SRP Race for the Finals After Round 14: Three Locked In, Three Up for Grabs
Predicting the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific finals field from 25,000 simulations of the run home
Round 14 is in the books, so the updated finals probabilities are live. 25,000 simulated seasons of the run home, updated after every result. The bottom of the six tightened up this week - and a new contender forced its way back into the conversation.
The big mover: NSW Waratahs
The Waratahs finals chances jumped from 4.9% to 13.3% - an 8.4 percentage-point increase that is comfortably the biggest move of the week. After a 50-35 bonus point win over the Drua in Suva, they’re now the clear frontrunner among the outsiders.
A word of honesty before we get carried away: the Waratahs sat at 15.9% chance of finals after Round 12, collapsed to 4.9% after Round 13, and have now bounced back to 13.3%. Over two rounds they’re actually slightly below where they were 2 weeks ago. The jump this week is as much a recovery as it is a surge.
What makes them different from the other outsiders is that their remaining fixtures give them a direct say in their own destiny. They play the Brumbies this Friday in Sydney, then the Force away in Round 16 - two teams they’re directly competing with for position. Winning both games is an exercise in both collecting competition points and denying points to close rivals.
The squeeze: Crusaders, Brumbies, Reds
The flip side of the Waratahs rise is that those percentage points came from somewhere. All three teams currently occupying spots 4-6 slipped:
Queensland Reds: 92.2% → 89.5% (-2.8pp)
ACT Brumbies: 97.3% → 94.9% (-2.4pp)
Crusaders: 97.0% → 95.6% (-1.4pp)
None of them are in danger of falling out yet, but the cushion is thinner than the ladder suggests. The simulations now show the Reds missing finals roughly a 1-in-10 times.
The model actually thinks the Brumbies are in slightly better shape than the Crusaders, despite currently sitting a rung below them on the ladder. The Brumbies have the easier run home against the Waratahs and Moana, while the Crusaders still have to face the top-of-the-table Hurricanes and Chiefs.
The state of the race
Locked in (100% chance of finals): Hurricanes, Chiefs, Blues. Not a single simulation out of 25,000 has any of them missing the six. The title race is also all but settled - the Hurricanes finish 1st in 95.6% of sims, with the Chiefs at 2nd in 95.6%. The Blues are in the finals for certain, but their seeding is still live.
The contest: Spots 4-6 are just as congested as last week between the Crusaders, Brumbies, and Reds, with the Waratahs the most likely team to make some noise if they can knock off the Brumbies this week.
All but gone: The Drua’s chances dropped from 2.2% to 0.3% following their loss, and the Highlanders are now mathematically eliminated. Moana Pasifika were already out.
What still has to happen
Every outsider’s most likely path runs through the same scenario: the Queensland Reds dropping a game.
The Reds play the two weakest remaining teams in the competition in Moana Pasifika (R15) then Fijian Drua (R16). On paper, that’s about as soft a run home as you could ask for. The model has them winning both games in 52.5% of simulations - and in every single one of those, they make the finals. So if they handle their business (and thats a big if given their patchy form and recent lineout woes) they are locked.
But the Reds winning both doesn’t shut the door on everyone. Of all the simulations where a bolter sneaks into the six, almost a third of the time it happens without the Reds dropping a game. The outsider leapfrogs the Brumbies or Crusaders instead. The Reds are the most likely path, but not the only path. And because the Waratahs and Force play each other in Round 16, at most one of them can win out.
Here’s what each would-be contender needs to have happen:
Waratahs (13.3%): Three-quarters of the Waratahs finals paths come from winning both remaining matches (vs Brumbies, @Force), but nearly 1 in 4 get there on a single win plus bonus points and a top-6 collapse. The Brumbies match on Friday is the key either way: a win directly damages a rival and opens up multiple routes.
Western Force (6.4%): Must win both (vs Drua, vs Waratahs), no margin for error. That R16 head-to-head against the Tahs will act as a direct eliminator if both teams are still alive (or they draw and both are cooked). The Force beat the Reds 19-14 in Perth last week and took down the Waratahs in Sydney two weeks ago, so they've shown they can punch up, but 78% of their finals paths still need the Reds to slip on top of a clean sweep.
Fijian Drua (0.3%): The Drua need to win out and have a lot of other results go their way. The model has it happening just 3 in every 1,000 simulations.
The game to watch
Round 15: Waratahs v Brumbies (Friday 22 May 2026, Allianz Stadium, Sydney).
This is the single most consequential fixture left in the regular season. A Waratahs win reshuffles the miss-probability for not just the Brumbies, but the Reds and the Crusaders also become more vulnerable. A Brumbies win effectively slams the door shut on the Waratahs and stabilises the top six.
Who’s your bolter for the six? The Waratahs with the head-to-head path, the Force finishing strong with a pinch of luck, or will the Reds, Brumbies, and Crusaders take care of business?
Methodology: The model rates every team’s attack and defense, adds home advantage, blends in last season’s form as a stabilising prior, then plays out the remaining schedule 25,000 times. Back-tested on the last two SRP seasons, it correctly picks the finalists roughly 9 times out of 10 at this stage of the year.
What percentage does your magic machine give the crusaders and blues of winning any of their remaining games