The Rugby League Pacific Championship is a

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

tournament for national teams in

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

. Its inaugural tournament was in

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 ...

as the "Oceania Cup". The tournament replaced the Anzac Test Series (1997–2017), which solely featured and as a single match annual test. Before the Pacific Championships, regular regional competition between the other Oceanian countries was sporadic since the cessation of the

Pacific Cup The Pacific Cup was a rugby league football competition, inaugurated in 1974, as a development competition for national teams from the Pacific region outside of Australia and New Zealand. The tournament ceased in 2009. In 2019, a similar com ...

(1974–2009) which served as a development competition for the Pacific Islands.

History

The tournament was created in 2019 as the ''Oceania Cup'' with a two tiered format. The top tier (cup) consisted of

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 ...

and

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

and the second tier (shield) consisted of

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Australia won the Cup in the inaugural season while Fiji won the shield and got promoted for the 2020 competition. For the 2020 edition,

Cook Islands The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...

were scheduled to take Fiji's place in the shield. No team was relegated from the cup as Australia were going to go on a tour of England that year. The competition was scheduled to begin in June and conclude in November, but was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The tournament returned in 2023, following the pandemic and postponed

2021 Rugby League World Cup The 2021 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2021) was a collection of world cups in the sport of rugby league, held in England from 15 October to 19 November 2022. England won hosting rights for the competition on 27 October 2016. The bid received � ...

, under the name ''Pacific Championships''. The tournament came as part of a $7 million investment by the

NRL The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

and

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...

to develop rugby league in the surrounding countries, in addition to forming part of the

International Rugby League The International Rugby League (IRL) is the global governing body for the sport of rugby league football. The IRL organises the Rugby League World Cup, the oldest international rugby World Cup, as well as the Women's Rugby League World Cup, Wom ...

new seven year international calendar. 2024 saw the introduction of the women's competition. Note women's games were held in 2023, but as a series of friendlies and in no structured competition. The 2024 Women's Bowl also acted as the Asia-Pacific qualification tournament for the 2026 Women's Rugby League World Cup. For 2024 onwards, promotion and relegation would not be automatic and would occur via a playoff.

Format

The Pacific Rugby League Championship is a competition for men's national teams of the seven full member of

(IRL) located in Oceania: * * * * * * * The tournament currently is divided into two divisions of three teams initially based on IRL rankings. Since 2024, a

promotion and relegation Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

playoff has occurred between the bottom placed team in the first division and the top placed team in the second division. The seventh Oceanian team tours a

European Rugby League The European Rugby League (ERL) (previously Rugby League European Federation (RLEF)) is the umbrella body for nations playing the sport of rugby league football across Europe. In the absence of other continental federations, ERL also controls ru ...

nation on a rotational basis. Each team plays two matches in a single round robin with the top two of division one advancing to the division final. ---- The women's competition, introduced in 2024, followed a very similar format and similarly is for women's national teams of the Oceanian IRL full members: * * * * * * * Like the men's, the tournament is divided into two divisions. Though, unlike the men's, the lower tier contains four teams as no regular touring schedule has been planned for the women's sides.

Men's Tournaments

;Promotion and relegation anomalies *2019/20: Tonga avoided relegation as Australia would were scheduled to tour England the following year freeing up an additional space in the 2020 tournament. *2020/23: Following the tournament's rebrand as the Pacific Championships and the extended time between editions due to the

and the delayed 2021 World Cup, previous promotions and relegations were nullified and teams were reseeded based on

rank A rank is a position in a hierarchy. It can be formally recognized—for example, cardinal, chief executive officer, general, professor—or unofficial. People Formal ranks * Academic rank * Corporate title * Diplomatic rank * Hierarchy ...

. *2023/24: No relegation was planned between the 2023 and 2024 edition with Tonga and Samoa touring England in these respective years. Tonga who did not participate in 2023 replaced Samoa who did not participate in 2024.

Results by team

;2024–present promotion/relegation playoff winners *

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

: (cup team)

Women's Tournaments

Results by team

;Promotion/relegation playoff winners *

: (bowl team)

Notes

References

{{International rugby league Rugby league international tournaments Oceanian rugby league competitions Recurring sporting events established in 2019