The 2016 Super Rugby season was the 21st season of Super Rugby and the first season featuring an expanded 18-team format. It was also the first season that teams outside Australia, New Zealand and South Africa featured, with the Jaguares from Argentina and the Sunwolves from Japan taking part. This season also saw the return of the Kings, who competed just once before, in the 2013 Super Rugby season.^[1] The round-robin games took place every weekend from 26 February to 16 July 2016 (with a break for international matches during June), followed by the finals series at the end of July and culminating in the final on 6 August.

The Hurricanes won their first championship after repeating their efforts of 2015 by finishing first in the regular season and hosting the final at Westpac Stadium, but this time they won, beating the Lions 20–3. Unlike 2015, where the Hurricanes looked likely to finish the regular season first with a number of rounds to go, they were sitting in seventh going into the final week of the regular season and while guaranteed a play-off spot, they required a number of upset results to elevate them to first. In particular the Lions losing to the Jaguares and scoring no match points after sending an under-strength side to Argentina, thereby losing their chance to host the final.

The 18 teams were grouped geographically in two regional groups, each consisting of two conferences: the Australasian Group, with five teams in the Australian Conference and five teams in the New Zealand Conference and the South African Group, with six South African teams, one Argentinean team and one Japanese team split into a four-team Africa 1 Conference and a four-team Africa 2 Conference.^[2]

In the group stages, there were 17 rounds of matches, where each team played 15 matches and had two rounds of byes for a total of 135 matches.

Teams played six intra-conference matches; in the four-team African Conferences, each team played the other three teams in their conference at home and away, while in the five-team Australasian Conferences, each team played two teams home and away and once against the other two teams (one at home and one away). The other nine matches were a single round of matches against each team in the other conference in their group, as well as against each team from one of the conferences in the other group. For 2016, the teams in Africa 1 played the teams in the Australian Conference, while the teams in Africa 2 played the teams in the New Zealand Conference.

The top team in each of the four conferences automatically qualified to the Quarter Finals. The next top three teams in the Australasian Group and the next top team in the South African group also qualified to the Quarter Finals as wildcards. The conference winners were seeded #1 to #4 for the Quarter Finals, in order of log points gained during the group stages, while the wildcards were seeded as #5 to #8 in order of log points gained during the group stages.

In the Quarter Finals, the conference winners hosted the first round of the finals, with the highest-seeded conference winner hosting the fourth-seeded wildcard entry, the second-seeded conference winner hosting the third-seeded wildcard entry, the third-seeded conference winner hosting the second-seeded wildcard entry and the fourth-seeded conference winner hosting the top-seed wildcard entry.

The Quarter Final winners progressed to the Semi-Finals, where the highest seed to reach the Semi-Finals hosted the lowest seed and the second-seeded semi-finalist hosted the third-seeded team.

The winners of the Semi-Finals progressed to the Final, at the venue of the highest-seeded team.

The final standings for the 2016 Super Rugby season are:^[3][4]

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2016 Super Rugby standings: Australasian Group

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification
1	Hurricanes	15	11	0	4	458	314	+144	61	37	7	2	53	Conference leaders Qualify to finals
2	Brumbies	15	10	0	5	425	326	+99	56	40	3	0	43
3	Highlanders	15	11	0	4	422	273	+149	50	28	4	4	52	Wildcard teams Qualify to finals
4	Chiefs	15	11	0	4	491	341	+150	68	39	6	1	51
5	Crusaders	15	11	0	4	487	317	+170	65	40	5	1	50
6	Waratahs	15	8	0	7	413	317	+96	55	37	4	4	40
7	Blues	15	8	1	6	374	380	−6	45	47	2	3	39
8	Rebels	15	7	0	8	365	486	−121	46	65	2	1	31
9	Reds	15	3	1	11	290	458	−168	33	57	0	3	17
10	Force	15	2	0	13	260	441	−181	25	60	0	5	13

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2016 Super Rugby standings: South African Group

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts	Qualification
1	Lions	15	11	0	4	535	349	+186	71	42	7	1	52	Conference leaders Qualify to finals
2	Stormers	15	10	1	4	440	274	+166	49	28	5	4	51
3	Sharks	15	9	1	5	360	269	+91	40	30	2	3	43	Wildcard teams Qualify to finals
4	Bulls	15	9	1	5	399	339	+60	47	37	4	0	42
5	Jaguares	15	4	0	11	376	427	−51	44	51	1	5	22
6	Cheetahs	15	4	0	11	377	425	−48	47	48	1	4	21
7	Southern Kings	15	2	0	13	282	684	−402	34	95	1	0	9
8	Sunwolves	15	1	1	13	293	627	−334	33	88	0	3	9

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More information Pos, Pts ...

Australian Conference Pos Team v t e Pts 1 Brumbies 43 2 Waratahs 40 3 Rebels 31 4 Reds 17 5 Force 13 New Zealand Conference Pos Team v t e Pts 1 Hurricanes 53 2 Highlanders 52 3 Chiefs 51 4 Crusaders 50 5 Blues 39 Africa 1 Conference Pos Team v t e Pts 1 Stormers 51 2 Bulls 42 3 Cheetahs 21 4 Sunwolves 9 Africa 2 Conference Pos Team v t e Pts 1 Lions 52 2 Sharks 43 3 Jaguares 22 4 Southern Kings 9

Overall Pos Team v t e Pts Qualification 1 Hurricanes 53 Conference leaders Qualify to finals 2 Lions 52 3 Stormers 51 4 Brumbies 43 5 Highlanders 52 Wildcard teams Qualify to finals 6 Chiefs 51 7 Crusaders 50 8 Sharks 43 9 Bulls 42 10 Waratahs 40 11 Blues 39 12 Rebels 31 13 Jaguares 22 14 Cheetahs 21 15 Reds 17 16 Force 13 17 Southern Kings 9 18 Sunwolves 9 Source: [3][4]

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The fixtures for the 2016 Super Rugby competition were released on 28 September 2015:^[6] The following matches were played during the regular season:

The four conference winners advanced to the Quarter Finals, where they had home advantage against four wildcard teams, which consisted of the third to fifth-ranked teams in the Australasian Group and the third-ranked team in the South African Group.

