Super 14 Rugby

The Rebel Sport Super 14 is widely considered the finest provincial rugby competition in the world.

The Northern hemisphere or Europe has the Heineken Cup. The Super 14 is very much the same just that it is the Southern Hemisphere equivalent.

The Super 14 is the largest provincial rugby union tournament championship in the southern hemisphere, consisting of franchise teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

There are fourteen provincial franchise teams that compete against one another. Unlike the Heineken Cup there are no divisions or pools. Each team plays 13 games during the regular season which runs for fourteen and a 1/2 weeks.

The best four teams, finishing in the top four places on the competition ladder after the regular season, enter the finals of the tournament. The semi-finals are contested to decide the two finalists, which is played at the highest ranked winners' home ground, as opposed to a pre-selected neutral venue.

The tournament is unique in that it is played across many time zones and often matches are played when visiting teams supporters are asleep.

Established in 1996, the competition has its roots in the South Pacific Championship that sparked sporting imaginations a decade earlier. The original teams included three from New Zealand (Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland) as well as Queensland, New South Wales and Fiji. Relaunched in 1992 as the Super Sixes, the competition soon expanded to the Super Tens as it embraced its first South African teams. As the participating nations - New Zealand, South Africa and Australia - proceeded to dominate the 1991 and 1995 World Cups to a spectacular degree, the commercial potential of continuing a Southern Hemisphere showdown at provincial level proved too much for Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp to resist. Alongside professionalism, the Rebel Sport Super 14 was born. The tournament is now broadcasted in 41 countries.

The Super 14 is currently contested by fourteen (14) teams. The teams are as follows alphabetically. Blues, Brumbies, Bulls, Cheetahs, Chiefs, Crusaders, Force, Highlanders, Hurricanes, Lions, Reds, Sharks, Stormers, Waratahs