Watch Hawke's Bay VS. Canterbury Live Streaming On On-line TV Channel||Watch Air New Zealand Cup Live On PC||Watch Key Feature Of Air New Zeland Cup!!

International Rugby Events

All kind of International Rugby Events, like June Tours, Pacific cups and all others

Air New Zealand Cup

The Air New Zealand Cup is New Zealand's annual professional domestic rugby union competition. It was founded in 2006 with 14 teams, after the NPC was split into two separate competitions. The other 12 provincial teams from the NPC now compete in the amateur Heartland Championship. It is sponsored by Air New Zealand, the national airline and flag carrier of New Zealand. New Zealand also has five teams in Super 14, an elite competition which also involves sides from Australia and South Africa.

Last Updated:

Hawke's Bay
VS.
Canterbury






Air New Zealand Cup

Date : 15-10-2009
Time : from 08:35 until 10:35

Competition Explained

The Air New Zealand Cup replaces the former Air New Zealand National Provincial Championship Division One competition. The NPC competition, played across three divisions, was introduced in 1976, with finals introduced in 1992. The Air New Zealand Cup was established following the wide-ranging Competitions Review, which the NZRU launched in 2003. The objective of that Review was to conduct a comprehensive review of all NZRU competitions to ensure they provide the best possible platform for sustaining a winning All Blacks team and maintaining rugby as a game accessible and attractive to all New Zealanders. The inaugural competition involving 14 teams kicked off in 2006. The 2006 Air New Zealand Cup champions are Waikato.

Key features of the revised Air New Zealand Cup format

• The competition will feature the same 14 teams that participated in the inaugural 2006 Air New Zealand Cup – Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Counties Manukau, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu, Northland, North Harbour, Otago, Southland, Taranaki, Tasman, Waikato and Wellington.

• The revised format will now see all 14 teams playing in a 10-week Modified Round Robin, followed by the quarterfinals, semifinals and final.

• There will be seven matches played each week during the Modified Round Robin.

• Not all teams will play each other during the Modified Round Robin. A formula has been developed to determine which teams do not play each other, based on a team’s competition placing from the previous season.

• During the 10 weeks of the Modified Round Robin, there will be a match played on every Thursday night.

• During the 10 weeks of the Modified Round Robin, two matches will be played simultaneously at 7.35pm on Friday night, with SKY Television broadcasting each match live on separate channels then repeating both matches on alternate channels straight after the live broadcast.

• The 2007 Air New Zealand Cup will kick off on Thursday 26 July 2007 with the Final played on Saturday 20 October 2007.

• Teams accumulate competition points as per normal: 4 points for a win; 2 points for a draw; 1 point for scoring four or more tries in a match; 1 point for losing a match by seven or fewer points.

• The top eight teams at the end of the Modified Round Robin will advance to the quarterfinals with the top four ranked teams hosting the matches. The quarterfinal match ups will be as follows: 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5.

• The first semifinal will be contested between the highest-seeded quarterfinal winner and the lowest-seeded quarterfinal winner; the other semifinal will be contested between the two remaining teams.

• The Ranfurly Shield maintains its special place within the Air New Zealand Cup, with the holder putting the Shield up at all home games in the Round Robin only. If current Shield holders North Harbour win their pre-competition challenges they are scheduled to face Air New Zealand Cup challenges from Taranaki, Waikato, Manawatu, Bay of Plenty and Southland.

Toulouse VS. Sale Sharks Live Streaming On On-line TV Channel|Watch Heineken Cup Live||Watch The Qualification Of Heineken Cup||Watch Rugby History!!!

Live the big rugby Heineken Cup!

Toulouse
VS.
Sale Sharks






Match scheduled:

Heineken Cup

Date : 11-10-2009

Time : from 16:00 until 18:00

The European Rugby Cup (known as the Heineken Cup because of the tournament's sponsorship by Heineken) is an annual rugby union competition involving leading club, regional and provincial teams from six International Rugby Board (IRB) nations in Europe: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. Romania competed in the first year of the competition only. The competition is organised by the European Rugby Cup, who are also responsible for the secondary championship, the European Challenge Cup. It is one of the most prestigious trophies in the sport. The tournament was launched in the European summer of 1995 on the initiative of the then Five Nations committee to provide a new level of professional cross-border competition. It is sponsored by Dutch brewing company Heineken International (it is known as H-Cup in France because of alcohol advertising restrictions).The 2008–09 tournament was won by Ireland's Leinster, who beat the Leicester Tigers of England 19–16 in the final at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. Toulouse have been the most successful team, winning the competition three times.

Each European nation has a different qualifying system, though in total, 24 teams contest the pool stages in six pools of four. According to performances, the number of clubs from each nation changes. The tournament is held from October to May, with various stages scheduled around domestic club competitions.

Qualification:

Diagram showing how qualification is obtained for Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup.The Heineken Cup is open to clubs in the Magners League, Guinness Premiership, Super 10 and the Top 14. Clubs that do not qualify for the Heineken Cup can enter the European Challenge Cup.

22 places are awarded by country, with each country deciding how to allocate their alloted places:

* England: 6 teams (selected by performance in Guinness Premiership and EDF Energy Cup)
* France: 6 teams (selected by performance in Top 14 Championship)
* Ireland: 3 teams (selected by performance in Magners League)
* Wales: 3 teams (selected by performance in Magners League)
* Scotland: 2 teams (selected by participation in Magners League)
* Italy: 2 teams (selected by performance in Super 10 Championship)

Until the 2009–10 season, the remaining two places in the 24-team tournament were allocated as follows:

* One team comes from France, England or Italy; this place is allocated to the country whose team progressed further in the previous season's Heineken Cup.[1] For example, Leicester have progressed further in the 2008–09 competition than any French or Italian team, so there will be seven English teams in the 2009–10 competition.
* The final team is the winner of a play off between the best placed team in the Magners League who has not already qualified, and the best placed semi-finalist in the Italian Super 10. The play-off is a single match, which takes place alternately in Italy or the home of the Magners League side. In 2007–08, this play-off was scheduled to take place before the Italian Super 10 semi-finals, so no Italian team was nominated to take part. This meant that the Magners League nominee, the Newport Gwent Dragons, qualified without a playoff.

After the 2009–10 season, the remaining two places go to the home nations of the previous season's Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup winners. However, England and France are capped at seven places each, so if both winners come from one of the two then the last place will be filled by the highest-ERC ranked club not of that nation to not have otherwise qualified.

Regardless of how well they perform domestically, the winners of the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup both qualify for the next year's Heineken Cup; from 2009–10 forward, these places are separate from the country allocations, except when England or France produces winners of both competitions in the same season.

The Heineken Cup is, generally speaking, the equivalent competition of the UEFA Champions League in professional football, whereas the European Challenge Cup is the equivalent to the secondary UEFA Europa League.

A proposal has been made that, in future, rather than Ireland, Wales and Scotland each sending their top-placed teams in the Magners League to the Heineken Cup, the top teams from the league as a whole should be sent, regardless of nationality.

RUGBY HISTORY:

Rugby football (usually just "rugby") may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.

A ball-game resembling rugby football was a game played by ancient Greeks called episkuros (Greek: επίσκυρος). In Wales such a sport is called cnapan or "criapan," and has medieval roots. The old Irish predecessor of rugby may be caid. The Cornish called it "hurling to goals" which dates back to the bronze age, the West country called it "hurling over country" (neither should to be confused with Gaelic hurling in which the ball is hit with a stick called a hurley or hurl, not carried), East Anglians "Campball", the French "La Soule" or "Chole" (a rough-and-tumble cross-country game). English villages were certainly playing games of 'fute ball' during the 1100s. English boarding schools would certainly have developed their own variants of this game as soon as they were established - the Eton Wall Game being one example.

The "invention" of rugby was therefore not the act of playing early forms of the game at Rugby School or elsewhere but rather the events which led up to its codification.

The game of football which was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal. There was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1859 and 1865. William Webb Ellis has been credited with breaking the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1823. Shortly after this the Victorian mind turned to establishing written rules for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first written rules for their version of the sport in 1870.

Around this time the influence of Dr Thomas Arnold, Rugby's headmaster, was beginning to be felt around all the other boarding schools, and his emphasis on sport as part of a balanced education naturally encouraged the general adoption of the Rugby rules across the country, and, ultimately, the world.

Leicester Tigers VS. Ospreys Live Streaming On On-line TV Channel||Heineken Cup Live||Watch The Qualification Of Heineken Cup||Watch Rugby History!!!

Live the big rugby Heineken Cup!

Leicester Tigers
VS.
Ospreys






Match scheduled:

Heineken Cup

Date : 11-10-2009

Time : from 13:45 until 15:45

The European Rugby Cup (known as the Heineken Cup because of the tournament's sponsorship by Heineken) is an annual rugby union competition involving leading club, regional and provincial teams from six International Rugby Board (IRB) nations in Europe: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. Romania competed in the first year of the competition only. The competition is organised by the European Rugby Cup, who are also responsible for the secondary championship, the European Challenge Cup. It is one of the most prestigious trophies in the sport. The tournament was launched in the European summer of 1995 on the initiative of the then Five Nations committee to provide a new level of professional cross-border competition. It is sponsored by Dutch brewing company Heineken International (it is known as H-Cup in France because of alcohol advertising restrictions).The 2008–09 tournament was won by Ireland's Leinster, who beat the Leicester Tigers of England 19–16 in the final at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. Toulouse have been the most successful team, winning the competition three times.

Each European nation has a different qualifying system, though in total, 24 teams contest the pool stages in six pools of four. According to performances, the number of clubs from each nation changes. The tournament is held from October to May, with various stages scheduled around domestic club competitions.

Qualification:

Diagram showing how qualification is obtained for Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup.The Heineken Cup is open to clubs in the Magners League, Guinness Premiership, Super 10 and the Top 14. Clubs that do not qualify for the Heineken Cup can enter the European Challenge Cup.

22 places are awarded by country, with each country deciding how to allocate their alloted places:

* England: 6 teams (selected by performance in Guinness Premiership and EDF Energy Cup)
* France: 6 teams (selected by performance in Top 14 Championship)
* Ireland: 3 teams (selected by performance in Magners League)
* Wales: 3 teams (selected by performance in Magners League)
* Scotland: 2 teams (selected by participation in Magners League)
* Italy: 2 teams (selected by performance in Super 10 Championship)

Until the 2009–10 season, the remaining two places in the 24-team tournament were allocated as follows:

* One team comes from France, England or Italy; this place is allocated to the country whose team progressed further in the previous season's Heineken Cup.[1] For example, Leicester have progressed further in the 2008–09 competition than any French or Italian team, so there will be seven English teams in the 2009–10 competition.
* The final team is the winner of a play off between the best placed team in the Magners League who has not already qualified, and the best placed semi-finalist in the Italian Super 10. The play-off is a single match, which takes place alternately in Italy or the home of the Magners League side. In 2007–08, this play-off was scheduled to take place before the Italian Super 10 semi-finals, so no Italian team was nominated to take part. This meant that the Magners League nominee, the Newport Gwent Dragons, qualified without a playoff.

After the 2009–10 season, the remaining two places go to the home nations of the previous season's Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup winners. However, England and France are capped at seven places each, so if both winners come from one of the two then the last place will be filled by the highest-ERC ranked club not of that nation to not have otherwise qualified.

Regardless of how well they perform domestically, the winners of the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup both qualify for the next year's Heineken Cup; from 2009–10 forward, these places are separate from the country allocations, except when England or France produces winners of both competitions in the same season.

The Heineken Cup is, generally speaking, the equivalent competition of the UEFA Champions League in professional football, whereas the European Challenge Cup is the equivalent to the secondary UEFA Europa League.

A proposal has been made that, in future, rather than Ireland, Wales and Scotland each sending their top-placed teams in the Magners League to the Heineken Cup, the top teams from the league as a whole should be sent, regardless of nationality.

RUGBY HISTORY:

Rugby football (usually just "rugby") may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.

A ball-game resembling rugby football was a game played by ancient Greeks called episkuros (Greek: επίσκυρος). In Wales such a sport is called cnapan or "criapan," and has medieval roots. The old Irish predecessor of rugby may be caid. The Cornish called it "hurling to goals" which dates back to the bronze age, the West country called it "hurling over country" (neither should to be confused with Gaelic hurling in which the ball is hit with a stick called a hurley or hurl, not carried), East Anglians "Campball", the French "La Soule" or "Chole" (a rough-and-tumble cross-country game). English villages were certainly playing games of 'fute ball' during the 1100s. English boarding schools would certainly have developed their own variants of this game as soon as they were established - the Eton Wall Game being one example.

The "invention" of rugby was therefore not the act of playing early forms of the game at Rugby School or elsewhere but rather the events which led up to its codification.

The game of football which was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal. There was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1859 and 1865. William Webb Ellis has been credited with breaking the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1823. Shortly after this the Victorian mind turned to establishing written rules for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first written rules for their version of the sport in 1870.

Around this time the influence of Dr Thomas Arnold, Rugby's headmaster, was beginning to be felt around all the other boarding schools, and his emphasis on sport as part of a balanced education naturally encouraged the general adoption of the Rugby rules across the country, and, ultimately, the world.

Northland VS. Wellington Live Streaming On On-line TV Channel|Watch Competition Explained Of Air New Zealand Cup||Watch International Rugby History!!!

International Rugby Events

All kind of International Rugby Events, like June Tours, Pacific cups and all others.

Air New Zealand Cup




Last Update:

Northland
VS.
Wellington

Match scheduled:

Air New Zealand Cup 2009

Date : 11-10-2009
Time : from 03:35 until 05:35

Competition Explained

The Air New Zealand Cup replaces the former Air New Zealand National Provincial Championship Division One competition. The NPC competition, played across three divisions, was introduced in 1976, with finals introduced in 1992. The Air New Zealand Cup was established following the wide-ranging Competitions Review, which the NZRU launched in 2003. The objective of that Review was to conduct a comprehensive review of all NZRU competitions to ensure they provide the best possible platform for sustaining a winning All Blacks team and maintaining rugby as a game accessible and attractive to all New Zealanders. The inaugural competition involving 14 teams kicked off in 2006. The 2006 Air New Zealand Cup champions are Waikato.

Key features of the revised Air New Zealand Cup format

• The competition will feature the same 14 teams that participated in the inaugural 2006 Air New Zealand Cup – Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Counties Manukau, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu, Northland, North Harbour, Otago, Southland, Taranaki, Tasman, Waikato and Wellington.

• The revised format will now see all 14 teams playing in a 10-week Modified Round Robin, followed by the quarterfinals, semifinals and final.

• There will be seven matches played each week during the Modified Round Robin.

• Not all teams will play each other during the Modified Round Robin. A formula has been developed to determine which teams do not play each other, based on a team’s competition placing from the previous season.

• During the 10 weeks of the Modified Round Robin, there will be a match played on every Thursday night.

• During the 10 weeks of the Modified Round Robin, two matches will be played simultaneously at 7.35pm on Friday night, with SKY Television broadcasting each match live on separate channels then repeating both matches on alternate channels straight after the live broadcast.

• The 2007 Air New Zealand Cup will kick off on Thursday 26 July 2007 with the Final played on Saturday 20 October 2007.

• Teams accumulate competition points as per normal: 4 points for a win; 2 points for a draw; 1 point for scoring four or more tries in a match; 1 point for losing a match by seven or fewer points.

• The top eight teams at the end of the Modified Round Robin will advance to the quarterfinals with the top four ranked teams hosting the matches. The quarterfinal match ups will be as follows: 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5.

• The first semifinal will be contested between the highest-seeded quarterfinal winner and the lowest-seeded quarterfinal winner; the other semifinal will be contested between the two remaining teams.

• The Ranfurly Shield maintains its special place within the Air New Zealand Cup, with the holder putting the Shield up at all home games in the Round Robin only. If current Shield holders North Harbour win their pre-competition challenges they are scheduled to face Air New Zealand Cup challenges from Taranaki, Waikato, Manawatu, Bay of Plenty and Southland.

RUGBY HISTORY

Rugby football (usually just "rugby") may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.

A ball-game resembling rugby football was a game played by ancient Greeks called episkuros (Greek: επίσκυρος). In Wales such a sport is called cnapan or "criapan," and has medieval roots. The old Irish predecessor of rugby may be caid. The Cornish called it "hurling to goals" which dates back to the bronze age, the West country called it "hurling over country" (neither should to be confused with Gaelic hurling in which the ball is hit with a stick called a hurley or hurl, not carried), East Anglians "Campball", the French "La Soule" or "Chole" (a rough-and-tumble cross-country game). English villages were certainly playing games of 'fute ball' during the 1100s. English boarding schools would certainly have developed their own variants of this game as soon as they were established - the Eton Wall Game being one example.

The "invention" of rugby was therefore not the act of playing early forms of the game at Rugby School or elsewhere but rather the events which led up to its codification.

The game of football which was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal. There was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1859 and 1865. William Webb Ellis has been credited with breaking the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1823. Shortly after this the Victorian mind turned to establishing written rules for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first written rules for their version of the sport in 1870.

Around this time the influence of Dr Thomas Arnold, Rugby's headmaster, was beginning to be felt around all the other boarding schools, and his emphasis on sport as part of a balanced education naturally encouraged the general adoption of the Rugby rules across the country, and, ultimately, the world.

Leeds Rhinos VS. St Helens Saints Live Streaming On On-line TV Channel|Watch International Rugby Events Live |Features of Engage Super League Rugby!!!

The England Super League Rugby!

Leeds Rhinos
VS.
St Helens Saints





Match scheduled:

European Challenge Cup 2009

Date : 10-10-2009

Time : from 18:30 until 20:30

Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition of Europe. As a result of sponsorship from Engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the Engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: twelve from England, one from Wales and one from France, which compete from February to October.

Super League began in March 1996 and saw the English season switch from winter to summer for the first time in over 100 years. Most of the teams are based in Great Britain, though initially the league was intended to be European, and indeed French club Paris Saint Germain contested the first ever Super League match. Following their departure in 1997, the league was solely English until Catalans Dragons were admitted for the 2006 season. In 2009, the Celtic Crusaders, from Wales, entered the competition.

During the league's regular season, each team plays 27 games over 27 rounds from February to September. These consist of 13 home games, 13 away games and a Magic Weekend game at a neutral venue, which this year was Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. At the end of the regular season, the top eight teams in the League play in the play-offs, which culminates with the Grand Final to determine the champions.

St Helens, Leeds and Bradford have been the three dominant teams in the Super League since its arrival in 1996. Each year the competition winners play a game against the premiers of the Australasian National Rugby League competition in the World Club Challenge.

In 2009 for the first time in its history Super League games will be played in five different countries in a single season; England, Wales, Scotland, France and Spain.

Watch Lions VS. Western Province Live Streaming On On-line TV Channel||Watch International Rugby Events Live Streaming|||Key features of Currie Cup!!!

International Rugby Events
All kind of International Rugby Events, like June Tours, Pacific cups and all others.

Currie Cup

Lions
VS.
Western Province






Match scheduled:

European Challenge Cup 2009

Date : 10-10-2009

Time : from 17:00 until 19:00

The Currie Cup tournament (also known as the ABSA Currie Cup for sponsorship reasons) is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition, featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier domestic competition, South Africa also competes in the international Super 14 competition.

Steeped in history and tradition, the ABSA Currie Cup dates back to 1889 and is one of the oldest rugby competitions in the world. The tournament is regarded as the cornerstone of South Africa's rugby heritage, and the coveted gold trophy remains the most prestigious prize in South African domestic rugby.