2011 Super Rugby season
| 2011 Super Rugby season | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Countries |
Australia (5 teams) New Zealand (5 teams) South Africa (5 teams) |
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| Tournament format(s) | Round-robin and knockout | ||
| Champions | Reds (1st title) | ||
| Matches played | 125 | ||
| Attendance | 2,430,624 (19,445 per match) | ||
| Tries scored | 559 (4.47 per match) | ||
| Top point scorer(s) | Quade Cooper (228) | ||
| Top try scorer(s) |
Bjorn Basson / Sean Maitland / Sarel Pretorius (9) |
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| Official website | Official site | ||
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The 2011 Super Rugby season was the first season of the new 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involved teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Including its past iterations as Super 12 and Super 14, this was the 16th season for the Southern Hemisphere's premier transnational club competition. The season kicked off in February 2011, with pre-season matches held from mid-January. It finished in early July to allow players a recovery period for the 2011 Rugby World Cup to be held in September and October; in future non-World Cup years, the competition will extend into August.
This season saw the arrival of the Melbourne Rebels, admitted to the competition as Australia's fifth team after entry by the Southern Kings from South Africa was denied. This was also the first season of a revamped competition format, with a greater focus on matches within each participating country and an expanded finals series.
During this season, the first ever Super Rugby game was played outside of the SANZAR region, taking place at Twickenham Stadium between the Crusaders and the Sharks. The match was moved to Twickenham because of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Proceeds of the game were also donated to the relief effort.
The final was played at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane between the Queensland Reds and the Crusaders. The Reds won 18-13 to claim their first Super Rugby title.
Covering 21 weeks, the schedule featured a total of 125 matches. The 15 teams were grouped by geography, labelled the Australian Conference, New Zealand Conference and the South African Conference. With the new format, the regular season consisted of two types of matches:
The top team of each conference, plus the next top three teams in table points regardless of conference (wild card teams), moved on to the finals. The top two conference winners, based on table points, receive first-round byes. In the first round of the finals, the third conference winner is the #3 seed and hosts the wild card team with the worst record, and the best wild card team hosts the second-best wild card team. In the semi-finals, the #2 conference winner hosts the higher surviving seed from the first round, and the #1 conference winner hosts the other first-round winner. The final is hosted by the top remaining seed.
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