New Zealand Rugby announces changes to Women's Rugby Calendar for 2026

With the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 showcasing the global interest in women’s rugby, and Kiwis showing the same, with over 1 million tuning into the Women’s RWC on Sky NZ, New Zealand Rugby is pleased to share changes to the domestic women’s rugby calendar for 2026.

This follows World Rugby’s announcement of the WXV Global Series.

Fans will see the Black Ferns playing 10 test matches in 2026, including four being played in New Zealand.

Three Test matches against Pacific rivals will take place in April, which will include the traditional Pac4 fixtures. The Black Ferns will also once again play for the O’Reilly Cup presented by Bupa.

As part of the WXV Global Series, the Black Ferns will play six Tests in a home and away format against some of the top 12 teams in the world, in September and October.

New Zealand Rugby Head of Women’s High Performance Hannah Porter said the new international schedule is a major boost.

“It’s more rugby, but crucially it is more rugby against the world’s top teams. It will be a major change in the next World Cup cycle as we look toward the 2029 tournament in Australia.”

Porter said the expanded international schedule also enabled some improvements to New Zealand’s domestic women’s calendar, including shifting Super Rugby Aupiki to later in the year.

Previously played through March and April, Super Rugby Aupiki will now take place between June and August, with six regular season games and a Grand Final. The winner of Super Rugby Aupiki will take on the winner of Australia’s Super Rugby W in the Women’s Super Rugby Champions Final too, which will take place in Australia in 2026.

“We are ambitious in our plans to expand Aupiki and having a clear window in the middle of the year allows for a longer preseason and the option to extend the season moving forward. It’s important for our players to spend more time in those team environments, so they have more exposure to the coaching, training, preparation and habits of a full-time professional athlete,” Porter said. “We are already investigating how this would work for future seasons.”

Meanwhile, the Farah Palmer Cup will take place between the end of August and October, with a core focus on identifying and developing New Zealand's best emerging talent.

The Black Ferns 7s will participate in the revamped HSBC SVNS World Series between November 2025 and June 2026.

There have also been a number of changes to the New Zealand women’s rugby pathways recently which have included:

Black Ferns XV

·    Two matches against the Springbok Women’s team in Cape Town in 2025

·    A trial match against the Black Ferns in Whangarei in 2025

NZ U18 Programme

·    Six-day high-performance camp attended by 50 players

·    Introduction of an U18 North v South fixture

NZ U20s Programme

·    Four-day high-performance camp at NZCIS in Wellington attended by 50 players

Regional and National Combines

·    More than 200 new to rugby athletes aged 16-25 attended four regional try-outs

·    22 athletes attended a national combine

·    Athletes were introduced to various levels of the high-performance pathway

Sevens pathways:

·    A refreshed Ignite7, including four women’s development teams, with 48 women’s players attending a four-day camp and tournament in Tauranga to develop Sevens talent with an eye to the 2028 LA Olympics.

·    Three-day U18 7s tournament high-performance camp from 19-21 December to be attended by 12 to 14 players.

·    Under 18s Sevens to compete in the Global Youth Sevens Tournament in December

·    NZ Sevens Development Team to compete in selected tournaments each year