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Rugby League Pacific Championships
International rugby league tournament From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Rugby League Pacific Championship is a rugby league tournament for national teams in Oceania. Its inaugural tournament was in 2019 as the "Oceania Cup".
The tournament replaced the Anzac Test Series (1997–2017), which solely featured Australia and New Zealand as a single match annual test. Before the Pacific Championships, regular regional competition between the other Oceanian countries was sporadic since the cessation of the Pacific Cup (1974–2009) which served as a development competition for the Pacific Islands.
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History
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The tournament was created in 2019 as the Oceania Cup with a two tiered format.[1] The top tier (cup) consisted of Australia, New Zealand and Tonga and the second tier (shield) consisted of Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea. Australia won the Cup in the inaugural season while Fiji won the shield and got promoted for the 2020 competition.
For the 2020 edition, Cook Islands were scheduled to take Fiji's place in the shield.[2] No team was relegated from the cup as Australia were going to go on a tour of England that year. The competition was scheduled to begin in June and conclude in November, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]
The tournament returned in 2023, following the pandemic and postponed 2021 Rugby League World Cup, under the name Pacific Championships. The tournament came as part of a $7 million investment by the NRL and Australian Government to develop rugby league in the surrounding countries,[4][5] in addition to forming part of the International Rugby League new seven year international calendar.[6]
2024 saw the introduction of the women's competition.[7][8] Note women's games were held in 2023, but as a series of friendlies and in no structured competition.[6] The 2024 Women's Bowl also acted as the Asia-Pacific qualification tournament for the 2026 Women's Rugby League World Cup.[9][10] For 2024 onwards, promotion and relegation would not be automatic and would occur via a playoff.[11]
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Format
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The Pacific Rugby League Championship is a competition for men's national teams of the seven full member of International Rugby League (IRL) located in Oceania:
The tournament currently is divided into two divisions of three teams initially based on IRL rankings. Since 2024, a promotion and relegation playoff has occurred between the bottom placed team in the first division and the top placed team in the second division. The seventh Oceanian team tours a European Rugby League nation on a rotational basis.
Each team plays two matches in a single round robin with the top two of division one advancing to the division final.
The women's competition, introduced in 2024, followed a very similar format and similarly is for women's national teams of the Oceanian IRL full members:
Like the men's, the tournament is divided into two divisions. Though, unlike the men's, the lower tier contains four teams as no regular touring schedule has been planned for the women's sides.
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Men's Tournaments
- Promotion and relegation anomalies
- 2019/20: Tonga avoided relegation as Australia would were scheduled to tour England the following year freeing up an additional space in the 2020 tournament.
- 2020/23: Following the tournament's rebrand as the Pacific Championships and the extended time between editions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the delayed 2021 World Cup, previous promotions and relegations were nullified and teams were reseeded based on rank.
- 2023/24: No relegation was planned between the 2023 and 2024 edition with Tonga and Samoa touring England in these respective years. Tonga who did not participate in 2023 replaced Samoa who did not participate in 2024.
Results by team
- 2024–present promotion/relegation playoff winners
- 2024:
New Zealand (cup team)
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Women's Tournaments
Results by team
- Promotion/relegation playoff winners
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Notes
- The Cook Islands did not participate in the inaugural 2019 edition
- New Zealand and Papua New Guinea hosted a tour by Great Britain in which Tonga also played, however all teams still participated in the 2019 Oceania Cup.
- Cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
- It was expected that Samoa would also play in the Pacific Championships having reduced the length of their tour from three games to two.[12][13] However, following an announcement from New Zealand Rugby League regarding the tournament, Samoa was omitted from the fixture list.[7]
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References
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