The 2022 Super Rugby Pacific season (known as

Harvey Norman Harvey Norman is a large Australian-based, multi-national retailer of furniture, bedding, computers, communications and consumer electrical products. It mainly operates as a franchise, with the main brand and all company-operated stores owned ...

Super Rugby Pacific in Australia and DHL Super Rugby Pacific in New Zealand) is the 27th season of

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

, an annual

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

competition organised by

SANZAAR SANZAAR (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina Rugby; previously known as SANZAR) is the body which oversees Super Rugby and The Rugby Championship competitions in rugby union. SANZAAR meets annually and is composed of the CEOs from ...

between teams from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

and

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the previous seasons were replaced with Super Rugby Unlocked, Super Rugby Aotearoa and

Super Rugby AU Super Rugby AU, formerly named the Harvey Norman Super Rugby AU for sponsorship purposes, was a rugby union competition organised by Rugby Australia. The competition was created to supplant the 2020 Super Rugby season, which had been suspended ...

in 2020, and Super Rugby Aotearoa,

, and

Super Rugby Trans-Tasman Super Rugby Trans-Tasman (known as Harvey Norman Super Rugby Trans-Tasman in Australia and Sky Super Rugby Trans-Tasman in New Zealand) was a professional men's rugby union club competition in Australia and New Zealand. It featured the five Sup ...

in 2021. The 2022 edition will revert to a 12-team competition, with a single pool replacing the geographical conference system, as well as introducing a new name for the reformatted competition. The season is expected to run from 18 February, with the final to be played on 18 June - culminating before the start of the mid-year international window. With the exclusion or withdrawal of the

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

, the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, and the South African , , and sides at the conclusion of the 2020 Super Rugby season, three new teams were announced to make up the 12 team tournament. The Fiji Rugby Union's domestic team, the Fijian , having previously competed in the Australian

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

from 2017 to 2019, were announced as one addition to the competition. The newly created franchise, representing players from

and

and other

Pacific Islands Collectively called the Pacific Islands, the islands in the Pacific Ocean are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of se ...

, also successfully put forth a bid to join the competition. The also returned to Super Rugby, following their exclusion at the end of the

2017 Super Rugby season The 2017 Super Rugby season was the 22nd season of Super Rugby, an annual rugby union competition organised by SANZAAR between teams from Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. It was the second season featuring an expand ...

and following on from their inclusion in

and

in both 2020 and 2021. The competition was again affected by the

, with the competitions fixtures being revised in December 2021, due to border restriction in New Zealand. Then in January, the announced their Round 1 and Round 4 home matches would be swapped to away matches, due to border restrictions in Western Australia. In February, it was announced that the New Zealand sides (and ) would enter a bio-bubble in

Queenstown, New Zealand Queenstown ( mi, Tāhuna) is a resort town in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's South Island. It has an urban population of The town is built around an inlet called Queenstown Bay on Lake Wakatipu, a long, thin, Z-shaped lake formed by ...

due to the threat of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

with all NZ-based matches being played at or . Despite this, it was announced that the Round 1 match between and the would be postponed due to

cases within the Moana Pasifika squad.

Competition format

The 12 participating teams will not be divided into geographical conferences, instead playing 14 regular season games: the 12 teams facing each other once in a home-and-away format for 11 games, and the remaining 3 games to be played with an emphasis on derby matches; with the Fijian Drua likely to be associated with the Australian sides and Moana Pasifika with the New Zealand sides, given they will be based there. It is likely that the Drua and Moana Pasifika will also develop a rivalry, both being Pacific Island teams. The top eight teams at the conclusion of the regular season qualify for the play-offs. For the quarterfinals, the first-ranked team play the eighth-ranked team, the second-ranked team play the seventh-ranked, the third-ranked play the sixth-ranked and the fourth-ranked team play the fifth-ranked. The Quarterfinal winners to the Semifinal, and the winners of the semifinals to the final. The higher ranked team will host each playoff match.

Standings

Round-by-round

The table below shows each team's progression throughout the season. For each round, their cumulative points total is shown with the overall log position in brackets:

Matches

The fixtures for the 2022 Super Rugby Pacific competition were released on 15 November 2021. On 23 December 2021, a revised draw was announced due to complications surrounding the

Finals

The finals fixtures are as follows:

Statistics

Leading point scorers

Source
Points
/small>

Leading try scorers

Source
Tries
/small>

Discipline

Players

Squads

The following squads have been named. Players listed in ''italics'' denote non-original squad members:

Referees

The following referees were selected to officiate the 2022 Super Rugby Pacific season:

References

External links

* Super Rugby websites: *
SANZAAR Super Rugby
*
Australia Super Rugby
*
New Zealand Super Rugby
{{DEFAULTSORT:Super Rugby 2022

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