Round 7 feels less like the middle of a season and more like the point where storylines start picking sides. Moana Pasifika and the Highlanders open the weekend with a scrap between two teams who’ve both worn fifty on the wrong side of the ledger.
Round 7 feels less like the middle of a season and more like the point where storylines start picking sides. Moana Pasifika and the Highlanders open the weekend with a scrap between two teams who’ve both worn fifty on the wrong side of the ledger.
In Canberra, the Waratahs walk into GIO Stadium to face a Brumbies outfit still buzzing from James Slipper’s record and a month of reminding everyone that, on their night, they’re the most grown-up team in the competition.
Saturday is for pace and panic, the Reds roll into Wellington to see if their new-found steel can cope with a Hurricanes side that has spent the last fortnight treating New Zealand derbies like track meets, the Drua try to drag the Blues into chaos at Eden Park, and the Force welcome the Chiefs to Perth in a game that will either resurrect an Australian season or cement another New Zealand side in the top four. By the time the lights go out on the west coast, we should have a clearer idea of who’s playing for trophies and who’s just making up the numbers, at least until next week blows it all up again.
| # | Team | PL | W | L | D | PD | BP | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Hurricanes | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 128 | 4 | 20 |
| 2 |  Blues | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 70 | 4 | 20 |
| 3 |  Brumbies | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 52 | 3 | 19 |
| 4 |  Queensland Reds | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 18 |
| 5 |  Crusaders | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 14 |
| 6 |  Chiefs | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 21 | 1 | 13 |
| 7 |  Waratahs | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | -17 | 2 | 10 |
| 8 |  Highlanders | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | -64 | 1 | 09 |
| 9 |  Fijian Drua | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | -32 | 0 | 08 |
| 10 |  Western Force | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | -42 | 0 | 04 |
| 11 |  Moana Pasifika | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0 | -142 | 0 | 04 |
If you’re looking for structure, logic and form lines that make sense, Moana Pasifika versus the Highlanders probably isn’t the game for you. This is chaos dressed up as a fixture, two teams who’ve been belted by fifty more often than they’d care to admit over the last month squaring off at North Harbour in a matchup the numbers suggest could go anywhere. The Highlanders arrive off their heaviest ever New Zealand derby defeat, a 50–7 humiliation at the hands of the Hurricanes, having lost seven straight, away from home and beaten just one Kiwi side in their last eleven attempts. Moana Pasifika, for their part, are riding a five-game losing streak and conceding an average of 44 points per outing in 2026, fresh from shipping another half-century to the Crusaders on this very patch of grass.
The away team has won the last three clashes between these two, with Moana’s only victory in the rivalry coming in a 34–29 smash-and-grab in Dunedin last year and the Highlanders having already pinched a 31–29 result at North Harbour in 2025.
It may come down to which individual subplot seizes the night. Tevita Ofa has started to look like Moana’s sharpest weapon, with tries in two of his last three, including doubles in his last two outings. For the Highlanders, the turnover merchants in the tight could prove decisive; hooker Jack Taylor and loosehead Ethan de Groot are the only players in the competition with more than three turnovers won and none conceded, and Taylor has pilfered at least once in five of his six appearances. If Ofa gets ball in broken field and Taylor and de Groot can slow the tap at the other end, we might finally get something both of these sides have been chasing all year, a win that feels like the start of a story, not just a break in the storm.
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Some derbies are chaotic, some are romantic, and some are just brutally honest about where two teams sit. The Brumbies versus Waratahs, in Canberra is usually the last of those. The numbers read like a long, occasionally one-sided marriage; the Brumbies have won 14 of the last 15 against the Watarahs, including eight straight at GIO Stadium, and have put exactly 40 points on the Tahs in each of their last three meetings in the capital. Yet six of the last eight clashes have been decided by eight points or fewer.
The Brumbies have rattled off three wins from four at home and are averaging 38 points and six tries a game in 2026, but they’ve also dropped two of their last three against Australian opposition and have a habit of trailing at half-time in Canberra before grinding their way back. The Waratahs, meanwhile, have lost three on the bounce and scored 20 or fewer in each of them, sit on a run of one win from their last 13 away games, and still somehow come into this with recent derby memories that aren’t all nightmares after taking the Brumbies down 28–23 at Allianz last season.
