The Blues have become the first team to win three Super Rugby Aupiki titles in a row, beating Matatū 28-21 in Christchurch on Saturday night with a try scored after the clock had already run out.
Wing Katelynn Vahaakolo stepped inside the last of the Matatū cover and reached out to score the winner deep into added time, ending a final that had been locked at 21-21 with three minutes left on the clock. RNZ put the try at the 83rd minute. It was her second of the night and it settled a match that neither side had led by more than a converted try at any point.
More than 10,000 people were at One New Zealand Stadium at Te Kaha to watch it, a crowd well beyond anything the competition drew in its early seasons at suburban grounds. Matatū captain Grace Brooker said afterwards that playing a final in the new Christchurch ground mattered to the players regardless of the result. “It makes us feel seen as athletes, it makes us feel that the blood, sweat and tears that we put out there is worth it,” she said.
The Blues started the better side. Hooker Atlanta Lolohea powered over from close range in the 16th minute to open the scoring, and for a while it looked as though the defending champions would control the night the way they have controlled most of the past three seasons. Then the game turned. Sarah Jones scored for Matatū, Alena Saili crossed in the 33rd minute, and the home side went to the break ahead 14-7.
The Blues had also lost their fullback by then. Braxton Sorensen-McGee left the field in the 24th minute after failing a head injury assessment and did not return, forcing a reshuffle in the back three barely a quarter of the way through the biggest match of the season. Matatū first five-eighth Maia Joseph, who kicked three conversions, was sent to the bin in the 38th minute for shoulder-to-head contact.
Vahaakolo scored her first four minutes into the second half to level the match at 14-all, and there it stayed for 26 minutes. Neither side could find a way through. The Blues held the ball for long stretches without breaking the line. Matatū defended their line repeatedly and kept turning the ball back. It was the sort of stalemate that usually ends in a penalty goal, but neither side took the points on offer.
Lolohea broke it in the 70th minute with her second try, converted by Ruahei Demant, to put the Blues ahead 21-14 and leave Matatū ten minutes to save their season. Georgia Ponsonby scored in the 77th to bring the scores level again, Joseph converted, and the final went into its last minutes at 21-21 with a Trans-Tasman fixture and a place in the record books hanging on it.
Matatū had the ball as the clock wound down and were trying to work their way into position when the Blues turned it over. Vahaakolo did the rest. Demant added the conversion for the 28-21 margin. Maggie Cogger-Orr refereed the match.
Blues captain Maiakawanakaulani Roos said the finish took a while to sink in. “It took a minute to process,” she said. “We played for each other and our connection got us through.”
Vahaakolo pointed to something the squad had repeated to itself all season. “We have a quote that says ‘just us for us’ and I feel we reflected that tonight,” she said.
Loose forward Liana Mikaele-Tu’u offered a different explanation for how the side held together in the closing stages. “We’re a faith-driven team,” she told Super Rugby’s website after the win.
Lolohea was named player of the match. Two tries from a hooker in a final is a return most forwards would take, and her carrying around the ruck through the middle third of the game gave the Blues the go-forward they had been missing while Matatū were on top.
The result gives the Blues the 2024, 2025 and 2026 titles and makes them the first side to win three Aupiki finals consecutively since the competition began in 2022. They beat Chiefs Manawa in the 2024 final and Matatū at Eden Park last year. That kind of run raises an awkward question for a five-year-old professional competition still trying to build an audience, because one-team dominance is rarely good for a league. The counter-argument is the scoreline. This final went to the last play of the last minute, as did a good deal of the season, and a crowd of more than 10,000 turning out on a Christchurch winter night suggests the product is finding people regardless of who keeps lifting the trophy.
Matatū now have the harder job of coming back from a second straight final defeat to the same opponent, with a squad that has repeatedly finished the regular season as one of the two best teams in the country without converting it. Brooker’s side led at halftime, levelled the game twice, and lost it to a single moment of individual skill in added time.
The Blues fly to Sydney next. They face the NSW Waratahs on Saturday 1 August at 7.30pm New Zealand time in the Women’s Super Rugby Championship, the Trans-Tasman decider between the New Zealand and Australian champions. The Waratahs earned their place by beating the Fijian Drua 34-17 in Ba to claim their seventh Super Rugby Women’s title, so the Blues will meet a side with a longer trophy history than their own competition has years.
The Blues confirmed the fixture in their own match report. It will be shown live on Sky Sport.
Were you at Te Kaha for the final, or watching at home when Vahaakolo scored? Tell us what you made of the season 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 🙂
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