Mitre 10 Cup

For the history of New Zealand provincial competition before 2006, see National Provincial Championship.

Bunnings Warehouse National Provincial Championship (NPC)

Current season, competition or edition: 2020 Mitre 10 Cup
Formerly	Air New Zealand Cup (2006–09) ITM Cup (2010–15) Mitre 10 Cup (2016-20)
Sport	Rugby union
Founded	2006;15 years ago (2006)
Inaugural season	2006
CEO	Steve Tew
No. of teams	14
Country	New Zealand
Headquarters	Wellington, New Zealand
Most recent champion(s)	Tasman (2nd title)
Most titles	Canterbury (9 titles)
TV partner(s)	Sky Sport
Sponsor(s)	Mitre 10
Related competitions	Farah Palmer Cup
Official website	Mitre10Cup.co.nz

Renamed in April 2021 to the "Bunnings Warehouse National Provincial Championship", the Mitre 10 Cup is a rugby union professional competition for New Zealand provincial unions. It consists of 14 teams, divided equally between the Premiership Division and the Championship Division. The re-named Bunnings Warehouse NPC remains the second highest level of professional rugby union in New Zealand, after Super Rugby. The Mitre 10 Cup's 11-week regular and finals season runs from two weeks after Super Rugby ends to the third week after Labour Day, with each team playing 10 games and having one week playing twice. Following the conclusion of the regular season, four teams from each division advance to their respective play-offs, a single-elimination tournament of semi-finals and final.

The Mitre 10 Cup was formed in 2006 after the replacement of the original National Provincial Championship with the Air New Zealand Cup for the 2006 season. The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) introduced the beginning of a professional era, announcing New Zealand's first ever professional rugby competition following the 2005 season. Today, the Mitre 10 Cup is one of the most popular sports league in New Zealand. The team with the most NPC championships is Auckland with fifteen (with two titles after the National Provincial Championship era); the team with the most Mitre 10 Cup championships is Canterbury with nine. The current champions are Tasman, who defeated Auckland 12-13 in the 2020 final.

History

The 2006 reorganisation of New Zealand provincial rugby replaced the NPC's former three-division setup with two competitions. This differs from the original two-division setup used in the NPC from its creation in 1976 to 1984 in two key ways. The two current competitions are nationwide, while the original NPC Division Two was split on a North Island/South Island basis, and the NZRU ruled that there would initially be no promotion or relegation between the Air New Zealand Cup and Heartland Championship, a feature that had always been present in the former NPC. The number of teams was reduced to 26, as the Marlborough and Nelson Bays unions merged to form the new Tasman union.

The 2006 expansion of the Super 12 and Tri Nations Series had a major effect on the Air New Zealand Cup. This expansion created the Super 14, adding two extra fixtures to that competition, and also added two more Tri-Nations matches for the All Blacks in non-World Cup years. Because of these changes, it was intended for players in the All Blacks selection pool to make only limited appearances in the Air New Zealand Cup.

National Provincial Championship

Before 2006, a number of competitions involving regional and provincial rugby union teams had taken shape in New Zealand. The earliest of these was the National Provincial Championship, which was launched in 1976 and continued until 2006.

The competition was launched as the National Provincial Championship in 1976. The competition, was the major domestic rugby competition in New Zealand. The National Provincial Championship saw many alterations to its format and brand. It was first contested in 1976, and although the basic format of Division One was much the same from then until the 2006 reorganisation, there were a number of changes to the lower divisions. The only change before 2006 was in 1998, when the number of teams in each division was changed to ten in Division One, nine in Division Two, and eight in Division Three. Having an even number of teams in Division One removed the necessity for byes. Starting that year, automatic promotion/relegation between the top two divisions was ended. In its place, the winner of Division Two played a promotion-relegation match against the bottom club in Division One to determine whether the clubs would switch places. Through 2002, this match was hosted by the bottom team in Division One, but the site was changed in 2003 to the home field of the Division Two champion. Auckland were the most successful team in the championship, having won 15 of the 30 series.

Air New Zealand Cup: 2006–09

The inaugural 2006 season was played by 14 teams over 13 weeks from 28 July until the grand final on 21 October. The inaugural format saw the season split into two rounds. In round one teams split into two pools and played everybody in their pool as well as a bye week. In round two the top three teams from each pool went into the top six, which faced every team they did not play in round one Every other team was split into either Repêchage A and Repêchage B, and the winners of each repêchage filled the two remaining spots for the quarter-finals with the top six. The quarter-finals were followed by semifinals and a grand final. The new competition saw the introduction of four teams elevated from Division two of the 2005 NPC; Counties Manukau, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu and Tasman (the amalgamation of the Nelson Bays and Marlborough unions). The competition was won by Waikato 37–31, after they beat Wellington in the Grand final in front of a capacity crowd of 25,000 fans at Waikato Stadium. The leading try-scorer was emerging star Richard Kahui from Waikato with eight tries, and the leading point-scorer was Jimmy Gopperth from Wellington with 121 points.

The 2007 season saw the NZRU dumping the pool system. The new format opened with a 10-week round-robin where each team missed out on playing three of the other teams. The finals format was not changed from 2006, with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and a grand final. The champion was Auckland, defeating Wellington in Wellington's second successive grand final. Auckland finished the season at the top of the points table with a record 48 competition points, winning all ten matches. Jimmy Gopperth again finished as leading points scorer with a record 155, while Brent Ward from Auckland was the top try scorer with eight tries.

The 2008 champion was Canterbury, handing Wellington its third consecutive grand final defeat in a low-scoring 7-6 game. Blair Stewart from Southland was the leading points-scorer, with 105 points, while Wellington's Hosea Gear was top try scorer with a record 14 tries. In August, the New Zealand Rugby Union announced that the Tasman and Northland teams would be relegated to lower competition after the completion of the season for failure to meet criteria which included financial stability, population, training, development, playing history, and administration. This decision was reversed in September, with Tasman and Northland remaining in the competition for two more years ^[1]

2009 saw more changes in the format. The season, which ran from 30 July to 25 October, was changed to a straight round-robin tournament where every team faced the others once over 13 weeks. Quarter-finals were dropped, with the top four regular season teams advancing directly to the semi-finals and the winners from each semi moving to the grand final. Regular season points were earned as per the Rugby Union Bonus Points System; 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw and 1 point for scoring 4 tries or for losing by 7 points or less. Semi-finals were played between four teams, the teams are seeded first to fourth and the two highest seeded teams play at home against the two lowest seeded teams meaning first plays fourth and second plays third. The highest seed still remaining in the grand final played at home.

ITM Cup

The 2010 ITM Cup was the 34th provincial rugby union competition, the fifth since the competition reconstruction in 2006 and the first under the new sponsor of ITM. It ran for 15 weeks, with 13 used for a round robin and 2 for the finals, from 29 July to 5 November.

Changes in 2011 see the 14 teams split into two divisions, with the top seven playing in the Premiership, the rest in the Championship. The two divisions play each other, though their ten-game round-robin season sees each team playing only four games per year against teams in the 'other' division. Other key principles introduced was that the competitions must include Super Rugby players, have a stand-alone window, feature a full round-robin and play-offs, have promotion/relegation, guarantee four and five home games per team, be completed within a 10- to 12-week window and conclude by the end of October.

Mitre 10 Cup

In 2016, Mitre 10 replaced ITM as the competition's main sponsor, and the competition was renamed as such. The competition format of the Mitre 10 Cup is the same as that of the ITM Cup.

Bunnings Warehouse NPC Cup

in 2021 Bunnings Warehouse replaced Mitre 10 as the competition's main naming sponsor in a 3-year deal. The competition format of the Bunnings Warehouse NPC Cup is the same as that of the Mitre 10 Cup.

Unions

Northland

North Harbour

Auckland

Counties Manukau

Waikato

Bay of Plenty

Taranaki

Hawke's Bay

Manawatu

Wellington

Tasman

Canterbury

Otago

Southland

Locations of the 2020 Mitre 10 Cup teams
          Premiership Division
          Championship Division

The Mitre 10 Cup consists of 14 rugby teams divided into two divisions of 7 teams in each. Each Mitre 10 Cup union is granted a professional side. Each team is under the governance of their union, they are the top male representative team that the union has to offer. Unions are based in regions across New Zealand, while the teams have not changed since the launch of the competition in 2006.

Throughout the championship, only two unions weren't among the other 12 that first competed in 1976. North Harbour established in 1985, being one of New Zealand's youngest provincial rugby unions. They joined the provincial rugby league by winning the third division in its first season, following promotion to the first division in 1987. ^[2] Tasman is New Zealand's youngest provincial union. Established in 2006, it brought together the Nelson Bays and Marlborough unions. Nelson Bays amalgamated with Marlborough following the restructuring of New Zealand's provincial championship in 2006. ^[3]

Whilst having new additions to the competition, another two unions were renamed throughout the NPC era. North Auckland Rugby Union established in 1920, changed its name to the Northland Rugby Football Union in 1994. ^[4] In 1955 South Auckland Counties was formed with full union status. The name was shortened to Counties the following year and in 1996 it became the Counties Manukau Rugby Football Union. ^[5]

In 2008, Northland and Tasman were chosen by the New Zealand Rugby Union as teams to drop out of the Cup as the union restructures its domestic competition. Tasman had expected to be cut, especially after Marlborough had said it wanted to split from Nelson Bays and go it alone in the Heartland Championship. ^[6]

Format and sponsorship

Format

The Mitre 10 Cup competition has changed a number of times. There have been up to three Divisions, with promotion/relegation between the two bottom divisions. Since 2006 there have been semi-finals and a final in each Division. Winners receive four competition points; if the game was a draw two points are awarded to each team. The Rugby union bonus points system is also used, where any team scoring four or more tries or losing by less than seven points receives an extra competition point. The top four teams at the end of the round-robin phase then played semifinals – the first placed team hosting the fourth team, and the second team hosting the third team. The two winners played the final at the home ground of the top surviving seed.

From 2013 onwards, the Mitre 10 Cup has two Divisions, the Premiership and the Championship, each with seven teams. All teams play all other teams in their own Division and four teams from the other Division. This keeps up some of the traditional provincial rivalries.

Naming rights

Mitre 10 has naming rights starting with the 2016 season, and the competition is the Mitre 10 Cup. During the Air New Zealand Cup era, airline and flag carrier of New Zealand Air New Zealand had naming rights and the competition was referred to as the Air New Zealand Cup.

In November 2015, provincial rugby sponsor ITM has been red-carded for the 2016 series. The building supplies company began its involvement in 2006, backing the national provincial series and the Heartland Championship. That sponsorship rose to competition-naming rights in 2010 when the company stepped up as major sponsor after the previous group withdrew. The ITM Cup, as it became known, started its six-season schedule. That deal ended for the 2016 season but the company wanted to renew its sponsorship. ITM put in a bid but had been told by the New Zealand Rugby Union that it had not been successful. ITM did not get a chance to match the investment from the new sponsor and had not been given any reason why it was overlooked for the twin provincial series for the next year. ^[7]

New Zealand-owned home improvement and garden retailer, Mitre 10 took over sponsorship in 2016 after they were announced the new title sponsor for the national domestic championship. With the inclusion of the Women's Provincial Championship and support of the Jock Hobbs Memorial National Under 19 tournament, Mitre 10 became the first sponsor of all major fifteens domestic rugby competitions in New Zealand. ^[8]

List of champions

Tasman gaining promotion in 2013.

The Mitre 10 Cup final is an annual New Zealand Rugby game that determines the champion of the Rugby Cup. The contest is held in a New Zealand city, chosen after the semi-finals, whom the highest seed semi-final winner is declared home advantage. Waikato defeated Wellington in the first Mitre 10 Cup Championship Game.