Underneath the history, the matchup is wonderfully on brand. The Brumbies are still the adults in the Australian room; top two in the comp for points and tries, best in class for ruck retention, and happy to play through their forwards until the opposition gets bored or breaks. They’ve scored more tries from penalty taps and turnovers than anyone else this year, which is a terrifying stat when you pair it with a Waratahs side that leads the competition in turnovers conceded at 19.2 per game. Charlie Cale is running Super Rugby like it’s his own private playground with eight tries in five games, Ryan Lonergan sits atop the points chart with 51 and has crossed in his last two outings, and James Slipper has just become the most-capped player in competition history in a pack that already knew exactly who it was playing for.
The Waratahs aren’t short of weapons, Max Jorgensen is still one of the most lethal finishers in the tournament, their forward pack sits top-three for carries and metres, and they actually boast the best exit success rate in the comp. The problem is they get that chance less than anyone else, and they let teams like the Blues and Hurricanes live in their half for too long. To make this a contest, they’ll need Jack Debreczeni’s return to Canberra to feel like a revenge tour rather than a reunion. He’s won his last three against the Brumbies and will have to play every trick he knows against a defensive line that averages 183 tackles a night and rarely gives you the same picture twice.
On paper this is the most lopsided of the weekend’s derbies. On grass it almost never is. If the Brumbies turn those penalty taps and turnovers into another batch of 40 points, the script will hold. If the Tahs can hang onto the ball long enough to let Jorgensen, Lawson Creighton and Joey Walton ask questions in phase play, we might just get another one of those GIO nights that stays alive into the final whistle instead of fading at half-time.
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There are hoodoos, and then there is whatever the Hurricanes have built out of Queensland red jerseys over the last two decades. Ten wins in a row against the Reds, eleven straight in New Zealand, and not a home loss in this fixture since 1998 is less a record and more a generational curse, the sort of thing fathers bring up in the third quarter when their kids start to believe a comeback might be on. If you were designing a stress test for a young side that has quietly stitched together four wins on the bounce, dragged itself off the canvas after Round 1 and started to look like a real factor in the Australian conference, this is exactly where you’d send them: Hnry Stadium, Saturday night, into the teeth of the comp’s most violent attack.
Because right now the Hurricanes aren’t just winning, they’re disassembling people. They lead the comp for points, tries, and they do it while letting opponents into their 22 less than anyone else . At the other end, they live in yours, rolling into the red zone 12.8 times a game and turning those visits into something that looks and feels a lot like inevitability. Fehi Fineanganofo comes into this with eleven tries in his last ten outings and more line breaks inside the attacking 22 than anyone in the competition; Cam Roigard and Jordie Barrett are operating like a two-man central nervous system; and the rest of the backline is treating New Zealand derbies like open-field sessions.
The Reds are the wrong opponent to dismiss with a shrug, though, even in a house they never seem to leave happy. They’ve banked four straight wins after opening with a derby loss in Sydney, are averaging 25 points a game, and sit top of the comp for tackles with 191 a week and the best tackle percentage at 89.6 per cent. George Blake and Lachie Anderson have yet to miss a tackle between them and the whole side is starting to look like it trusts its defence as much as its attack. Their most dangerous weapon might actually be what happens when teams kick loosely at them; no side has scored more tries from kick returns this season, which is either an invitation to the Hurricanes to test their backfield all night or a warning that anything over-kicked to Jock Campbell, Tim Ryan or Filipo Daugunu could just as easily come back with interest.
