National First XV Championship (New Zealand)

The National First XV Championship is the Premier Rugby Union competition for Secondary Schools/Colleges in New Zealand.

The National First XV Championship is ultimately broken down via the Top 4, which is made up of the winners of the four regions: Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes and South Island.

Each region operates its own different qualification system.

Blues:
The Northland and North Harbour champions meet, with the winner of that match facing the Auckland champion.

Chiefs:
Each regional province determines their own winner, followed by a knockout bracket.

Hurricanes:
The winner and runner-up of the Wellington Premiership and the top-two region schools that play in the Super 8 competition play in a seeded knockout. A 'challenger' place is available to any region school that does not play in either competition, with that match taking place prior to the seeded matches.

South Island: The winner of the match between the Crusaders winner and the Highlanders winner. The Crusaders winner is the top side from the region-wide UC Championship, while since the Highlanders-region competition was discontinued after 2015 a provincial-based knockout format has been used.

These four teams then have two semi finals with the winners advancing to the National 1st XV Final. The semifinal matchups change each year; for example, the Blues winner plays the Hurricanes winner one year, the Chiefs winner the next, and finally the South Island winner in rotation.

Some titles have been shared. There have been calls for overtime to be included to determine an outright winner, but this is currently not allowed for under World Rugby's Under-19 variations. In the event of a drawn semi-final, the team that advances is determined by a hierarchy of factors starting with which team scored the most tries in the match.

The oldest and most prestigious nationwide trophy in 1st XV rugby dates back to the end of World War One. At the end of the Great War, ten divisions of troops, six British, three Australian and a New Zealand division were waiting in Ismailia, Egypt to be sent home. Authorities within these divisions decided competitive sport would be a good way to fill in the time. A committee of officers was formed and they visited Cairo in search of a suitable trophy for a rugby tournament. When they returned they had a magnificent but somewhat cumbersome trophy made of Sterling Silver and stamped with "Made in London, 1904". The trophy was named the Moascar Cup. (Moascar was thought to be the name of a village in Egypt but it is, in fact Arabic for "camp".) It was decided that the trophy in honour of the occasion should be mounted on the centre part of a sawn off German propeller shot down in Palestine. The Cup, also contested by a South African division, was won by the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade who won eight and drew one of its nine games.

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