Rugby union in Australia
| Rugby union in Australia | |
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Crowd in Sydney for Australia's opening match of the 2003 Rugby World Cup
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| Country | Australia |
| Governing body | Australian Rugby Union |
| National team | Australia |
| Nickname(s) | Wallabies |
| First played | 25 July 1839,Sydney, New South Wales |
| Registered players | 86,952 (total) 41,049 (adult) |
| Clubs | 770 |
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Club competitions
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International competitions
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Audience records
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| Single match | 109,874 Australia v New Zealand, (Telstra Stadium) 15 July 2000 |
Rugby union is a winter sport in Australia with a history dating back to 1864. It is traditionally most popular in Australia's rugby football strongholds of New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, though it is played throughout the nation.
The principal competition in Australian rugby is Super Rugby, which is a multi-regional competition across the southern hemisphere. With the competition expanding from 14 teams to 15 for 2011 and to 18 teams in 2016, Australia entered five teams—the Reds of Queensland, the Waratahs of New South Wales, the Brumbies of the Australian Capital Territory, the Force of Western Australia and the Australian conference's newest team, the Melbourne Rebels of Victoria.
The National Rugby Championship was launched as the next level below Super Rugby in August 2014. The NRC consists of nine teams – two from Queensland, four from New South Wales, and one each from the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Western Australia. The Buildcorp NRC will run for 11 weeks from 21 August to 1 November. It will include preliminary rounds, with each team playing each other once (four home and four away games), one bye week per team and a finals series (semi-finals and final). Below the NRC are traditional capital city competitions, such as the Shute Shield of Sydney and Queensland Premier Rugby of Brisbane, which formed the highest level of domestic competition for much of the sport's history in Australia.
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