/p>\n
Moana pulled off a recruiting coup to sign loose forward Ardie Savea last year and the All Blacks enforcer helped the side to seventh on the table last year, their best season.<\/p>\n
But they have otherwise struggled to lure top-shelf talent, and with Savea playing in Japan this season while on a sabbatical, Tana Umaga-coached Moana are bottom of the table with one win from eight games.<\/p>\n
While Umaga \u200cwas set to depart Moana at the end of the season for a \u200bnew job as All Blacks defence coach, the future of dozens of \u200cplayers and staff is now up in the air, including Savea who was to return in 2027.<\/p>\n
Moana’s disbandment is another blow for Super Rugby, which once boasted 18 teams after launching in 1996 with 12.<\/p>\n
The provincial competition never fully recovered from the disruption brought by the COVID-19 \u2060pandemic, with the withdrawal of South \u2060Africa’s professional sides relegating it to \u200ca mainly Australian and New Zealand affair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Super Rugby Pacific is set to lose its second team in three years and \u2060shrink to a 10-team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-608659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}