Welcome to Burn City: Rebels ready to rise to the challenge as hosts of inaugural super round

It's a whole new ball game for Super Rugby Pacific this weekend, with ten of the 12 teams converging on Melbourne for the inaugural super round, during which five games will be played over three days at AAMI Park.

And sure, it's had a setback already, with a significant spike in positive COVID-19 cases in the Western Force squad this week forcing the postponement of their game against Moana Pasifika, which was to have been played on Friday night.

That's another blow for the competition's new boys from South Auckland, taking their tally of postponed games in their debut season to five, and coming less than a fortnight after they played the last of the rescheduled games to put their campaign back on track.

Nevertheless, the super round will carry on across the weekend and it promises to be exciting, with the Super W Grand Final between the Fijiana Drua and New South Wales women to kick off the second day of action.

«It is exciting with the super round, and having everyone here playing games,» Melbourne Rebels backrower and captain Michael Wells told ABC Sport this week.

«It's a different thing for rugby to do, a different spectacle, so hopefully that fan engagement is there.»

The Rebels started the season slowly through the first month, which included them being on the receiving end of the Fijian Drua's maiden Super Rugby win in round three. But their form has trended up since, beating the Drua on the return leg, accounting for the Force in Perth following their bye, and pushing the Queensland Reds all the way last weekend.

With their tails up, there's now not as much fear around the consistently brilliant Crusaders as there might have been about the 12-time champions at the start of the season, as the Australian teams all gear