Rugby Union's most evocative trans-Tasman fixture is heading for one of the most evocative dates on the Australian sporting calendar. New Zealand Rugby has confirmed talks with Rugby Australia are well advanced on staging an Anzac Day Bledisloe Cup Test on April 25, 2027, and the on-field response from those who would have to play and select around it has been instant and unambiguous.
Waratahs head coach Dan McKellar, whose Super Rugby Pacific players would lose key personnel mid-season, said the broader benefits to the code far outweighed the inconvenience to clubs.
"I think we've got to park our own agendas, I suppose, or not be selfish," McKellar said. "Rugby union needs to grow, it needs to think outside the square; if it means an Anzac Test in front of 82,000 people at Accor Stadium, and we're down a couple of players for a week, as will other teams as well, I think you need to park that and think what's best for the game."
McKellar, who has been a vocal advocate for moves that grow the union footprint in Australia, did not hide his enthusiasm. "I think it would be an unbelievable spectacle, and I'd be all for it."
While Sydney's Accor Stadium remains an option, the proposed Test has emerged as a genuine three-city contest. Brisbane has been pushed by influential Queensland voices including Wallabies flanker Fraser McReight, who argued the city is the country's largest sporting population centre without a marquee Anzac Day fixture.
"It's such an awesome thing that rugby has the ability to do," McReight said of the Anzac Day connection. "Why not Brisbane - Sydney NRL, Melbourne AFL have huge events that day and Brisbane doesn't and we have a fantastic stadium."
Perth has also entered the conversation, with Optus Stadium pitched as a fit-for-purpose 60,000-capacity venue and Western Australia keen to leverage the WA government's growing investment in major events. McReight conceded any final call would have to dovetail with the new-look Super Rugby competition that begins in 2027, and with Wallabies and All Blacks scheduling commitments.
"I don't know what that new Super Rugby comp looks like, but you have to work around it and get that game committed," McReight said.
For the players, the symbolism is what makes the fixture distinct from any other Bledisloe Cup encounter. Anzac Day commemorates the joint Australian and New Zealand military landings at Gallipoli in 1915, and is one of the most solemn dates on both nations' calendars. Rugby has flirted with the idea of marking the day with a Bledisloe Test for years, but the logistics of player release, broadcast windows and Super Rugby fixturing have repeatedly pushed the concept back.
McReight described the prospect of running out for the Wallabies on Anzac Day in plain terms.
"It would mean a lot. Words can't really describe about how much it would mean for us and the Kiwis," he said.
The expectation in Australian rugby circles is that the proposal will receive a green light at the New Zealand Rugby annual general meeting, with the appointment of a new NZR chief executive seen as the trigger for accelerated planning. If approved, an Anzac Day Test would also serve as the marquee Wallabies fixture in the build-up to Rugby World Cup 2027, which Australia hosts.
For now, the venue debate continues. Suncorp Stadium, Optus Stadium and Accor Stadium all have legitimate cases. The one thing on which McKellar, McReight and the wider rugby community now appear aligned is that the fixture itself should happen and that, as McKellar put it, the game cannot afford to let club agendas get in the way.
