'Time for us to grow up' - Moana Pasifika’s make-or-break season

It's a stunning Friday afternoon for footy. We're watching the first ball get kicked in anger for the 2025 New Zealand rugby season, as Moana Pasifika host the Highlanders in a preseason match in their new home at North Harbour Stadium. Well, not quite - the stands are all facing the other way as being played outside of the main stadium on the outer oval, which somewhat sums up Moana's position right now.

Everything is lining up for the ambitious project to progress to the next stage, they're just not quite where they want to be yet. Not on the outer fields of Super Rugby Pacific, not even in the part of town they've found themselves in. Nevertheless, rugby doesn't wait for anyone and despite the temperature touching 27 degrees, the two sides smash into each other to get ready for the upcoming season.

Casting his eye over proceedings is the undisputedly impressive figure of Sir Michael Jones. The All Black legend and Moana board director is one of the friendliest and welcoming men you'll ever meet, but Jones is refreshingly blunt about what 2025 means for the team.

"It's our fourth season in the comp, so I think the grace period finished last year," said Jones.

"It's about time for us to grow up, I think expectations of not only our own fans, but the general rugby public is that Moana need to prove that we're a legitimate contender. For our stakeholders that are believing in us, we really have to get there this year."

According to new CEO Debbie Sorensen, that starts in the boardroom. The team is now owned by Pasifika Medical Association (PMA), being run as "a more sustainable, solid support system."

"We'd got past the implementation and the start-up of a new franchise, it became apparent that it was really important that the organisation that might provide support had the same values and the same vision," said Sorensen who was recently appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

She's has stepped up to chairperson of the Moana board after being vice-chair for the past three seasons. Her elevation was part of a broad cleanout of the team's back office, which has seen changes in communications and marketing, as well as the shift of the entire operation from Mt Smart to Albany. Sorensen admitted that heading back over the city side of the bridge is the "long term goal", certainly something that could play into the torturously drawn out Auckland stadium debate.

"For a city like Auckland, that's something that the local council and funders need to consider because this is where all the growth, that's all the growth is, in the south of the city. And so in the long term, at some stage, I think we will need to find a home on that side," Sorensen said, before adding that "the community on the North Shore has been incredibly welcoming" to Moana.

However, the fact is that Auckland's stadium situation is complicated enough without trying to figure out where Moana, a team with no defined geographic boundaries, will play. That's why it felt like Moana ended up at Mt Smart Stadium by default, a bold move trying to set up shop at a venue synonymous with the Warriors - but one that really didn't work.

Moana are now housed at North Harbour with another expansion team, with Auckland FC using the main field for training in preparation for the weekend's home game which will be played, ironically, in front of a healthy crowd back down at Mt Smart. It's part of an Auckland sports market that's boomed since Covid, with the Warriors, Blues and now the new football team able to attract excellent attendances. That's unfortunately been Moana's main issue - no one was expecting them to win a title any time soon, but the feeling was they'd at least generate support.

"For Super Rugby Pacific to be successful, we need to work together in terms of the shape of the game. Providing input into world changes, how it can be more fan friendly," said Sorensen.

"One of the things for us is that we share our training facilities with Auckland FC. Talking to them about their journey…Auckland is a very sporting city."

It's fair to say even when the green light was given on Moana Pasifika back in 2021, there were a few concerns about just how the new Super Rugby team would actually work.

Most pressing was how they'd attract players, an issue that was dramatically addressed last July when Ardie Savea announced he was moving to the team. Savea joked in his first press conference that he'd been assigned to clean the toilets as the new boy, despite being named captain.

Nothing's going to come easy

Savea has swum against the tide of the talent flow. Star players Levi Aumua and Timoci Tavatavanawai both recently left, although you could make a very good argument that Aumua's move to the Crusaders has so far had the exact opposite effect to his career than intended. Savea's addition is obviously the headline news, but it does come tinged with more than a bit of irony.

That's because he joins the one unit in Moana that didn't really need any help. Their loose forward trio of Sione Havili-Talitui, Lotu Inise and Miracle Fai'ilagi are all good enough to start for any other Super Rugby team, with Fai'ilagi being the best example of what Moana were purportedly set up to do. After being picked up from the local competition in Apia, Fai'lagi's professional experience at Super level saw him called up to the Manu Samoa team - now he and 'Ikale Tahi test players Havili-Talitui and Inise will find themselves reshuffled to accommodate an All Black captain and the rest period mandates Savea will be under.

Sorensen doesn't see any issue with that, however.

"What he demonstrates is the highest standard of excellence in rugby, both on the field and off the field. So his professionalism, his understanding of how he's a product, his integrity, and his ethics. The way that he conducts himself at a very high standard is really important to us, but also his authentic self."

For his part, Savea has been consistently on brand with his messaging around the shift.

"It's when you're playing for a bigger purpose, not only just for a team, for everyone that we represent. I think there's like this spirit there. That's what makes you want to just give it all," he said in his first media appearance.

Then there was the prospect of taking games to the islands, another thing that's been said should've been done years ago - which is very much easier said than done. While the Fijian Drua have been able to make Churchill Park in Lautoka a formidable venue for visiting teams and a fantastic spectacle for TV, it has serious limitations as a professional facility.

So the challenges in Samoa and Tonga, which have populations four times less than Fiji, are even bigger for a Moana team that has to roll in and set up shop on the week of the games, then pack up and leave afterwards. It's not just them either - Sky TV has to build broadcast positions from scratch, an expensive and time-consuming exercise.

The uphill battle just to get established is stark for Moana, but it's also fair to be cautiously optimistic about their chances this season. While they won four games in 2024, they were within 10 points of four losses - had two of those gone their way it would've been good enough to make the (admittedly very generous) playoff system.

No combination of this year's draw could ever be described as easy, but they at least start with a fixture they won last year. The Force in Perth and then the Reds in Brisbane is followed by the real test: three home matches in a row against the Highlanders, Hurricanes and Chiefs, then away to the Crusaders. As with everything with Moana, it's not just the results that are going to be under scrutiny, but if they come back from Australia with two wins, we're really going to know just how much of a crowd they're going to draw at North Harbour Stadium.

However, true to Moana's original goal of doing things their own way, Sorensen has plans for bigger things. She said the PMC charity model helped "reduce the barriers to sports and all sports for people."

"We have a Moana Pasifika rowing boat with young women rowing for the first time. Another group of kids needed support; they didn't have any gear but desperately wanted to play tennis. So providing the opportunity for our people to be able to participate in sport, whatever that might be, is really important to us because it's good for them and it's good for our community."

So the goodwill is there, on and off the field. Despite going down to the Highlanders in the preseason match, Jones saw enough to be encouraged.

"There's new developments, enhancements. If the game today was anything to judge, it was a reflection of the good, hard work off the field," he said.

"We're really building everything we do…that lifts the boys too, no doubt."