Unease as Aupiki returns

New season, same issues. Super Rugby Aupiki enters a critical third campaign with lingering concerns over its sustainability after its troubled opening years.

Yesterday’s low-key launch welcomed the four teams’ captains to Auckland ahead of Saturday’s opening match between the Chiefs Manawa and Hurricanes Poua in Hamilton.

The uneasy question hovering over the elite domestic women’s rugby competition, which is essentially part-time and scattered with professional Black Ferns, is whether it can survive without further expansion. There were familiar messages from each skipper yesterday, calling for more development.

They also acknowledged the work New Zealand Rugby had done to get the competition going, as well as the introduction this year of a more genuine pre-season and increased player payments for non-Black Ferns.

The latter has more than doubled to a minimum of $17,000 for the seven-week season (while top Black Ferns can earn approximately $130,000 a year).

But there remains the desire, from players and coaches, for Super Rugby Aupiki to be longer, to be more professional, to incorporate the Australian teams and to gain a foothold in a crowded sporting market.

One burning issue, too, is the NRLW, which could welcome the return of the Warriors’ women’s team in 2025 and ignite an intriguing battle for talent.

Hurricanes captain Jackie Patea-Fereti, a former Black Fern, said most of the players were happy with the slight increase in last year’s overall fixtures (from 10 to 13) and the guarantee of six to seven matches per team (up from five each) in the tweaked format that will also be in place for 2025.

Still, she expressed concern for the non-professional players. Their weekly workload was a hot topic last season when the competition was squeezed into five weeks.

“The rest of us are not full-time and only play while the season is running. Girls are still working or studying, Monday to Wednesday, then come into our camp Thursday to Sunday,” Patea-Fereti said.

“The strain, it’s up there. I know last season that a couple of our girls got burnt out.”