The Pacific Nations Cup is an international

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

competition held between

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 ...

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 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

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 ...

. First held in 2006, the tournament is intended to strengthen the Tier 2 rugby teams by providing competitive test matches in a tournament format. Former teams include the

Junior All Blacks The All Blacks XV is the second national rugby union team of New Zealand, after the All Blacks. New Zealand's second national team has had numerous names in its history: Junior All Blacks, New Zealand XV, New Zealand A, New Zealand B, All Blacks ...

(2006, 2007, 2009), Australia A (2007, 2008, 2015),

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(2018) and the

Māori All Blacks The Māori All Blacks, previously called the New Zealand Maori, New Zealand Maoris and New Zealand Natives, are a rugby union team from New Zealand. They are a representative team of the New Zealand Rugby Union, and a prerequisite for playing is ...

(2008). The inaugural tournament was the only one that carried the title of IRB Pacific 5 Nations; from 2007 the competition was known as the IRB Pacific Nations Cup and subsequently the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup.

Format

The tournament is a round-robin, where each team plays one match against each of the other teams. There are four points for a win, two points for a draw and none for a defeat. There are also bonus points offered with one bonus point for scoring four or more tries in a match and one bonus point for losing by 7 points or fewer. The tournament generally occurs every year in the June mid-year international test window. The tournament was played mainly throughout June, with the last round in early July. The revised tournament begins in May due to pre-existing Test commitments and concludes in late June.

History

The Pacific Nations Cup was funded as an

International Rugby Board World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

(IRB) tournament which was part of the $US50 million, three-year, global strategic investment programme launched in August 2005. The competition was aimed at developing the

Pacific rim The Pacific Rim comprises the lands around the rim of the Pacific Ocean. The '' Pacific Basin'' includes the Pacific Rim and the islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Rim roughly overlaps with the geological Pacific Ring of Fire. List ...

sides in the second tier of the rugby countries:

and

. The

were also invited to compete, who are New Zealand's second XV. "The IRB Pacific 5 Nations is a tournament that will provide more certainty for Fiji, Japan, Samoa and Tonga in terms of regular high level Test match rugby, while also providing a high level of competition for the Junior All Blacks," said

Mark Egan Mark Egan (born January 14, 1951, in Brockton, Massachusetts) is an American jazz bassist and trumpeter known for his membership in the Pat Metheny Group and the Gil Evans Orchestra. He is co-founder of the jazz fusion band, Elements. Biogra ...

, the IRB's Head of Rugby Services. In the first year only it was called the

Pacific 5 Nations The Pacific Nations Cup is an international rugby union competition held between Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Canada, Japan and the United States. First held in 2006, the tournament is intended to strengthen the Tier 2 rugby teams by providing competitiv ...

and did not include Australia. Australia had been invited to take part in the inaugural 2006 tournament but decided against sending a team stating that they wanted to focus on their domestic competition. The inaugural tournament kicked off 3 June 2006 and was played in a round-robin format, with some games being held in Australia. The Junior All Blacks won all of their matches en route to winning the 2006 tournament. The inaugural tournament was a success in providing a platform for Pacific states and Japan in gaining valuable exposure. Australia A joined an expanded competition for the 2007 season. The inclusion of Australia A meant that the tier 2 teams would have an even greater number of matches in the buildup to the

2007 Rugby World Cup The 2007 Rugby World Cup () was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition organised by the International Rugby Board. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by F ...

. For Australia, it provided a stepping stone for

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selection. Following the 2008 tournament, however, the ARU announced Australia A would not play in 2009 due to the current economic environment. Australia has not participated since then. In 2008, the New Zealand Māori team replaced the Junior All Blacks in the competition. The

New Zealand Rugby Union New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is the Sports governing body, governing body of rugby union in New Zealand. It was founded in 1892 as the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), 12 years after the first provincial unions in New Zealand. In 1949 it b ...

