Super Rugby Aotearoa competition ends with Eden Park fixture cancellation

The Super Rugby Aotearoa competition ended over the weekend with the Blues v Crusaders match at Auckland’s Eden Park cancelled and the Highlanders vs Hurricanes match at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium played without fans.

With the New Zealand Government having reintroduced Coronavirus lockdown measures at the start of last week Sunday’s clash between the Blues vs Crusaders at Eden Park was cancelled after confirmation that Auckland would remain at Alert Level 3 for 12 days.

Saturday’s Highlanders vs Hurricanes match at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium was played without fans and kicked off at an earlier time to give the Hurricanes enough time to fly home.

Fans had been able to attend sports events in New Zealand since the middle of June, with last week’s Auckland outbreak marking the country’s first recorded cases since June.

Around 43,000 tickets had been sold for the Eden Park match.

The weekend changes brought Super Rugby Aotearoa, the domestic stand-in for the cancelled Super Rugby competition, which had been a rare instance of sport played in front of full houses during the Coronavirus pandemic.

As of the weekend, community rugby was also put on hold in the Auckland region with New Zealand Rugby considering implications for the showpiece North v South island game scheduled to take place at Eden Park on 29th August.

Image: Eden Park.