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Super Rugby Pacific will prioritise consolidation over the next few years, but change is inevitable over the mid-term horizon.
Japan, with its timezone-friendly schedule – a 7pm kickoff in Tokyo is 8pm in Sydney – will be the expansion destination, not South Africa, despite this week’s headlines about the South Africans’ troubles in European competitions.
But don’t bet on a Sunwolves revival. Instead, put a Yen or two on the top Japanese Rugby League One clubs facing the best of the 10-team Super Rugby Pacific competition in a Champions Cup-style format.
The gravitational pull of money and shared high-performance goals is bringing those competitions ever closer.
Put the South Africans in the “horse-has-bolted” category. They invested large sums of money to join European club rugby, presumably miscalculating that it would open the door to the Six Nations, and they aren’t coming back.
Besides, the costs for all parties are too great to justify the revenue upside. For years, South Africans have insisted that broadcaster SuperSport was the financial engine of Super Rugby, For years, that was a fallacy, and remains so.
SA Rugby’s annual report released this month states broadcast revenue of Rand 678 million ($57.6m) for 2025 and Rand 852m ($72.4m) for 2024.
New Zealand Rugby reported broadcast revenue of $NZ95.2m ($78.1m) in 2025 and $NZ100.4m ($82.5).
That difference of $30.6m in the Kiwis’ favour over just two years shows that Rugby Australia is already hitched to Sanzaar’s biggest earner.
Japan brings its own commercial might and the corporations backing the JRLO clubs sell lots of things into Australia and New Zealand, ranging from TVs to tractors.
But Japanese clubs haven’t thrown that money around pointlessly; they have carefully selected Test players and invested heavily in coaching expertise.
The results of that approach are evident. Hurricanes lock Warner Dearns, on a one-year playing sabbatical from Toshiba Brave Lupus, has single-handedly ended any Australasian snobbery about Japanese high-performance systems.
He left New Zealand as a 14-year-old, so all of his professional development happened in Japan. He is the best lock in Super Rugby Pacific, someone the All Blacks would choose in a heartbeat if he were available.
Dearns could end the Super Rugby Pacific season as a champion with the Hurricanes and the player who paved the way for Super Rugby Pacific’s evolution.
And in Sydney, is Matt Philip not a better player, or a more rounded-one, after his two-year spell in Japan preceding a homecoming to the Waratahs? There is scant evidence that Japanese Rugby League One has diminished the 32-year-old; in fact, the opposite is true.
Japan’s inclusion would also untangle some of the knots that Australia and New Zealand have tied themselves into regarding Test eligibility.
The shared attitude across Australia and New Zealand seems to be: “If they’re playing in our competitions, we’ll pick them.” It’s a form of asset protection, as the national unions co-own Super Rugby Pacific.
But it does not take a huge leap of imagination to picture a day when Noah Lolesio, currently in Japan, would be just as eligible for the Wallabies as Brumbies No.10 Declan Meredith – without taking up a Giteau Law spot – if Japan were involved in an Australia-New Zealand competition. (The same goes for Richie Mo’unga and Brodie Retallick for the All Blacks.)
The JRLO already has an advocate whose influence spans the Tasman. Former Wallabies mentor Dave Rennie, who currently coaches Kobe, has been forthright in his praise for the Japanese domestic competition since taking on the All Blacks job.
He already believes that better Japanese sides would beat the weaker Super Rugby Pacific outfits, and Japan’s appetite for fringe All Blacks and top-tier Springboks shows no sign of slowing down.
The shift into Japan won’t happen overnight. Super Rugby clubs have other matters on their minds as they work through their own financial challenges, while NZ Rugby is understood to be working through two bids to save Moana Pasifika.
But a 10- or 11-team Super Rugby Pacific competition, in which Australia, New Zealand and Fiji remain in splendid isolation, is arguably neither sustainable nor desirable in a changing world.
Watch every match of Super Rugby Pacific live and exclusive on Stan Sport.
