The 2017 National Rugby Championship is the fourth season of Australia's National Rugby Championship. It involves nine professional rugby union teams, one more than the previous year, with eight teams from Australia and one team from Fiji.
Video 2017 National Rugby Championship
Teams
A major change made for the 2017 season is the inclusion of the Fijian Drua in the competition. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama met with the Australian Rugby Union, and World Rugby about establishing a pathway for developing Fijian Rugby Players. World Rugby will finance the Fijian Drua.
The nine teams for the season include three from New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one each from Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Western Australia, and Fiji:
Home match venues scheduled for the 2017 NRC season:
Maps 2017 National Rugby Championship
Television coverage and streaming
Two of the NRC matches each weekend are broadcast live via Fox Sports, with the remaining matches shown on the Fox Sports streaming platform. Discussion of the NRC competition is included on Fox Sports' review show NRC Extra Time on Monday nights, and the Kick & Chase program on Tuesday evenings.
Experimental Law Variations
The trialed changes to the point scoring system adopted in previous years were not continued for the 2017 NRC season, and scoring reverted to the standard values of five points for a try, two for a conversion and three for a penalty or drop goal.
The remaining law variations used in 2016 were retained for the 2017 season. Also adopted were World Rugby's six amendments to the program of trial laws for 2017, relating to the tackle/ruck (Law 15.4 (c), 16, and 16.4 variations) and scrum (Law 20, 20.5 (d), and 20.9 (b) variations).
Regular season
The nine teams compete in a round-robin tournament for the regular season. Each team has four matches at home and four away. The top four teams qualify for the title play-offs with semi-finals and finals.
During this section of the tournament, teams can also play for the Horan-Little Shield, a trophy that the holder must offer for challenge at all home games, whereby the match winner becomes the new shield holder. The holder may also optionally accept or offer challenges at any of their away games, or even finals matches.
Standings
Competition rounds
All kick-offs listed are in local time.
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Pasifika Round
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Title play-offs
The top four sides in the regular season advanced to the semifinals of the knock-out stage, to be followed by the final to decide the National Rugby Championship title.
Semi-finals
Final
References
External links
- NRC on Fox Sports
- NRC Live on twitter.com
Team webpages
Source of article : Wikipedia
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