The 2009 end of year rugby internationals, also known as the Autumn internationals in the Northern Hemisphere, saw

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, tour the northern hemisphere. The headline event of the series was an attempted

Grand Slam tour In rugby union, a Grand Slam occurs when one team in the Six Nations Championship (or its Five Nations predecessor) beats all the others during one year's competition. This has been achieved 42 times in total, for the first time by Wales in 190 ...

of the Home Nations by Australia. This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Wallabies' only previous Grand Slam tour, which saw the Wallabies sweep all four matches and saw

David Campese David Ian Campese, AM (; born 21 October 1962), also known as Campo, is a former Australian rugby union player (1982–1996), who was capped by the Wallabies 101 times, and played 85 Tests at wing and 16 at fullback. He retired in 1996 and ...

Mark Ella Mark Gordon Ella, Order of Australia, AM (born 5 June 1959) is an indigenous Australian former rugby union footballer. Ella played at flyhalf, flyhalf/five-eighth and was capped by the Australia national rugby union team, Wallabies 25 times, capt ...

Nick Farr-Jones Nicholas Campbell Farr-Jones AM (born 18 April 1962) is a former Australian rugby union player, who played as a scrum-half. He debuted for the Australia national team during the 1984 tour of Britain and Ireland. Farr-Jones was named "Player ...

, and

Michael Lynagh Michael Patrick Thomas Lynagh, (born 25 October 1963) is an Australian former rugby union player who played 66 tests at Fly-half (rugby union), fly-half and six tests at inside centre between 1984 and 1995. Lynagh was Cap (sport), capped 72 time ...

achieve international prominence. Also, for the second consecutive year, a

Bledisloe Cup The Bledisloe Cup is an annual rugby union competition between the national teams of Australia's Wallabies and New Zealand's All Blacks that has been contested since the 1930s. The frequency that the competition is held has varied, as has the n ...

match was contested by New Zealand and Australia outside of either country, this time in Tokyo. The final event of the series, the Barbarians' traditional Final Challenge, involved New Zealand, with the Barbarians winning over a mostly second-string All Blacks side. For the first time since the inception of the

IRB World Rankings The World Rugby Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in rugby union, managed by World Rugby, the sport's governing body. There are separate men's and women's rankings. The teams of World Rugby's member nations are ranked based on th ...

in 2003, all of the top 20 teams in the rankings played matches in the November window. The only top-20 teams not playing in the November tours were

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, which played a two-legged 2011 Rugby World Cup qualifying tie during November. This year's series was also marked by more non-Test matches pitting Test teams with top-level club teams than in recent years. Matches of this type are often called "midweek matches" because they are traditionally played at midweek, most often on Wednesday, although they can also be scheduled on a weekend when the touring team has no Test scheduled. Australia and South Africa both scheduled two such matches; the Wallabies won both of their matches comfortably, while the Springboks lost both of theirs.

Matches

Week 1

Week 2

---- ----

Week 3

---- ---- ---- * Ras Dumisani's controversial rendition of the South African national anthem before the game caused a minor diplomatic incident afterwards. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- * Japan's victory saw them achieve their highest ever spot on the

. ---- * Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll became the 11th player to reach 100 Test

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

Week 4

---- ---- ---- ---- * Dan Carter became the all-time leading Test point scorer for the All Blacks, surpassing

Andrew Mehrtens Andrew Philip Mehrtens (born 28 April 1973) is a New Zealand former rugby union player. He was regarded as a top first five-eighth, having played first for Canterbury in 1993, before being selected for the All Blacks (New Zealand's national ...

. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Week 5

---- * This was Italy's first win since June 2008, ending a 13-game losing streak. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Week 6

* This was New Zealand's first loss in the Northern Hemisphere since 2007, as well as the first time in two years a team had managed to score tries against them in the Northern Hemisphere.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:End-of-year

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

2009–10 in European rugby union 2009 in Oceanian rugby union 2009 in North American rugby union 2009 in South American rugby union 2009 in African rugby union