{"id":284667,"date":"2026-02-15T01:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284667\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T01:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:48:08","slug":"quinn-tupaea-masterclass-new-man-on-the-block","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284667\/","title":{"rendered":"Quinn Tupaea masterclass, new man on the block"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A late Cortez Ratima<\/a> try gave the Chiefs<\/a> an ideal start to the Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> 2026 season, beating the Blues<\/a> in a narrow and gripping 80-minute contest at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

Two second-half tries from Jono Gibbes\u2019 All Black stars earned the Chiefs a 19-15 victory against Vern Cotter\u2019s Blues on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

The second New Zealand<\/a> derby of Super Rugby Pacific round one was played at Auckland\u2019s Eden Park on Saturday, where a solid crowd were in attendance for a rematch of last year\u2019s qualifying final matchup.<\/p>\n

Here are some takeaways from the round one fixture.<\/p>\n

Quinn Tupaea and breakdowns go together like peanut butter and jelly<\/p>\n

The midfielder has started the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season the same way he ended it with the All Blacks<\/a>, on top of his game.<\/p>\n

Tupaea came in at No.12 in\u00a0RugbyPass\u2019\u00a0Top 50 Super Rugby Pacific players for 2026, after a stellar season with last year\u2019s runners-up. The Chiefs second-five had ten turnovers in last year\u2019s campaign, and by the end of the opening half in 2026, he had already won two important ones.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old led the turnover count at halftime with two, proving that he\u2019s practically an immovable object at the breakdown. Tupaea was second equal with eleven tackles in the opening 40 minutes, with one of them stopping a Pita Ahki<\/a> opportunity down the left-hand touchline.<\/p>\n

Tupaea left the field in the 73rd minute with a game-high 18 tackles and eight carries to go with his two impressive first-half turnovers.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new man on the block<\/p>\n

If you hadn\u2019t heard of Torian Barnes<\/a> before Saturday evening, you sure knew about him after the opening 40 minutes at Eden Park. Barnes has played for Canterbury<\/a> in the Bunnings NPC, but was signed by the Blues for the 2026 season and has already pushed his way into the starting lineup for round one against the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

The 2003-born loose-forward has the frame to compete at Super Rugby Pacific level, and showed in the first-half against the Chiefs that he\u2019s more than up to the task physically.<\/p>\n

Barnes made a game-high ten carries at halftime, with two line breaks and five tackles completed in not only the first half of the season, but his first appearance in Super Rugby Pacific.<\/p>\n

The Canterbury product then put his heart and soul into his second-half performance, where he battled hard for Cotter\u2019s team on both sides of the ball, finishing with an equal game-high 14 carries and 11 tackles.<\/p>\n

Pita Ahki could be a better fit for the Blues than Ioane<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubting Rieko Ioane\u2019s ability, impact, and class over the past nine years in his 88 All Blacks caps and 133 Blues appearances. His defensive attributes too, can\u2019t be under-appreciated, but Ioane\u2019s move to Leinster<\/a> in Ireland<\/a> gave the Blues an opportunity to bring Pita Ahki back to Auckland.<\/p>\n

Ahki played 13 games for the Blues between 2014-15, before playing for multiple teams in Europe, where he won a number of titles.<\/p>\n

In 2026 pre-season, Ahki impressed with performances against both the Hurricanes<\/a> and the Crusaders, scoring and assisting against the latter at Onewa Domain in Auckland.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old experienced midfielder wasn\u2019t afraid of getting stuck in against the Chiefs in round one, taking the opportunity to run straight at the away side\u2019s defence on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n

In the first half, Ahki was used as a literal battering ram with the ball in hand, before adding some nice, soft touches at the line, keeping the Chiefs\u2019 defence on their toes.<\/p>\n

Ioane and Ahki are different players, different positions, and have different skillsets, but Ahki\u2019s abrasive ball-running style could prove to be more effective for the Blues and Vern Cotter.<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team <\/p>\n

Pre-season rust can\u2019t be shaken\u00a0<\/p>\n

An opening 25 minutes for the purists. Dropped balls, missed penalty attempts, and kicks out on the full showcased what rusty Super Rugby Pacific teams play like in round one.<\/p>\n

It was scrappy, but maybe that\u2019s just the way it goes in round one for everyone. The Highlanders<\/a> and Crusaders<\/a> didn\u2019t exactly play the house down in the first 40 minutes on Friday, but there were some exciting moments on display under the roof.<\/p>\n

Neither coach would probably admit it, but these two teams at Eden Park looked slight underdone in the first half, even after nearly two months of pre-season training, and two New Zealand pre-season derbies to warm the shoulders up.<\/p>\n

Two tries lightened the game up a fraction, but neither team demonstrated any sort of cohesion with ball in hand, or much brutality on defence in the opening half.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be this way all season, but the fans at Eden Park weren\u2019t exactly treated to a modern-day, attacking classic on Saturday evening in the first half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A late Cortez Ratima try gave the Chiefs an ideal start to the Super Rugby Pacific 2026 season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-284667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}