The 2019 Rugby Championship was the eighth edition of the annual southern hemisphere Rugby Championship, featuring

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 ...

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 ...

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

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 ...

. The competition is operated by

SANZAAR SANZAAR (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina Rugby; previously known as SANZAR) is the body which oversees Super Rugby and The Rugby Championship competitions in rugby union. SANZAAR meets annually and is composed of the CEOs fr ...

, a joint venture of the four countries' national unions. The tournament schedule was similar to that of the 2015 edition, being shortened due to the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

. New Zealand was the three-time back-to-back defending champions entering this years Championship. However, South Africa claimed their fourth title, their first since the inception of the Rugby Championship and their first Southern Hemisphere title since 2009. They became the third team to claim the expanded Southern Hemisphere championship, following New Zealand and Australia.

Background

The tournament is operated by

and known for sponsorship reasons as ''The

Castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

Rugby Championship'' in South Africa, ''The

Investec Investec is an Anglo- South African international banking and wealth management group, founded in Johannesburg, South Africa. It provides a range of financial products and services to a client base in Europe, Southern Africa, and Asia-Pacific. ...

Rugby Championship'' in New Zealand, ''The

Mitsubishi Estate is one of the largest real estate developers in Japan and is involved in property management and architecture research and design. As of 2018, Mitsubishi Estate has the most valuable portfolio in the Japanese real estate industry, with a total ...

Rugby Championship'' in Australia, and ''The

Personal Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...

Rugby Championship'' in Argentina.

Format

Because of the 2019 World Cup, the tournament schedule was reduced, as it was in 2015, to each team playing each other once. Australia and Argentina each played two home matches out of the three matches to be played in total. New Zealand and South Africa had one home fixture. As usual, a win earned a team four league points, a draw two league points, and a loss by eight or more points zero league points. A bonus point was earned in one of two ways: by scoring at least three tries more than the opponent in a match, or by losing within seven points. The competition winner was the side with the most points at the end of the tournament.

Other Cups

Because the

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 ...

is decided in two home-and-away legs, after the end of the shortened Rugby Championship, New Zealand and Australia played for the Bledisloe Cup decider at

Eden Park Eden Park is a sports venue in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located three kilometres southwest of the Auckland CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and Kingsland. The main stadium has a nominal capacity of 50,000, and is s ...

, Auckland, with Australia leading the series 1-0. New Zealand retained the Cup for the 17th consecutive year with a comprehensive 36-0 win, concluding in a 1-1 series result.

Table

Results

Round 1

Notes: * Rynhardt Elstadt, Lizo Gqoboka and Herschel Jantjies (all South Africa) and Harry Johnson-Holmes and Isi Naisarani (both Australia) made their international debuts. * South Africa reclaim the Mandela Challenge Plate. ---- Notes: * Mayco Vivas (Argentina) and Braydon Ennor, Luke Jacobson, Atunaisa Moli and

Sevu Reece Sevuloni Lasei Reece (born 13 February 1997) is a Fijian born New Zealand rugby union player who plays as a wing for the Crusaders in Super Rugby and Southland in the Bunnings NPC. Born in Fiji, he represents New Zealand at international level a ...

(all New Zealand) made their international debuts.

Round 2

Notes: * New Zealand retain the Freedom Cup. * This was the first draw between these two sides since 1994. * New Zealand passed 16,000 points in international rugby during this game. ---- Notes: * Santiago Socino (Argentina) made his international debut. * Australia retain the Puma Trophy.

Round 3

Notes: * This was the first

match played in

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. * Australia's 47 points was their record score against New Zealand, surpassing the 35 points scored in 2000. * The All Blacks' 21-point defeat equalled their record loss, set in 1999 against Australia. * New Zealand finished third in the table for the first time since the 2004 Tri Nations, and the first time since The Rugby Championship's inception. * Scott Barrett became the fourth New Zealand player to be sent off in an international match, and the first since

Sonny Bill Williams Sonny William Williams (born 3 August 1985) is a New Zealand heavyweight boxer, and a former professional rugby league and rugby union player. He is only the second person to represent New Zealand in rugby union after first playing for the cou ...

against the

British and Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England national rugby union team, England, Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland, Scotland national rugby union team, Scotland, and ...

in 2017. Barrett was also the first player to be dismissed in a Bledisloe Cup match since

Drew Mitchell Drew Alan Mitchell (born 26 March 1984) is a former Australian rugby union professional player. He played on the wing or as fullback. Up to the 2006 season he played for the Queensland Reds. He played for the Western Force for the 2007–09 Su ...

in 2010. * The crowd of 61,241 was the largest to date to attend a sporting event at Perth Stadium. ---- Notes: * This was South Africa's biggest winning margin over Argentina in Argentina. *

Handré Pollard Handré Pollard (born 11 March 1994) is a South African professional rugby union player who currently plays for the South Africa national rugby union team, South Africa national team and in the United Rugby Championship. His regular playing pos ...

's tally of 31 points set a new record for a single player in a Rugby Championship match. It equalled

Morné Steyn Morné Steyn, (born 11 July 1984) is a South African former professional rugby union player who played as a fly-half for the Bulls and played for the South Africa national team, up until his retirement from international test rugby in October ...

's Tri Nations record, set against New Zealand in

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 ...

Statistics

Points scorers

Try scorers

Squads

Note: Ages, caps and clubs/franchises are of 20 July 2019 – the starting date of the tournament

Argentina

On 46-man extended squad for the 2019 Rugby Championship and in preparation for the

2019 Rugby World Cup The 2019 Rugby World Cup () was the ninth edition of the Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's rugby union teams. It was hosted in Japan from 20 September to 2 November in 12 venues all across the country. The opening matc ...

Australia

On 4 July, Michael Cheika named a 34-man squad for the 2019 Rugby Championship.Wallabies Squad for The Rugby Championship
/ref> James O'Connor officially joined the squad on 17 July after the completion of signing a contract with Rugby Australia and the Queensland Reds.

New Zealand

On 2 July 2019, Hansen named a 39-man squad ahead of the 2019 Rugby Championship.

South Africa

The following players were named in the South African squad for the 2019 Rugby Championship:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rugby Championship 2019 in Argentine rugby union 2019 in Australian rugby union 2019 in New Zealand rugby union 2019 in South African rugby union 2019 rugby union tournaments for national teams July 2019 sports events in Africa July 2019 sports events in Australia July 2019 sports events in New Zealand July 2019 sports events in South America August 2019 sports events in Australia August 2019 sports events in South America

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...