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Queensland Country Championships

Queensland Country Championships
Queensland Country Rugby logo.png
Sport Rugby union
Inaugural season 1902
Country Week

1996
Country Championships
Country Australia

The Queensland Country Championships, also known as the Graincorp Country Championship, is a rugby union competition for teams from regions of Queensland outside of Brisbane. The Queensland Country Rugby Union administers the competitions at Senior (open age) and Colts (under 19) levels. Eleven country sub-unions are grouped into three regional divisions in Northern, Central, and Southern Queensland for the championships.

The first Queensland rugby tournament was the Country Week carnival hosted by the QRU in 1902. Teams from Warwick, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Maryborough, Ipswich and Gympie, travelled to Brisbane to take part in the mtaches. Combined regional teams also played off against each other for selection in the Country representative teams to play Brisbane's A and B sides. For the 1903 tournament, additional visiting teams were added from Mount Morgan, Rockhampton, Charters Towers, Townsville, and Ravenswood. Combined Country's first win over Brisbane came in 1908.

After 1908, the Country Week competitions became infrequent following the introduction of rugby league. Rugby union came to a halt when war began in 1914. The QRU was not re-established until 1928–29, after the game had lost a lot of ground and was no longer played much in the country parts of Queensland. Country rugby languished for many years, and did not really start to develop again until the 1960s. After the Queensland Country Rugby Union's founding in 1965, a new Queensland Country team was chosen. The next year, trials to select the team were played and, in 1968, the first Queensland Country Carnival was held.

First held in 1968 at Ballymore in Brisbane, the Country Carnivals continued annually through to 1982.

In 1983, the country carnivals were replaced by a four-team regional State Championship which involved representative sides from Northern, Central, and Southern Queensland, as well as Brisbane competing for the XXXX Cup. The trophy itself had been introduced in 1978 but was previously contested by Brisbane clubs and teams from individual Queensland Country sub-unions including Gold Coast, Darling Downs and Rockhampton.

Under the new format, the four teams played in a round-robin with the top two sides advancing to the final but this was revised after three wins in a row to Brisbane. The XXXX Shield was introduced for country regional sides in 1986, who played each other home-and-away to win the Shield and the right to challenge Brisbane for the XXXX State Cup (the under-19 championships from 1985 to 1991, sponsored by Metropolitan Permanent and Mount Isa Mines, were also held under this format). In the Senior competition, Brisbane proved too strong for the other regions in the XXXX Cup, so the format was revised again after the 1987 season. A combined Queensland Country team challenged Brisbane in 1988 Cup and won, securing their first victory over Brisbane since 1978.


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