New Zealand open to player movement in Super Rugby Pacific

Oct 29 : New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has signalled it could relax its strict policy of keeping test players on home soil in an effort to turn the struggling Super Rugby Pacific competition around.

New Zealand has long made All Blacks eligibility conditional upon players representing its professional teams in Super Rugby and the National Provincial Championship (NPC).

However, NZR chief Steve Lancaster has opened the door for test players to represent Australian Super Rugby teams by saying the New Zealand-dominated competition needed more ambition and bold thinking to transform itself.

"We’re aligned with Rugby Australia and the Super Rugby clubs that we need people who wake up every day focused on engaging fans, growing revenue and working with broadcasters and the media," he said in a statement on Thursday.

“We’re open to working on things like player movement, a competition-wide salary cap and centralising commercial assets across the key markets.

“Those are conversations we will now have with Rugby Australia, the Rugby Players Association and the Super Rugby clubs."

Rugby Australia endorsed NZR's statement and said it looked forward to working with them on the next phase of Super Rugby's evolution, including the "relaxing of restrictions on player movement across the competition".

Super Rugby teams on both sides of the Tasman Sea are struggling financially and highly reliant on funding from the national rugby unions.

The competition will field 10 teams next season, having lost two in three years. Auckland-based Moana Pasifika were disbanded at the end of the 2026 season, while the Melbourne Rebels folded in 2024.

No Australian team have won a Super Rugby championship since the New South Wales Waratahs in 2014 and none made the