Super Rugby Aotearoa reaches round seven this weekend with another two fixtures in the rebooted New Zealand competition.
Log leaders and serial champions the Crusaders make their return following a bye last weekend with a home match against the Hurricanes on Saturday (kick off 9.05 SAST).
The hosts are out to maintain their perfect start to the domestic tournament, with four wins from four so far against their Kiwi rivals.
Their opponents arrive at the Orangetheory Stadium off the back of a humdinger, having snatched a 29-27 victory over the Blues in Wellington last time out.
It was a third success of the campaign but still leaves them six points adrift of their opponents as they head to Christchurch.
The Blues return to home turf having licked their wounds for a week, tackling the Chiefs on Sunday in Auckland (5.35 SAST).
A strong Super Rugby start has left them second in the table despite their second defeat of the campaign.
The Chiefs, meanwhile, also know a thing or two about agonizing losses, having gone down by the same margin in slipping to a 31-33 loss at the hands of the Highlanders.
It was a fifth failure in five attempts to get off the mark, ahead of another tough away trip to Eden Park.
The Highlanders put their feet up for a bye week this time around.
Prediction methodology explained
The expected win percentage is based off publicly available odds. For example, if a team’s odds are 2.30, the expected chance of winning is 43%. If the odds are 1.62 the expected chance of winning is 62% and so on. These are accurate at the time of writing but are subject to change. Where there is no value listed, the odds were not available at the time of writing.
The predicted points margin draws on calculations from by a New Zealand statistician.
Super Rugby Aotearoa: Fixtures and kick off times ? Round 7
Times are SAST.
Saturday, 25 July: Crusaders vs Hurricanes ? 9:05
Sunday, 26 July: Blues vs Chiefs – 5:35
Super Rugby NZ Predictions: Round 7
Crusaders vs Hurricanes
Blues vs Chiefs
