Key information | Bunnings Warehouse NPC

Before the 2024 NPC kicks off, we take a deeper look into how the tournament works!

The Bunnings Warehouse NPC consists of the following teams:

Auckland

Bay of Plenty

Canterbury

Counties Manukau

Hawke's Bay

Manawatū

North Harbour

Northland

Otago 

Southland

Taranaki

Tasman 

Waikato

Wellington

First round matches | NPC Fixtures

NPC Regular Season

The Compeititon will consist of a Round Robin structure with each team playing 10 fixtures, including 5 home and 5 away games. Fixtures are determined based off seedings from the previous year with teams ranked 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 playing each other & evens 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 & 14 playing each other, whilst there are four (4) crossover games in which Provincial Union’s select based of the following criteria.
The way in which the crossover matches will be determined is as follows:

i. In the first round of picks, matches are selected by odd seeded teams in reverse order of seeding. These matches will be played as home matches for the odd seeded teams.

1. Seed 13
2. Seed 11
3. Seed 9
4. Seed 7
5. Seed 5
6. Seed 3
7. Seed 1

Round 2
In the second round of picks, matches are selected by even-seeded teams in reverse order of seeding. These matches will be played as home matches for the even seeded teams.

1. Seed 14
2. Seed 12
3. Seed 10
4. Seed 8
5. Seed 6
6. Seed 4
7. Seed 2

Round 3
In the third round of picks, matches are selected by odd seeded teams in order of seeding. These matches will be played as home matches for the even seeded teams;

1. Seed 1
2. Seed 3
3. Seed 5
4. Seed 7
5. Seed 9
6. Seed 11
7. Seed 13

Round 4
In the fourth round of picks, matches are selected by even seeded teams in order of seeding. These matches will be played as home matches for the odd seeded teams;

1. Seed 2
2. Seed 4
3. Seed 6
4. Seed 8
5. Seed 10
6. Seed 12
7. Seed 14

In making any selection:
A team may not select a team that it will already play (for example, as a result of a pick made by another team in a previous round)

Where the process necessarily results in the situation described in the previous paragraph, the previous two picks in that round will be ruled void and must be made again (and must be made differently). The above selections will be made, on a sequential basis, on the same day at an event dedicated for this purpose.

FINALS RANKING

The eight teams with the highest number of competition points at the completion of the Round Robin will proceed to the Finals Round. 

FINALS ROUND

Based on the competition points for the Premier Competition, each Finals Round will be played as follows, with the top ranked team hosting:

Quarter-finals:
QF 1: 1 plays 8
QF 2: 2 plays 7
QF 3: 3 plays 6
QF 4: 4 plays 5

Semi-finals:
SF 1 Top ranking quarter-final winner hosts against lowest-ranked quarterfinal winner; and SF 2 2nd highest ranked quarter-final winner hosts 3rd highest ranked quarterfinal winner.

The winning semi-finalists will play each other in the Premier Competition final. The winning finalist will be awarded the Premier Competition trophy.

The venue for all Finals Round matches will be the home venue of the team with the higher finals ranking of the two teams participating in
that match.