The Rugby Championship Countdown - History of the competition

With just over a week until The Rugby Championship, lets dive into the history of the competition, some interesting facts and some of the past winners.

The Rugby Championship, formerly known as the Tri Nations Series (1996–2011) is an international rugby union competition contested annually by Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These are traditionally the four highest ranked national teams in the Southern Hemisphere; the Six Nations is a similar tournament in the Northern Hemisphere.

The competition is administered by SANZAAR, a consortium consisting of four national governing bodies: the South African Rugby Union, New Zealand Rugby Union, Rugby Australia and the Argentine Rugby Union. The inaugural Tri Nations tournament was in 1996 and was won by New Zealand. South Africa won their first title in 1998, and Australia their first in 2000. Following the last Tri Nations tournament in 2011, New Zealand had won ten championships, with South Africa and Australia on three titles each. The first Rugby Championship was won by New Zealand, who won all six of their matches.

Nearing the end of the 1995 World Cup, multimillion-pound negotiations between the South African, New Zealand and Australian unions took place to form SANZAR. The new union soon announced a ten-year deal to create a tournament like the then Five Nations in Europe.

In 2012, the competition was extended to include Argentina following an impressive performance in their international games, notably their third-place finish in the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

In the Rugby Championship each team plays the others home and away, resulting in a total of six matches for each team per season. The team with the most points at the end of the series is crowned the champion.

The All Blacks have been particularly dominant in the Rugby Championship, often finishing at the top of the table and winning 10 titles. South Africa have won it once and so have Australia.