Super Rugby Pacific Team of the Season: Crusaders and Blues dominate selection

With the dust having settled on Super Rugby Pacific 2022, we have made our calls on which players stood out the most over a memorable tournament.

Unsurprisingly the Crusaders and Blues dominate our line-up, with five representatives apiece from the champions and runners-up making our team.

So without further ado, here’s our selection that we feel is a fair reflection on the year. Make sure to have your say and leave your side in the comments.

All Blacks and Crusaders superstar Will Jordan was, once again, in the running after several superb attacking performances but we’ve opted for Perofeta, who was at the forefront of the Blues’ outstanding run to the final. Although he also featured at fly-half, the 25-year-old played most of his matches at full-back and performed consistently well. He was safe under the high ball while also proving a genuine threat on attack and his goalkicking was excellent, so it was not surprising that he finished as the tournament’s top points-scorer.

The All Blacks flyer started the men from Christchurch’s campaign on the replacements bench but soon found himself in the eventual champions’ run-on side and did not look back after that. He proved once again that he is one of the game’s best finishers as he was the tournament’s joint leading try-scorer with 10 five-pointers, alongside team-mates Jordan and Leicester Fainga’anuku. Reece also made the most clean breaks (17) and beats out the Blues’ Mark Telea and Tom Wright of the Brumbies.

Another New Zealander who cracks the nod for our team, Ioane was one the Blues’ star performers as they finished in first position on the table at the completion of the league phase. Showed that he is settling in nicely at outside centre as he created several