Tri Nations Series champion is the title given to the

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 ...

nation (either

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 ...

, or, since 2012,

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 ...

) that finishes at the top of competition table of the annual

Tri Nations Series 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 ran ...

. 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 ...

, an Australian-New Zealand trophy is also awarded within the series. Each nation plays each other thrice on a home and away basis, though the number of games against each side was expanded from two to three in 2006. A nation receives four points for a win, two for a draw and none for a loss. A nation can obtain a bonus point by either scoring four tries in a match or by losing by seven points or less to the opposition. If nations finish level on points (points for winning, drawing and bonus match points), the first tiebreaker is point differential (the actual in game scoreline, a cumulative scoreline difference). The scoreline difference is worked out by subtracting the number of points a nation has had scored against them from the total points they have scored in the series. Should teams still be level, this is followed by number of tries scored by a nation during the series. The Tri Nations was created amongst the SANZAR partners (along with the provincial Super 12 competition, now,

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

). The tournament involves three southern hemisphere nations; Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The series was created to form a similar competition to the

Six Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Six Nations, branded as Guinness M6N) is an annual international rugby union competition by the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. It is the oldest sports tournament conte ...

(then, the Five Nations). The first tournament was held in 1996, which New Zealand won. It has subsequently been held annually. The competition has largely been dominated by New Zealand, who have won 10 championships, whereas Australia and South Africa have each won the series three times. New Zealand has won consecutive championships on three occasions (1996–97, 2002–03, and 2005–08) and Australia on one occasion (2000–01).

Results

Tournaments (1996–2011; 2020)

Aggregate table

Notes

References

*
ALL-TIME TRI-NATIONS TABLE
. ''iafrica.com''. Retrieved 16 May 2006. *
Tri-Nations history
. ''bbc.co.uk''. Retrieved 16 May 2006. *
Fixtures & Results
. ''scrum.com''. Retrieved 16 May 2006.

External links

Allblacks.com

Rugby.com.au

SA Rugby
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tri Nations Series Champions The Rugby Championship