Strip away the history and it’s a beautifully clean clash of identities. The Hurricanes want a track meet; ball in hand, ten line breaks, Fineanganofo and Josh Moorby on the edges, Barrett and Roigard running the tempo and turning every turnover into a counter-punch. The Reds want something nastier and more deliberate; Harry Wilson and Seru Uru climbing into contact, Harry McLaughlin-Phillips kicking at 80 per cent and steering field position, and just enough ambition on turnover and kick return to punish the inevitable loose moments. The streak says this is still the Hurricanes’ fixture until proven otherwise. The Reds’ last month says they’re as ready as they’ve been in years to try and tear a page out of someone else’s script. Either way, if you’re looking for a game that might tell you whether their revival is real or just a warm start, this is the one to circle.
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For all the romance around Fiji’s rise, this matchup has become alarmingly familiar; five games, five Blues wins, 169 points to 52 on aggregate, and the Drua held to exactly five points in each of their last two clashes. Eden Park has already hosted the biggest hiding in the short history of the rivalry and this is the first time these two have gone back to the same ground together, a return visit that asks whether anything fundamental has actually changed.
On the Auckland side of the ledger, the answer looks uncomfortably like “not really.” The Blues roll into Round 7 on a three-game streak, fresh from beating the Crusaders, crushing Moana Pasifika and outclassing the Waratahs by an average of more than three converted tries. They’ve won six of their last seven at Eden Park and haven’t let anyone crack 20 points there across that run.
The individual threats are exactly the ones you’d expect if you’ve watched them once this year. Caleb Clarke is already on five tries in six matches and running like he’s trying to batter his way into every World Cup conversation at once, while AJ Lam has crossed four times and looks more and more like a permanent problem on the other edge.
The Drua arrive as something more than cannon fodder, even if the history says otherwise. They’ve finally stitched together a defensive stretch they can trust, keeping opponents under 30 in each of their last three for the first time in club history and grabbing statement wins over the Hurricanes and Brumbies in that window. Their attacking profile remains pure Drua.
Can the Drua’s chaos finally pierce a system that’s handled them better than anyone else? If Eden Park settles into its recent rhythm of 30-plus Blues points and sub-20 for the visitors, this may feel less like a breakthrough opportunity for the Drua and more like another reminder that some steps up the ladder still have to be taken the hard way.
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There are beatings, and then there are patterns. Whatever exists between the Chiefs and the Western Force is now firmly in the second category. Eight straight wins for the men from Waikato and 56 dropped on the Force in each of their last two meetings tells you this has stopped being a fixture and started becoming a habit. Even the geography hasn’t helped much; the Chiefs have taken five of their last six trips to Perth, and only once in history have they come west and conceded more than 20.
And yet, if you’re looking for a crack to wedge a storyline into, it’s there. The Force have only one win from their last 11 starts, have contrived to lose their last two despite leading at half-time in both, and haven’t tasted victory at HBF Park in four games. But those same four include three wins and a draw against New Zealand opposition, a quietly defiant local record that says they don’t always read the script when Aotearoa sides roll into town. They average 29 points and four tries a game in 2026, mid-table numbers and they’ve done it against a brutal run of Brumbies, Blues, Highlanders, Hurricanes and Moana Pasifika. Ben Donaldson is second on the overall points ladder with 50 at an 80 per cent clip, Carlo Tizzano has crossed four times from the back row, and Vaiolini Ekuasi and Mac Grealy are carrying like men who’ve decided ball-in-hand is non-negotiable.
Across from them stands a Chiefs side that looks significantly more human than the one that ran the table on the Force over the past two seasons. They’ve dropped two of their last three, including that 33–24 defeat to the Brumbies in Canberra, and have conceded four or more tries in each of their last three outings after an eight-game stretch where nobody managed it once.
Strip it down and you’re left with a familiar question; can the Force’s grind drag the Chiefs out of their preferred shape long enough for history to wobble? The visitors sit fourth for points, third for tries, third for tackle percentage and first for turnovers won, which is a pretty good recipe for silencing belief early if they get the first punch in. The hosts counter with accuracy off the tee, elite work-rate at the lineout, and a core of forwards carrying like they’re tired of seeing 50s on the scoreboard. If the game opens up, the last decade tells you where it’s heading. If it doesn’t, if HBF Park leans into those odd, gritty nights it sometimes produces, then this might finally feel less like another instalment in a long-running saga and more like a chance at something resembling revenge.
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