Moana Pasifika bow out of Super Rugby with sadness but in style

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Moana Pasifika bow out of Super Rugby with sadness but in style

2026-05-31 13:56 Last Updated At：14:00

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Moana Pasifika’s four-year tenure in Super Rugby ended not with a whimper but a bang Saturday when they snapped a 12-match losing streak by beating the playoff-bound Brumbies in their last match in the tournament.

Playing with 14 men for the last 20 minutes after center Faletoi Peni received a second yellow card which became a red card, Moana Pasifika hung on to beat the Brumbies 21-19 for their second win of the season.

The impulse to celebrate was overwhelmed by the pathos of the moment. After the final whistle the Moana Pasifika players and staff formed a circle and sang a poignant hymn which evoked both their pride and sadness that their journey together has ended.

The Moana Pasifika organization has been placed in liquidation and, though efforts are still being made to save the team which offers players of Pasifika heritage a pathway to professional rugby, the future seems forlorn.

New Zealand Rugby will ensure the players and staff are paid through July and the New Zealand government is to provide some financial assistance. But that is not likely to be enough to allow the team to continue and Super Rugby will be a 10-team competition next year.

A group of former All Blacks is still hopeful of taking over the team but with a liquidator in place, that seems increasingly unlikely.

Among many farewells, head coach Tana Umaga is leaving to become an assistant to new All Blacks coach Dave Rennie. Many of the players will join the Pacific diaspora, playing for clubs overseas.

But Umaga says the spirit that motivated the creation of Moana Pasifika won’t die with the team.

The legacy is what we’ve left behind,” he said. “You’ve seen the support of our Pacific people. We have a good vibe and I think that’s encouraging.

“We’ll always have our supporters that support us through our family and our culture. Everything that we did through our club and what we tried to portray was we were unapologetically Pacific and some people really resonated with that and enjoyed that. And that’s just us being us.”

The last pieces of the playoff picture clicked into place over the last weekend of the regular season.

The Wellington-based Hurricanes retained first place despite an awful 47-14 loss to the Crusaders who jumped ahead of the Auckland-based Blues when the Blues lost 59-34 to the Chiefs.

That means the Hurricanes in Wellington, the Chiefs in Hamilton and the Crusaders in Christchurch will host matches in the first round of the playoffs next weekend.

The Hurricanes will play the ACT Brumbies on Friday while the Chiefs will play the Queensland Reds and the Crusaders will play the Blues on Saturday.

The decision by the Hurricanes to field an under-strength team against the Crusaders may haunt them in the playoffs. Their defeat snapped a five-match winning streak and might have stripped away the momentum they were carrying into the playoffs. They have the security of a second chance if they lose next weekend which will allow them to advance to the semifinals regardless.

The Crusaders and Chiefs both are heading into the playoffs with momentum after big wins over other teams that have qualified for the playoffs.

The Chiefs have been strong in the late or post-season recently, reaching the final in each of the last three years. The Crusaders are unbeaten in 32 playoff matches at home.

The Queensland Reds also won their last-round match, beating the Fijian Drua 45-24, finishing with an 8-6 record. The Drua are 5-9 after a mixed season in which they ended their long losing streak away from home by beating the Brumbies in Canberra in round 10.

The Brumbies are an enigma, blessed with talent across the field but prone to turning in sub-standard performances at home, as they did against Moana Pasifika on Saturday.

While the Australian teams have been inconsistent again this season, new head coach Les Kiss will see the makings of a solid Wallabies lineup. There is strength in the second row, backrow, at scrumhalf, in midfield and the outside backs. Questions remain in the playmaker role and in the front row.

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Heavy rains threaten to delay search for 2 people missing in Laos cave

BANGKOK (AP) — Heavy rains threatened to delay the search for two people missing in a flooded cave in Laos on Sunday, after the rescue of five other people who were trapped underground for over a week.

Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, one of the first international rescuers to arrive at the site, told The Associated Press that rains had filled the cave up to the second chamber, preventing divers from entering the cave until pumps can lower the water level.

The seven villagers reportedly entered the cave last week to look for valuable minerals before being trapped by a flash flood that blocked their way out. One other villager escaped and alerted the authorities.

Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand have been working together in the past week at the site in a rugged area in the central province of Xaisomboun, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane. They were joined by divers from countries including Finland, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia.

Several of the rescuers previously took part in the complicated 2018 cave rescue in northern Thailand that saved 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave.

The rescued men are being treated at a local hospital and are doing well, Malaysian diver Lee Kian Lie, who’s taking part in the operation, told the AP on Sunday.

“We interviewed them about how the deeper part of the cave looks like. We will continue to search based on the information we have, and perhaps we will be able to get to the other two,” he said.

According to rescuers, they have navigated more than 200 meters into the cave and discovered five chambers in the system. The five people rescued so far were found in the fifth chamber.

Paasi told the AP that the survivors said there’s a narrow crack in the fifth chamber that could be a passage leading to a deeper part of the cave system.

“This was the only place that we haven’t checked in the mine, where the two lost miners could still be,” he said during a video interview.

“Now there’s a theory that, through that small crack, it still continues, and there’s a sixth chamber, which gives us hope now that, if we could penetrate that small restriction, we might be able to reach the sixth chamber and then see what is there.”

The five people who have been rescued were first found Wednesday. They were identified by their first names as Khamla, Mued, Ee, Ing and Laen.

The first man was safely evacuated on Friday, guided through a narrow flooded passage by an expert diver. The remaining four left the cave on Saturday after the water receded enough for them to walk out on their own, rescuers said.

Videos posted online Saturday by rescuers at the site showed emotional moments as the men emerged one by one from the cave. Some collapsed on the ground at the cave’s entrance, and were hugged by a group of workers who cried in joy. Later moments showed them lying on a stretcher, wrapped in foil blankets and fitted with an oxygen mask before being transported out of the site.