2012–13 Rugby-Bundesliga
| 2012–13 Rugby-Bundesliga | |
|---|---|
| Countries |
 Germany Luxembourg
|
| Champions | Heidelberger RK (9th title) |
|
← 2011–12
2013–14 →
|
|
The 2012–13 Rugby-Bundesliga was the 42nd edition of this competition and the 93rd edition of the German rugby union championship. In the Rugby-Bundesliga, twenty-two teams played in, initially, four regional divisions, the first stage of the competition. The season started on 25 August 2012 and finished with the championship final on 15 June 2013, interrupted by a winter break from 25 November to 3 March. The regular season finished on Wednesday 1 May and the play-offs started on the following weekend, 4 May, and the German championship final was held on 15 June 2013.
The defending champions were Heidelberger RK who defeated TV Pforzheim in the 2012 final to take out its eights championship and third in a row. Heidelberger RK took out the national championship once more, remaining unbeaten all season and defeating local rival SC Neuenheim 41–10 in the final.
The league has been radically modified from the 2011–12 season. In 2011–12 the league operated with ten teams playing in a single division in a home-and-away format with semi-finals and a final at the end. In 2012–13 the league has been expanded, initially to twenty-four teams, which were to play in four regional divisions of six teams each. In those each team would play the others in its division just once. However, two teams resigned from the league before the start of the season, reducing the number of clubs to twenty-two. The Berlin Grizzlies of the eastern division opted to form a team with the reserve side of USV Potsdam Rugby and play in the 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga instead.DRC Hannover withdrew from the northern division just before the first game of the season, suffering from a lack of first team players and entered the tier three Rugby-Regionalliga instead for 2012–13.
The first stage of the competition, the Vorrunde, will finish on 3 October 2012 after which the second stage will start, the Qualifikationsphase, in which the top four teams each from the southern and the western group play each other in one group while the top teams from the north and east play each other in another. The finals series will be expanded from four to eight teams. The six teams not qualified for the Qualifikationsphase will enter the DRV-Pokal, the German rugby union cup, together with the top eight teams of the 2nd Bundesliga. The 2nd Bundesliga teams not qualified for the DRV-Pokal will play for the Liga Pokal.
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