The final seedings of these teams were:^[3][7]

More information Conference leaders, Pos ...

Conference leaders
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	TB	LB	Pts
1	Hurricanes	15	11	0	4	458	314	+144	61	37	7	2	53
2	Lions	15	11	0	4	535	349	+186	71	42	7	1	52
3	Stormers	15	10	1	4	440	274	+166	49	28	5	4	51
4	Brumbies	15	10	0	5	425	326	+99	56	40	3	0	43
Wildcard teams
5	Highlanders	15	11	0	4	422	273	+149	50	28	4	4	52
6	Chiefs	15	11	0	4	491	341	+150	68	39	6	1	51
7	Crusaders	15	11	0	4	487	317	+170	65	40	5	1	50
8	Sharks	15	9	1	5	360	269	+91	40	30	2	3	43

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The play-off fixtures were as follows:

Quarter-finals

	22 July 2016	Brumbies	9–15	Highlanders	Canberra Stadium, Bruce, Australia
	18:00	Pen: Christian Lealiifano  11', 18', 52' (3/5) Cards: Matt To'omua 37' to 47'	Report[8] Scoreboard[9]	Try: Waisake Naholo  37' Liam Squire  57' Con: Lima Sopoaga  38' (1/2) Pen: Lima Sopoaga  5' (1/3)	Attendance: 8,559[10] Referee: Angus Gardner

	23 July 2016	Hurricanes	41–0	Sharks	Wellington Regional Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand
	19:35	Try: Loni Uhila  17' James Marshall  21' Jason Woodward  47' Vaea Fifita  50' TJ Perenara  59' Brad Shields  80' Con: Beauden Barrett  48', 51', 60' (3/5) Jason Woodward  81' (1/1) Pen: Beauden Barrett  14' (1/1)	Report[11] Scoreboard[12]		Attendance: 17,685[13] Referee: Glen Jackson

	23 July 2016	Lions	42–25	Crusaders	Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa
	16:30	Try: Courtnall Skosan  2' Rohan Janse van Rensburg  7' Malcolm Marx  40' Ruan Combrinck  69' Ross Cronjé  74' Con: Elton Jantjies  8', 40', 70', 75' (4/5) Pen: Elton Jantjies  15', 62' (2/3) Drop: Elton Jantjies  54' (1/1)	Report[14] Scoreboard[15]	Try: Ryan Crotty  33' Mitchell Drummond  63' Ben Volavola  80' Con: Richie Mo'unga  34', 63' (2/3) Pen: Richie Mo'unga  20', 47' (2/2) Cards: Luke Romano 6' to 16'	Referee: Craig Joubert

	23 July 2016	Stormers	21–60	Chiefs	Newlands Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa
	19:00	Try: Vincent Koch  11', 39' Nizaam Carr  72' Con: Robert du Preez  12', 40' (2/2) Brandon Thomson  73' (1/1)	Report[16] Scoreboard[17]	Try: Sam McNicol  14' Brad Weber  17' Tom Sanders  24' James Lowe  34' Damian McKenzie  46' Hika Elliot  75' Tevita Koloamatangi  79' Tawera Kerr-Barlow  81' Con: Damian McKenzie  15', 18', 25', 35', 76', 80', 82' (7/8) Pen: Damian McKenzie  4', 29' (2/2)	Attendance: 28,972[18] Referee: Jaco Peyper

Semi-finals

	30 July 2016	Hurricanes	25–9	Chiefs	Wellington Regional Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand
	19:35	Try: Willis Halaholo  7' Beauden Barrett  35' Victor Vito  48' Con: Beauden Barrett  36', 49' (2/3) Pen: Beauden Barrett  33', 56' (2/2) Cards: Cory Jane 63' to 73'	Report[19] Scoreboard[20]	Pen: Damian McKenzie  11', 40', 52' (3/4)	Attendance: 24,623[21] Referee: Angus Gardner

	30 July 2016	Lions	42–30	Highlanders	Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa
	15:00	Try: Elton Jantjies  12' Rohan Janse van Rensburg  24' Courtnall Skosan  46' Jaco Kriel  55' Lourens Erasmus  73' Con: Elton Jantjies  13', 25', 56', 74' (4/5) Pen: Elton Jantjies  21', 45', 52' (3/3)	Report[22] Scoreboard[23]	Try: Matt Faddes  48' Lima Sopoaga  66' Waisake Naholo  75' Joe Wheeler  82' Con: Lima Sopoaga  76', 82' (2/4) Pen: Lima Sopoaga  19', 40' (2/3)	Referee: Jaco Peyper

Final

Main article: 2016 Super Rugby Final

	6 August 2016	Hurricanes	20–3	Lions	Wellington Regional Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand
	19:35	Try: Cory Jane  22' Beauden Barrett  69' Con: Beauden Barrett  23', 70' (2/2) Pen: Beauden Barrett  12', 52' (2/2)	Report Scoreboard[24]	Pen: Elton Jantjies  26' (1/3)	Attendance: 34,014[25] Referee: Glen Jackson

The following refereeing panel was appointed by SANZAAR for the 2016 Super Rugby season: