Moana Pasifika to Disband: Super Rugby Pacific Set to Shrink to 10 Teams in 2027

End of the road for Moana Pasifika as funding dries up, NZ Rugby still hopeful
 

With World Rugby and government funding gone, Moana Pasifika’s owners say the Auckland franchise is no longer viable. It’s the second Super Rugby team to fold since the Melbourne Rebels in 2024.

After joining Super Rugby in 2022 to build Pacific pathways, Moana Pasifika is shutting down amid funding issues...

Super Rugby Pacific will lose its second side in three years and drop to 10 teams in 2027 after Moana Pasifika’s owners chose to shut down the struggling club at the end of the current campaign.

Moana Pasifika’s management said Wednesday that running the Auckland-based franchise is no longer sustainable. The team entered Super Rugby in 2022 aiming to create test pathways for players of Pacific heritage.

“This decision comes after extensive ‌consideration of the financial, operational, and strategic realities facing the franchise ‌as well as professional rugby in New Zealand,” the team said in a statement.

  

This comes after the debt-hit Melbourne Rebels folded in 2024, leaving Australia’s second-largest city without a professional rugby union team.

New Zealand Rugby said it knows some groups may be looking at “financially viable and sustainable plans” for Moana and is willing to talk with them.

The governing body wouldn’t give any more details, though.

With Moana Pasifika potentially being dismantled next season, these are the 10 best players (IMO) coming to the market:

1. Samisi Tupou Ta'eiloa
2. Miracle Faiilagi
3. Patrick Pellegrini
4. Ngani Laumape
5. William Havili
6. Millennium Sanerivi
7. Alan Craig
8. Feleti…

— The Rugby Issue (@TheRugbyIssue) April 14, 2026

“NZR remains supportive of Moana Pasifika's vision to create pathways from the Pacific and is saddened by the challenges the club faces,” it said in a statement.

Moana Pasifika joined Super Rugby alongside the Fiji-based Fijian Drua in 2022, backed by World Rugby and New Zealand government funding.

The idea of basing the side in the Pacific never happened, and they’ve effectively run as New Zealand’s sixth Super Rugby team and the second in Auckland, going head-to-head with the established Blues.

As World Rugby and government funding dried up, money issues grew for a franchise that has found it tough to build a solid fanbase and bring in commercial sponsors.

Moana landed a major signing coup last year with loose forward Ardie Savea, and the All Blacks enforcer helped push the team to seventh on the ladder - their best finish yet.

Aside from that signing, they’ve struggled to bring in elite players, and with Savea on sabbatical in Japan this season, Tana Umaga’s Moana are stuck at the bottom with one win from eight matches.

Umaga was already leaving Moana at the end of the season to take the All Blacks defence coach job, but dozens of players and staff now face an uncertain future - Savea included, who was due to come back in 2027.

Terrible news that Moana Pasifika are set to be axed from Super Rugby Pacific.

Really thought that Ardie Savea’s time there would kickstart the franchise into attracting more talent and creating sustainable pathways, but clearly not.

A long term solution needs to be found to…

— Tight Five Rugby (@TightFive_Rugby) April 14, 2026

Moana’s exit is another hit for Super Rugby, which once had 18 teams after starting with 12 in 1996.

The competition never fully bounced back from COVID-19 disruption, and South Africa’s pro sides pulling out left it as largely an Australian and New Zealand tournament.