The Blues Women have begun the defence of their Super Rugby Aupiki crown in emphatic fashion, running in six tries to thump the Hurricanes Poua 42-7 at Eden Park to open the 2026 season on Saturday afternoon.
The defending champions were sharp from the outset and never let the visitors settle, building a commanding lead before half time and then weathering a long spell down a player to finish the job. It was the kind of statement the Blues will have wanted to make in front of their home crowd, and a clear signal that they intend to hold on to the title they won last year.
Braxton Sorensen-McGee, Mererangi Paul, Sylvia Brunt, Liana Mikaele-Tu’u, Tafito Lafaele and Atlanta Lolohea all crossed for the Blues, the tries spread across a side packed with attacking threats. Black Fern loose forward Maiakawanakaulani Roos and Taufa Bason were among the standouts, controlling the middle of the field and giving the Blues a platform to play their preferred fast, ball-in-hand game.
The afternoon was not without drama. The Blues lost lock Maama Vaipulu in the 38th minute after she struck Hurricanes lock Sam Taylor in the face during a clean-out. The on-field yellow card was upgraded to red following a review, leaving the home side to play out the closing stretch a player short. To their credit, the Blues barely missed a beat, adding further tries while down to 14 and keeping the Poua to a single score.
Sam Taylor was the lone bright spot for the Hurricanes Poua, grabbing their only try of the match. The Wellington-based side will rue an afternoon in which they struggled to build pressure and were second to too many contests, though the competition is young and there is plenty of season left to find their feet.
There were a couple of worrying injury moments too. Blues loosehead prop Cilia-Marie Po’e-Tofaeono was knocked out in a collision with teammate Amarante Sititi and left the field on a medicab, while Hurricanes prop Krystal Murray spent ten minutes in the sin bin in the first half for collapsing an attacking maul. The Po’e-Tofaeono incident will be the one the Blues medical staff watch most closely in the days ahead.
The match was the opener of what is the fifth season of Super Rugby Aupiki, New Zealand Rugby’s top-flight women’s competition. Four teams contest the title each year, and the Blues Women go in as favourites after claiming their second crown in 2025. Saturday’s win suggests little has changed at the top of the pecking order, although the other three sides will all back themselves to close the gap as the rounds tick over.
This year’s competition arrives with a noticeably larger pool of fresh talent. There were close to 40 debutants named across the four match-day squads for the opening round, a sign of both the depth coming through the women’s game and the turnover that comes with a short, sharp season. For many of those new faces, running out at Eden Park or in Christchurch is the biggest stage they have played on.
The day’s other fixture saw past champions Matatū host Chiefs Manawa at One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch in the late afternoon slot. Matatū had been chasing a record crowd at the covered venue, hoping to add a women’s rugby sellout to a run of big attendances at the new stadium. Both Matatū and Chiefs Manawa have lifted the trophy in earlier seasons, so the Christchurch clash carried real weight in setting the early tone of the title race.
The wider draw points to a busy six weeks. The Aupiki Grand Final is locked in for 25 July, and the New Zealand champions will then face the winners of Australia’s Super Rugby Women’s competition in a trans-Tasman Champions Final in Sydney on 1 August. That cross-border showpiece gives the season an added edge, with bragging rights between the two countries on the line at the end of it all.
For the Blues, the focus now turns to backing up the opener and managing their squad through a condensed run of matches. A red card in round one is not ideal, and the loss of Vaipulu for any follow-up sanction would test their lock stocks, but a 35-point winning margin with a player off for more than 20 minutes is a strong way to start a title defence.
For the neutral fan, the early signs are encouraging. The standard of play, the size of the squads and the choice of marquee venues all point to a competition that continues to grow each year. If round one is any guide, the 2026 season should be well worth following through to the final whistle in late July. You can read the NZ Herald match report here and more on the round-one squads via RugbyPass.
What did you make of the Blues Women’s opening performance, and who do you fancy to lift the Aupiki title this year? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply