How to watch Pacific Championships 2025: FREE live streams for rugby league

If the first-round thrillers between the Kiwis and Toa Samoa in the men's Pacific Cup and the Kiwi Ferns and Fetu Samoa in the women's Pacific Cup are anything to go by, the gap between the first and second tier nations, once a yawning chasm, is getting narrower and narrower. And the Pacific Championship itself played an important role in this.

For a long time, rugby was a closed shop and the balance of power was clearly tilted in favor of Australia and New Zealand, who had (and continue to have) the money and access to recruit the best talent from the Pacific Islands as those countries were denied opportunities. The Pacific Championships give elite players a real incentive to look beyond the Kangaroos and Kiwis and reconnect with their roots.