(NZRU) had decided that the New Zealand Māori needed to play more matches at home and that the Junior All Blacks would not be assembled in 2008 for reasons of "player welfare." The Junior All Blacks returned for the 2009 tournament, but no New Zealand team has participated since then. From 2010 to 2012, the Pacific Nations Cup was a four-team tournament, contested by Japan, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, with Samoa winning in 2010 and 2012, and Japan winning in 2011. In January 2013, the IRB announced that both the

and

teams would be joining the 2013 competition on a permanent basis. For the first time, the reigning champion Samoan team did not compete as they took part in a competition in South Africa. The Pacific Nations Cup was downscaled for 2016 and 2017 with these two editions featuring only Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. The sides from Canada, Japan and United States played in their respective regional qualifiers 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 ...

. As part of the Oceanian qualification, places at the 2019 Rugby World Cup were awarded to the two top teams of the 2016 and 2017 PNC (on aggregate), whereas the bottom team played a

repechage Repechage ( , ; , ) is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. A well-known example is the wild card system. Types Different type ...

match against the second best Rugby Europe Championship team. was invited for the 2018 tournament hosted in Suva. For 2019, Canada, Japan and the United States returned to the tournament, serving as a prelude to the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Japan won without losing a match. The tournament was not held in 2020 or 2021, largely due to the

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and other related logistical issues. It was revived in 2022, with the ever-present Fiji, Samoa and Tonga being joined by Australia A. Samoa won all three matches, ahead of Australia A. In October 2023, World Rugby announced that beginning in 2024 the Pacific Nations Cup will be contested by six permanent teams from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

, and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, and the

. The competition format would, however, be staged with a round-robin pool stage followed by a

knockout stage A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

(finals), hosted by

or the

, to decide the tournament winner, unlike the previous format. In August 2024, it was revealed that the 2025 edition (finals hosted by the United States) of the Pacific Nations Cup would double as the qualification tournament for the newly expanded 2027 Rugby World Cup, merging North America and the Asia-Pacific regions, replacing the former regional qualification method. With this announcement, five of the six teams that compete in the Pacific Nations Cup will automatically qualify for the 2027 Rugby World Cup as

and

had qualified via the 2023 Rugby World Cup Pool stage.

Teams

2006–2022

The teams in the Pacific Nations Cup and their finishing positions are as follows:

2024–present

The teams in the Pacific Nations Cup from the 2024 season and their finishing positions are as follows: Notes:

The 2014 tournament was split into conferences without crossover matches or finals. Samoa and Japan won their respective conference titles.

Commercial sponsorship

On 20 June 2008 the

announced that regional financial institution ANZ had agreed to become presenting sponsor of the competition, as well as the

FORU Oceania Cup The Oceania Rugby Men's Championship (formerly known as the Oceania Cup) is an international rugby union competition for countries and territories from Oceania with national teams in the list of international rugby union teams#Band, developmental ...

and the

Pacific Rugby Cup The World Rugby Pacific Challenge, formerly the IRB Pacific Rugby Cup, is an annual rugby union football tournament held in Oceania since 2006. It is contested by national 'A' teams (formed from the best locally based players, with most not alre ...

. On 16 August 2024,

World Rugby World Rugby is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international competit ...

and Asahi Breweries Limited announced that Asahi Super Dry would be the title sponsor and official beer of the competition.

Results

Champions record

Summary

Updated: 22 September 2024
W is 4 points. D is 2 points. 1 bonus point given for TB or LB.
Points and bonus points tally includes playoff matches.

Top scorers

The following tables contain points and tries scored in the Pacific Nations Cup.

Top points scorers

Last updated: 14 August 2024
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Top try scorers

Last updated: 14 August 2024
Source:''
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Venues

Below is a table listing all the venues that have been used in the tournaments, listed with the number of matches each venue has hosted annually and historically: ''Table updated to 2024 tournament''

Notes

References

External links

Pacific Nations Cup
web page at World Rugby {{Navboxes, list1= {{Fiji national rugby union team {{Samoa national rugby union team {{Tonga national rugby union team {{Rugby union in Oceania

Rugby union competitions in Oceania for national teams