Super Rugby Pacific Superlatives: Award Winners Following The 2025 Season
Super Rugby Pacific Superlatives: Award Winners Following The 2025 Season
Relive the best of the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season with top awards, epic matches and standout players, including Ardie Savea and Macca Springer.
After a pulsating regular season, thrilling finals and one last match to decide it all last weekend, it’s officially curtains on the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season.
There’s no need to feel sad, however; it was a brilliant year for Oceania’s top club rugby competition, which saw passionate crowds and support for all 11 of its teams as we were all left with a season to remember.
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Now that Super Rugby Pacific is off until early next year, it’s time to deconstruct and look back at the year that was — and give some kudos to the best of the best we saw over the past few months on the pitch.
Here’s a look at the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season that was — and the players and moments that made the year special:
Player Of The Year: Ardie Savea, Moana Pasifika
The first official Super Rugby Pacific Player of the Year is FloRugby’s Player of the Year, too.
In a magical first season with Moana following a decade of stardom with the Hurricanes, the All Blacks stalwart showed zero signs of ever dropping from world-class caliber after his high-profile move to the three-year-old club in the offseason, almost willing Moana — which had never finished above 11th since debuting in 2022 — to the finals for the first time in club history.
Savea is off on a sabbatical in Japan next year, but his instrumental impact to Moana as captain and a leader of men in the club’s finest season yet won’t be forgotten for quite some time.
Coach Of The Year: Rob Penney, Crusaders
Moana Pasifika’s Tana Umaga has earned a shout here, but Penney deserves the nod after going from the hot seat to the winner’s podium in the span of a year.
Penney had to escape calls to be sacked following the 2024 campaign after the Crusaders failed to make the finals in the first season following now-All Blacks coach Scott Robertson’s reign of dominance in Christchurch from 2017-2023.
Penney had one more chance to prove himself as worthy of the role and did just that, tying the Chiefs for the most regular-season victories with 11 and defeating the Hamiltonians in the final, nabbing the Crusaders’ record-extending 13th (non-regionalized) Super Rugby Pacific title this past weekend and extending their remarkable home finals record to 32-0 in the process.
Rookie Of The Year: Leroy Carter, Chiefs
A bit of an unusual rookie, as he turned 26 in February, Carter — who played provincial rugby at Bay of Plenty before starring in sevens, being nominated for the World Rugby Men’s Sevens Player of the Year award in 2023 — made the code switch this year and immediately hit the ground running for the regular-season champions.
He scored a try in his Super Rugby Pacific debut at Eden Park against the Blues and finished with nine tries on the season, ranking him tied for fourth in the competition.
Carter added an extra edge to a blistering Chiefs attack that made it to the final and finished with a league-best 75 tries in the regular season.
Breakout Player Of The Year: Timoci Tavatavanawai, Highlanders
Already having turned heads in a great first season with the Highlanders in 2024 when the 5-foot-7, 235-pound Fiji-born bulldozer was wrecking opponents on the wing, Tavatavanawai was given extra responsibilities heading into this season.
He was shifted to the center role and was named a club co-captain.
All he did from there was earn comparisons to Ma’a Nonu and secure a well-deserved first All Blacks call-up for their upcoming test series against France.
The Highlanders were largely poor throughout the year and finished last in the table, but Tavatavanawai routinely impressed with his high work rate, versatility and ability to turn the ball over in breakdowns, making him a feared player for opponents to face, despite the Highlanders’ woes.
Comeback Player Of The Year: Cam Roigard, Hurricanes
Roigard was lighting up Super Rugby Pacific in his first few seasons with the Hurricanes, earning himself a trip with the All Blacks to the 2023 Rugby World Cup, but a ruptured patella tendon suffered early in the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season threatened to halt his momentum.
He not only eventually found his way back into the New Zealand setup for its end-of-year tests later in 2024, he also found his form again at club level by undoubtedly establishing himself as the competition’s premier scrumhalf.
He scored six tries, including a match-winner to cap off a brace in a win over the Highlanders in Round 14, and his ceiling is only growing at the age of 24.
Match Of The Year: Moana Pasifika At Western Force, Round 1
Who would’ve thought the most pulsating match of the Super Rugby Pacific calendar came on the opening weekend?
The long wait for the return of one of the world’s top club rugby competitions was made well worth it after Moana and the Force brought down the house in Perth.
In a 45-44 barnburner that featured 12 tries, the debut of Ardie Savea for Moana and a whole bunch of other chaos, Carlo Tizzano and Kyren Taumoefolau each had braces, as a combined four tries were scored in the final 10 minutes plus added time.
It all ended when the Force’s Ben Donaldson crossed in the fourth extra minute with a wonder 5-pointer.
After a 26-phase final charge from the Force was being stalled, Donaldson broke through the Moana line and scored a brilliant try from his own half to cap the match of the first round — and the best match we saw all year.
Try Of The Year: Teddy Wilson, New South Wales Waratahs (Vs. Chiefs, Round 9)
It was Wilson who was credited with scoring the Waratahs’ third and final try in an epic win in Sydney against an eventual finalists in the Chiefs, but make no mistake about it — this was a team effort from the Tahs.
Ahead 14-7 just a few minutes into the second half, the Chiefs were pushing for a try inches from the hosts’ line before losing possession.
The Tahs then went off to the races, starting from behind their own try line and sending numbers forward with blistering pace. They went coast-to-coast in around 20 seconds, with Andrew Kellaway and Joseph-Aukuso Sua’ali’i covering most of the ground in their own half.
The slickest moment of the try sequence came just past the halfway line, however, when Lawson Creighton tipped a Sua’ali’i pass to him behind his head to a streaking Kellaway, who successfully found Wilson to finish it off and seal one of the best tries ever scored in Super Rugby Pacific.
Performance Of The Year: Macca Springer, Crusaders (Vs. Western Force, Round 5)
You never know what you’ll get on a given weekend in the Super Rugby Pacific, and the Crusaders got an all-time shift from Springer in their 55-33 victory over the Force in Christchurch in March.
Part of a nine-try haul from the eventual champions, Springer scored a first-half brace in the span of six minutes to start his day, then scored three more tries in an eight-minute span in the second half to finish with five on the afternoon, tying him with late great ex-Chiefs wing Sean Wainui for the most tries scored by one player in a Super Rugby Pacific match.
It was an incredible first start to the season for the emerging 22-year-old New Zealand youth international and made for an explosive breakout performance. He became a key part of the Crusaders’ setup en route to their return to the Super Rugby Pacific title.
Surprise Team Of The Year: Moana Pasifika
Though the team is likely bitterly disappointed with having just missed out on its first trip to the finals with a seventh-place finish, Moana Pasifika can hold its head high knowing that it went from a competition basement-dweller to a fearsome, spoiler-happy unit this season.
Wins over the Crusaders (in Christchurch), Hurricanes and Blues were the highlights for Tana Umaga’s men, who obviously were helped by the massive offseason addition of Ardie Savea, but additionally had multiple breakout stars surrounding the All Blacks legend.
The list of contributors included Miracle Fai’ilagi, Kyren Taumoefolau and Semesi Tupou Ta’eiloa bolstering up the ranks, too, setting up Moana for potential sustained success for the future, even as Savea leaves for a one-year sabbatical in Japan next season.
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