Super Rugby and and NPC could overlap if South Africa gets its way in global season revamp
Sunday, 1 February 2026
Rugby powerbrokers will discuss a global rugby season in February.
South Africa and Australia support Rugby Championship move to February-March.
NZ Rugby has previously modelled a Super Rugby season starting in April.
The push to introduce a global season could have dramatic implications for the game in New Zealand, including an overlap in the Super Rugby Pacific and NPC seasons.
South Africa is leading the charge to have the Rugby Championship moved back to February-March to line up with the Six Nations, and Australia is also supportive of the change.
Rugby administrators will meet in London in February to discuss the pros and cons of such a move, but if South Africa builds enough support to pass the measure the domestic season in New Zealand would face seismic change.
The rugby year would begin with the All Blacks tests in the Rugby Championship in February-March, followed by Super Rugby Pacific and the NPC.
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The All Blacks would need to arrange some form of warm-up games to avoid going in cold to the Rugby Championship.
The Sunday Star-Times understands that when the global calendar idea last came up a few years ago, NZ Rugby modelled a Super Rugby season that would start in April, break up for the July tests and then finish in September.
That would mean that unless the NPC is moved back or truncated, the Super Rugby season would still be ongoing when provincial rugby started, depriving the NPC of Super Rugby players for about the first half of the campaign.
Last year, the first NPC game kicked off in late July.
While there is a lot of water to flow under the bridge before a global season is agreed upon - and any change is unlikely before 2028 at the earliest - rugby stakeholders will be watching the upcoming talks with interest.
The Star-Times understands that NZ Rugby will be represented by either interim chief executive Steve Lancaster or director Greg Barclay in the coming talks, with an All Blacks assistant coach also set to head north to attend World Rugby’s “shape of the game” discussions along with other test coaches and national union chief executives.
Any change that downgrades the NPC would be viewed dimply by provincial unions, especially after the competition delivered a 9% increase in broadcast audiences on Sky last year.
However, the introduction of a global calendar in the first instance might be something that NZ Rugby is powerless to stop.
Australia is understood to support the move as a way to build a third Bledisloe test into the calendar, and if South Africa can persuade other nations to support it - especially France and England - they could have enough momentum to take it to a World Rugby council vote.
If that happens, those in favour of the change will need to get 75% of the council’s support.
It is unclear which way France’s powerful Top 14 competition and England’s Prem competition are leaning.
If the Rugby Championship and Six Nations windows are aligned, European clubs face the prospect of losing not only their own players but also their Argentinian, South African and Australian signings - and potentially Fijians if the Pacific Islanders are admitted into the Rugby Championship down the track.
South Africa is pushing hard for the change under the banner of player welfare, but the reality is that their four big franchises - Bulls, Stormers, Sharks and Lions - also want greater access to their Springboks players for the United Rugby Championship (URC) and Champions Cup.
At present, Springboks are still playing in the Rugby Championship after the URC season has already started in September.
South Africa has also had to deal with an overlap between the Currie Cup, its own domestic championship, and the URC in recent years - and SA Rugby moved the Currie Cup into a separate window after the URC.
A similar move in New Zealand, however, would bring its own complications, potentially pushing the NPC towards cricket season in November-December while also separating it from the important club rugby season.