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New Zealand’s finest domestic provincial teams compete for the Bunnings NPC.
The Bunnings NPC is the premier domestic rugby union competition in New Zealand. It’s contested between 14 teams who represent their provinces. These teams are divided equally between the Premiership Division and the Championship Division.
Read on to learn even more about the Bunnings NPC. You can see all the latest news, fixtures and Bunnings NPC results right here.
The tournament was launched back in 2006, when the Air New Zealand Cup replaced the National Provincial Championship, which had been in place since 1976.
In its first season, the competition became New Zealand rugby’s first ever professional rugby competition. Since its debut, the competition has been named after several sponsors. Although it continued as the Air New Zealand Cup until 2009, it was known as the ITM Cup until 2016, when it became the Mitre 10 Cup. Since the 2021 season, it has been known as the Bunnings NPC.
The Bunnings NPC has existed in various forms over the years, but the competition has kept the same format since 2013. Since then, the Bunnings NPC has been a 14-team tournament that has contained two divisions and a promotion/relegation system.
Each of these divisions contains seven teams and each team plays everyone in their own division and four teams in the other division. The purpose of this is to maintain some traditional provincial rivalries. As a result, certain unions in the competition still play for inter-union trophies. For example, Wellington face Auckland for the Fred Lucas Memorial Trophy.
At the end of the divisional stage of the Bunnings NPC, two semi-finals also take place in the Premiership and Championship respectively, with the first-placed team taking on the fourth-placed team and the second-placed team facing the third-placed team. The two winners of these matches then play the final at the home ground of the top surviving seed. The winner of the Premiership is crowned as the champions, while the lowest-ranked team is relegated to the Championship. The winner of the Championship is promoted to the Premiership.
The 14 rugby teams that compete in the Bunnings NPC are all professional teams that represent their union. As every team is each union’s top representative, the tournament is scheduled so that players who compete in Super Rugby can play.
In the history of the Bunnings NPC, Canterbury have been the most successful side. They’ve won the title on nine occasions, including six titles in a row. Other teams who have won the tournament include Tasmania and Auckland (two each) and Waikato and Taranaki (once each). Wellington have reached the final six times, but they’ve been beaten on each occasion.
