LONG READ ‘If the Bledisloe Cup must be a two-Test series, why not put it up for grabs every match?’

In the 90 years since its inception, the Bledisloe Cup has – to borrow from the great US sitcom Veep – maintained one common thread: continuity with change.

Curiously, New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia can’t agree on whether it was first played for in 1931 or 1932. Both unions agree that Lord Bledisloe, the New Zealand Governor-General from 1930 to 1935, donated the giant trophy early in his reign, and unsurprisingly, both contend it was first played for when they won.

But since 1931 or 1932, the format has changed a lot. For the last few years, it has been played as a two-Test series. Next year, with the addition of the ANZAC Day Bledisloe Test in Brisbane, it will revert to the three-match series it was mostly through the 2010s.

It became a four-match series on the resumption of rugby after the Covid pandemic in 2020, as it was in a previous iteration from 2008-2010 when extra, lucrative ‘cash games’ were played in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

From 1999 through the early 2000s, the format was a two-match series. Having enjoyed a 3-0 whitewash in 1998, this allowed Australia to hold onto it for five straight years – including three drawn series – until 2002. The last time we’ve held it, in fact.

Before professionalism, though, it was all over the place; three Tests in 1992, one-off Tests in 1993 and 1994 (the George Gregan tackle at Sydney Football Stadium), two matches in 1995.

Through the 1980s, a one-off Test one year would be followed by a full tour by one trans-Tasman neighbour to the other the following year. The last Australian win at Eden Park in Auckland was the Third Test of the Australian tour in 1986, which followed the one-off Test at the same venue in 1985. A 1983 Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground was followed by a three-Test tour by New Zealand in 1984.

But from the very early 1980s right back to its inception – whenever that was – it wasn’t necessarily played for every year, or even every other year. Two, three and even four-year gaps were quite common in the period from the 1930s through to 1982.

And equally strangely, the cup itself went missing for three decades in the middle of all that. The Wallabies won a two-Test series in New Zealand in 1949 – the last time they achieved that – and the cup wasn’t seen again until 1979. It was discovered in a storeroom in Melbourne, of all places.

They paraded this massive cup around the ground and the All Blacks were saying, ‘what’s that?’ They hardly knew that this thing existed.

The great Kiwi commentator Tony Johnson reminded me of all this only last week.

“The Wallabies were beaten in the first two Tests in 1978, so the Bledisloe was decided,” Johnson explained on the 8/9 Rugby podcast.

“But then they ripped the All Blacks up at Eden Park in the Third Test; Ken Wright and Tony Melrose, and Greg Cornelson scored his four tries, of course. Then the following year, the All Blacks went to Australia and they played a one-off Test at the SCG and Australia won it.

“They paraded this massive cup around the ground and the All Blacks were saying, ‘what’s that?’ They hardly knew that this thing existed.”

How such an enormous trophy was subsequently lost in Melbourne, which only hosted its first Bledisloe Test in 1997, at the MCG, remains a mystery.

This fascinating history of the Bledisloe is the context behind a discussion that has bubbled up again on both sides of the Tasman. With the current two-Test series making it awfully hard for the Wallabies to regain the Cup, the question has popped up as to whether the Bledisloe Cup should be on the line every time Australia and New Zealand meet.

Certainly, a three-Test series would be the preference. A one-off Test will almost certainly never happen again, given the gate receipts both unions enjoy each year, so if it must be a two-Test series, why not put it up for grabs every match?

Tony Johnson raised it again in another discussion on New Zealand radio late last week.

“Some people are calling for that, you know. Maybe they think about having just one Bledisloe Cup Test a year,” he said. “At the moment, if you’re the holder, you only have to win one game. It’s swung so much in favour of the holder.”

In putting forward this idea of a format change, I acknowledge it could be very easily construed as just the latest desperate attempt from Australians to try and get their hands back on the trophy.

It would be a huge change, but it’s a really interesting one. And it seems like there would be two ways of doing it.

The first would be to play a one-off Bledisloe Cup Test and then play another two games as part of The Rugby Championship. It’s my strong suspicion that the instant success of the ANZAC Bledisloe in Brisbane next year will see NZR wanting a piece of that action as well, and so you could then put the Cup on the line for the one-off ANZAC Tests, alternated between each country each year.

The other way would be to put it on the line for every match, as a challenge concept seen in various sports. In a rugby sense, it’s most well-recognised in the Ranfurly Shield, played for by the provincial unions in New Zealand every year. Many over the ditch see the games for the ‘Log O’Wood’ as what is truly holding the provincial game together in NZ.

In putting forward this idea of a format change, I acknowledge it could be very easily construed as just the latest desperate attempt from Australians to try and get their hands back on the trophy.

There’s some truth in that, of course, but I really don’t lie awake at night thinking about concepts that might make acquiring the Bledisloe Cup more attainable. Trust me on that. But this idea is more intriguing because it has been New Zealanders raising it recently.

“The Bledisloe Cup is the thing that Australia really wants because it’s something that resonates with people,” Tony Johnson pointed out.

“During that era, that great era, when Australia held it and you had the likes of John Eales doing their thing and George Gregan and Stephen Larkham and co, holding the Bledisloe Cup was so important for Australia.

“And I think people this side of the Tasman realise what it would do for the game in Australia. We all want the game to be strong. In New Zealand, we need the game in Australia to be strong.”

It’s a really interesting discussion, but I think it all comes down to one key point: Would New Zealand Rugby truly be game enough to risk losing it on one loss, after holding it for 24 years?

Footnote: Lord Bledisloe also donated a trophy in the 1930s to the New Zealand Chess Federation for its inter-club championship, for which clubs compete annually for… the Bledisloe Cup! Otago beat Wellington to claim the 2026 title on Sunday, the day after the All Blacks completed their clean sweep in Sydney.