Super 12: The History
Tue, 23 May 2006 09:46
The Super 12 is the world's premier provincial rugby union tournament in the world with the best of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand going head to head for 13 frenetic weeks.
The current format is born out of the old Super 6 which featured teams from New South Wales, Queensland, Fiji, Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington - a competition dominated by Auckland - back in 1992.
Then South Africa came back into international rugby and Super 6 became Super 10 in 1993. After the 1995 World Cup and professionalism and all that television money, Super 10 became Super 12 under the guidance of a new body, SANZAR.
With three teams from Australia, four from South Africa and five from New Zealand the Super 12, since its first proper season in 1996, has been one of the great successes of the professional rugby union era.
However, it has not been without it critics, especially in the northern hemisphere, who see the much more open game and lenient refereeing as in clear breach of the rugby union rules.
The tournament structure involves each team playing each other once in a league format. Points are awarded for a win (4) and a draw (1) although there are bonus points available as well. If a team scores more than 4 tries in a match, win or lost, they get one extra point and if a side is within 7 points or less of the team that wins they also get one point.
At the end of the eleven games, the top four progress in to play-offs, 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 with the two winners going through to the final.
Since 1996, the tournament has been dominated by New Zealand. In 1996 and 1997 it was the Auckland Blues, led by the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick, Michael Jones and Zinzan Brooke, who took the first two titles.
In 1998, the Canterbury Crusaders broke the north Island's dominance and since then under the captaincy of Todd Blackadder they recorded a remarkable three consective titles, beating ACT Brumbies by just a single point in 2000.
