New Wakefield Trinity recruit Jazz Tevaga and Samoa suffered defeat in the Pacific Cup final, with New Zealand coming from behind to claim a 36-14 victory in the showpiece Down Under.
Christchurch-born hooker Tevaga, who represents Samoa on the international stage via his heritage, was named on the bench by head coach Ben Gardiner for Sunday’s final at the CommBank Stadium in Sydney.
Entering the action 17 minutes in, he helped To’a Samoa into a 14-6 half-time lead, with Brian To’o and Simi Sasagi both grabbing tries as Blaize Talagi converted twice and added another two points from the tee via a penalty.
Tevaga, who has joined Wakefield from NRL side Manly Sea Eagles on a two-year deal from 2026, got through a 48-minute stint in total,
The new Super League star was withdrawn 15 minutes from time, and by then, the Kiwis had already turned things around to lead 20-14.
Stacey Jones’ side went on to score another three tries, including two in the final five minutes, to give the Pacific Championships’ 2025 showpiece a more one-sided scoreline than the game itself warranted.
30 unanswered second half points produced a 36-14 result in favour of New Zealand, who were in turn crowned Pacific Cup champions for the second time having also beaten Australia 30-0 in the tournament’s final back in 2023.
Their success this year though came just 12 months on from a disastrous 2024 campaign which saw the Kiwis fail to reach the final after losing both of their group games, to the Kangaroos and Tonga.
To ensure they remained in the Pacific Cup for this year’s tournament, Jones’ side had to beat Pacific Bowl champions Papua New Guinea in a promotion/relegation play-off last autumn!
Jillaroos retain Women’s Pacific Cup crown
New Zealand’s women, the Kiwi Ferns, also reached their Pacific Cup final: but were beaten in the showpiece by Australia for the second year running.
The Jillaroos were 24-4 victors in last year’s final, and had only beaten the Kiwi Ferns 10-4 last weekend in their group stage clash.
But in Sunday’s final, the world champions asserted their dominance and produced a mammoth scoreline: winning 40-8.
Racing into a 24-0 lead by the time the break arrived, the Jillaroos ran in a total of seven tries and had six different try-scorers in a game which saw both Ashleigh Quinlan and Ivana Lauitiiti sin-binned for the Kiwi Ferns.
New Zealand’s only tries came from Shanice Parker, who scored in the opening 60 seconds of the second half, and Tysha Ikenasio.
