Round six arrives with the competition’s fault lines starting to show and a couple of very Australian questions sitting right at the centre of it all. The first is in Brisbane and it is wearing ten for Queensland. Carter Gordon has now backed up his match winner in Canberra with a two try, eighty metre turn against the Waratahs, dragging the Reds off the canvas at Suncorp and, in the process, forcing his way back into every conversation about who should steer the Wallabies around this winter.
Round six arrives with the competition’s fault lines starting to show and a couple of very Australian questions sitting right at the centre of it all. The first is in Brisbane and it is wearing ten for Queensland. Carter Gordon has now backed up his match winner in Canberra with a two try, eighty metre turn against the Waratahs, dragging the Reds off the canvas at Suncorp and, in the process, forcing his way back into every conversation about who should steer the Wallabies around this winter.
It is no longer a redemption story told in hypotheticals. It is live, it is happening in front of us, and it is heading straight into a trip to Fiji that will test just how far his game and this Reds side have come in a month.
The second question sits 1,200 kilometres to the south in Canberra, where the Brumbies suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar position. Beaten up by the Drua in Lautoka and stripped of their perfect record, Stephen Larkham’s men now have to front the Chiefs at home with something to prove not just to the rest of the ladder but to themselves. For three weeks they looked like the safest bet in Super Rugby, all structure and detail and quiet brutality. One hot Fijian afternoon later and we are wondering which version will walk out at GIO Stadium on Friday night, and whether the response looks like a champion recalibrating or a contender discovering that the margins at the top are thinner than anyone in Canberra wanted to admit.
We preview all the action for round six of Super Rugby Pacific.
| # | Team | PL | W | L | D | PD | BP | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Hurricanes | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 85 | 3 | 15 |
| 2 |  Blues | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 55 | 3 | 15 |
| 3 |  Brumbies | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 43 | 3 | 15 |
| 4 |  Chiefs | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 30 | 1 | 13 |
| 5 |  Queensland Reds | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 13 |
| 6 |  Waratahs | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 10 |
| 7 |  Highlanders | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | -21 | 1 | 09 |
| 8 |  Crusaders | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | -23 | 1 | 09 |
| 9 |  Fijian Drua | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | -17 | 0 | 08 |
| 10 |  Western Force | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | -42 | 0 | 04 |
| 11 |  Moana Pasifika | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | -113 | 0 | 04 |
This is a meeting between a side that knows exactly who it is and one that is still working it out on the fly. The Hurricanes head south sitting on top of the table, three wins from four, fifty points in each of their last two New Zealand derbies and a nine-game streak over the Highlanders. They are the most relentless attacking side in the competition by the numbers, leading the way for entries into the opposition twenty two, averaging more than forty points and six tries a game, and riding a spine in which Cam Roigard, Callum Harkin and Jordie Barrett have combined for twenty five points, ten try assists and a tempo that few defences have lived with for eighty minutes.
The Highlanders, by contrast, arrive at Forsyth Barr with their season balanced on that thin line between “promising” and “same old story”. Two wins from five is better than last year, and they have already scored twenty three tries with Caleb Tangitau, Jacob Ratumaitavuki Kneepkens and Timoci Tavatavanawai all tracking among the competition’s most dangerous runners. Yet they have lost nine of their last ten against New Zealand opposition, and no team this season makes fewer visits to the opposition twenty two, a maddening contrast to a turnover game that sits top of the ladder at more than seven steals per week.
The key individuals are almost perfectly cast. For the home side, Tavatavanawai is in the form of his life, leading the competition with thirty six tackle breaks and averaging more than a hundred metres a game, while Ratumaitavuki Kneepkens has quietly become one of Super Rugby’s best distributors, with six try assists in five rounds and a history of making things happen against the Hurricanes. For the visitors, Roigard’s try streak against the Landers, Flanders’ work rate on both sides of the ball and Barrett’s blend of control and creativity mean they can hurt you through the middle as easily as they can around the edges.
If you are picking this with your head rather than your heart, you are backing the Hurricanes’ ability to turn pressure into points more consistently than a Highlanders side that still spends too many of its best minutes camped sixty metres from the opposition line.
There are few better honesty sessions in Super Rugby than a Friday night in Canberra with a New Zealand pack rolling into town, and the Brumbies could not have picked a more confronting way to find out exactly where they sit. The Chiefs arrive with five straight wins in this fixture and a recent habit of keeping the Brumbies under twenty points.
At home the Brumbies have beaten eight of their last ten New Zealand visitors, they still sit third on the ladder, and even in defeat they have been piling up thirty nine points and six tries per game, powered by a forward pack that leads the competition in carries and maul threat and by Rob Valetini’s ridiculous workload at first receiver.
No one has turned turnovers into tries more ruthlessly than these two this season, with the Brumbies already cashing in seven times on stolen ball and the Chiefs not far behind with four. It is not hard to imagine this becoming one of those nights where whoever blinks first at the breakdown spends the rest of the game watching the other side kick to the corners and shove.
Out wide, the match ups are good enough to sell tickets on their own. Cale is the competition’s leading try scorer with seven and is rapidly becoming the Brumbies’ cheat code in the five metre channel, while Andy Muirhead feels like he has quietly levelled up again in 2026, leading Super Rugby in offloads and sitting right behind the Hurricanes’ stars for break assists as he turns nothing carries into opportunities for the men around him. The Chiefs answer with Leroy Carter and Samisoni Taukeiaho, who have already shared eight tries between them, and with a midfield built on Quinn Tupaea’s heavy traffic running and Emoni Narawa’s ability to turn half chances into seventy metre swings.
The Chiefs have been the more consistent outfit in New Zealand derbies, winning eight of their last nine against Australian sides and losing only once to a team from across the Tasman in their last twenty games. The Brumbies, for their part, have not lost three on the bounce since 2022.
If you are writing the script, you probably give the hosts the narrowest of nods on the back of home advantage and a forward pack that usually responds angrily to embarrassment; if you are betting the mortgage, you are taking a breath first and remembering that this Chiefs side has spent the last two seasons turning exactly these kinds of statements into away wins.
History is doing a lot of the talking here. The Reds may have flattened the Drua 52–7 in Brisbane the last time these two met, but every one of the previous six games in this rivalry went the way of the home team, including three straight wins for the Fijians in front of their own people. The Drua have taken ten of eleven in Fiji against Australian opposition. In other words, whatever happened at Suncorp last May stays at Suncorp, in Fiji, this has been the Drua’s story.
The match up on the grass is every bit as sharp as the narrative. The Drua live off chaos and contact, third in the competition for tackle breaks at 24.5 per match and happy to carry from anywhere, with Ilaisa Droasese and Tuidraki Samusamuvodre already combining for five tries in 2026.
Queensland counter with one of the most miserly defensive units in Super Rugby, conceding only seventeen missed tackles a game and posting a competition best 91 per cent tackle completion.
Then there is the ten axis that has shaped both seasons. For the Drua, Isaiah Armstrong Ravula has been quietly outstanding, sitting equal fourth in the competition for points scored with 35.
For the Reds, Gordon’s re-emergence has changed the entire tone of their campaign; three tries, nine line breaks and nine defenders beaten
You could make a strong case either way. The Reds are chasing their first run of four straight wins since early 2022 and back-to-back victories outside Queensland for the first time in three years, and there is a steel about their defence and breakdown work that travels better than most Australian packs. The Drua have their own tells; five wins from their last seven at home despite leading at half time in only three of those, ten wins from eleven in Fiji against Australian teams.
On paper it is a coin flip between the competition’s form defence and one of its most dangerous broken field attacks; in practice, history, heat and the Drua’s habit of turning tight games into something wild in the last twenty minutes probably nudge the needle ever so slightly towards the men in sky blue.
This is the fixture Moana Pasifika will have circled in thick red pen ever since they walked out of Christchurch last year with 45 points on the board and the Crusaders badge tucked in their back pocket. It was the night they finally punched back in this rivalry after four straight defeats, their highest ever score against a New Zealand side and the sort of result that lingers in a dressing room far longer than the usual “brave loss” clichés. Twelve months on the mood is very different. Moana arrive on a four-game losing streak, sitting bottom of the ladder, averaging just 20 points a game and carrying a five-match skid against New Zealand opposition in which the average margin has been a sobering forty eight.
If there is hope, it lies in the individual threats that refuse to get the memo about their team’s record. Semisi Tupou Taeiloa has been the standout forward in the competition with ball in hand, leading all pack members for line breaks and tackle busts and crossing for four tries in his last five outings. No team has won more scrums on their own feed than Moana’s 33, and they have already produced four tries from scrum possession, a number bettered only by the Crusaders themselves.
Christchurch’s men arrive in a different sort of transition season, but they have begun to look more like the side people still fear rather than the one that stumbled out of the blocks in 2025. They are only 2–3, they have a negative points differential, and they have scored thirty or more just once in their last eight New Zealand derbies, yet the underlying numbers tell you there is a heavyweight in there waiting to break out.
The Crusaders average 26.4 points and 3.6 tries per game. Will Jordan and Leicester Fainga’anuku back to doing Will Jordan and Leicester Fainga’anuku things on the edges. Jordan leads the entire competition with twelve line breaks and has made exactly three in each of his last four games, while Sevu Reece and Christian Lio Willie have already combined for four tries.
If Moana can pressure those exits, trust their scrum and get field position without conceding soft penalties, they have the weapons. In Tupou Taeiloa’s power, Pellegrini’s short kicking game and Moana’s strike runners to turn this into another uncomfortable, messy night for a Crusaders side still figuring out its post dynasty identity. If they allow the visitors to play on their terms, kicking on their own clock and feeding Jordan, Reece and Fainga’anuku on the counter, it has every chance of turning into another one of those long, dispiriting evenings where the scoreline and the stats sheets are equally unforgiving.
There are hoodoos and then there is whatever the Blues have built over the Waratahs. Eleven straight wins in this fixture, five in a row in Australia, and an average of nine points conceded across their last three meetings is the sort of dominance you usually only see in highlight packages spliced together by marketing departments, not in live competition with salary caps and shared player pools. If the Blues get it done again at Allianz, they will set a new club record for consecutive victories against a single opponent; if the Waratahs stop them, they will have done something no New South Wales side has managed at home against these men in navy since 2015.
The Waratahs have one of Super Rugby’s hottest home finishers in Max Jorgensen, who has scored eight tries in his last five games in Sydney, including doubles in each of his last three. Around him Clem Halaholo has been a relentless carrier through the middle, and the back row of Pete Samu, Charlie Gamble and Miles Amatosero has quietly become one of the competition’s heaviest tackling units.
The problem is that the Blues might be the worst possible opponent for a side searching for clarity in its defensive identity. Dalton Papali’i leads the competition with 87 tackles at an efficiency that would make a test coach purr, and he sits at the heart of a pack that owns the contact and slows ball as well as anyone when it gets its detail right. Behind him, Caleb Clarke and Codemeru Vai are in the kind of form that turns half chances into seven points.
On balance, the numbers and the narrative still tilt navy. The Blues are sitting second on the ladder with three wins from five, a positive try differential and a habit of winning tight ones away from home. Four of their last five on the road have been decided by seven or fewer. The Waratahs, sixth with two wins and two losses, are trying to rediscover the punch of those opening weeks while staring down the barrel of a three-game slump that would drag them back into the pack. Until they prove they can marry that up for eighty minutes against New Zealand opposition, the safe call is that the Aucklanders extend their streak.