Before the 2006 revamp of the league, the National Provincial Championship was contested between three divisions, division one would be crowned and named the winner. Since 2011, the Premiership and Championship divisions were introduced. The winner of the Premiership Division are named the competition champion, whereas the Championship Division winner wins promotion to the Premiership to have a chance of holding the Rugby Cup and be crowned champions. So far five unions have gained promotion. Hawke's Bay twice, while Counties Manukau, Manawatu, North Harbour, Tasman, Waikato and Wellington all have been honoured once.

Canterbury have won the most finals with nine championships, while Auckland and Tasman have two and Taranaki and Waikato have one win. Canterbury has the most final appearances with ten, they also have the most consecutive appearances with six wins in a row from 2008 to 2013. Wellington are the only other team to have at least four consecutive appearances: 2006–09. Wellington have also lost a record of six finals, while Tasman and Auckland have lost three, Waikato have lost two and Canterbury losing once in 2018, the first time they've lost a final in their ten appearances. Taranaki are the only union to have a perfect record winning their only finals appearance in 2014.

Final	Date	Winning team	Score	Losing team	Venue	City	Ref
1.	21 October 2006	Waikato (1, 1–0)	37–31	Wellington (1, 0–1)	Waikato Stadium	Hamilton, Waikato	[9]
2.	24 October 2007	Auckland (1, 1–0)	23–14	Wellington (2, 0–2)	Eden Park	Auckland, Auckland	[10]
3.	24 October 2008	Canterbury (1, 1–0)	7–6	Wellington (3, 0–3)	Westpac Stadium	Wellington, Wellington
4.	7 November 2009	Canterbury (2, 2–0)	28–20	Wellington (4, 0–4)	AMI Stadium	Christchurch, Canterbury
5.	5 November 2010	Canterbury (3, 3–0)	33–13	Waikato (2, 1–1)	AMI Stadium	Christchurch, Canterbury
6.	3 November 2011	Canterbury (4, 4–0)	12–3	Waikato (3, 1–2)	Waikato Stadium	Hamilton, Waikato
7.	27 October 2012	Canterbury (5, 5–0)	31–18	Auckland (2, 1–1)	AMI Stadium (Addington)	Christchurch, Canterbury
8.	26 October 2013	Canterbury (6, 6–0)	29–13	Wellington (5, 0–5)	Westpac Stadium	Wellington, Wellington
9.	25 October 2014	Taranaki (1, 1–0)	36–32	Tasman (1, 0–1)	Yarrow Stadium	New Plymouth, Taranaki
10.	24 October 2015	Canterbury (7, 7–0)	25–23	Auckland (3, 1–2)	AMI Stadium (Addington)	Christchurch, Canterbury
11.	29 October 2016	Canterbury (8, 8–0)	43–27	Tasman (2, 0–2)	AMI Stadium (Addington)	Christchurch, Canterbury
12.	28 October 2017	Canterbury (9, 9–0)	35–13	Tasman (3, 0–3)	AMI Stadium (Addington)	Christchurch, Canterbury	[11]
13.	27 October 2018	Auckland (4, 2–2)	40–33	Canterbury (10, 9–1)	Eden Park	Auckland, Auckland
14.	26 October 2019	Tasman (4, 1–3)	31–14	Wellington (6, 0–6)	Trafalgar Park	Nelson
15.	28 November 2020	Tasman (5, 2–3)	13–12	Auckland (5, 2–3)	Eden Park	Auckland

Finals appearances by union

In the sortable table below, teams are ordered first by number of appearances, then by number of wins, and finally by season of first appearance. In the "Season(s)" column, bold years indicate winning seasons, and italic years indicate games not yet completed.

Appear­ances	Team	Wins	Losses	Winning percentage	Season(s)
10	Canterbury	9	1	.900	2008 , 2009 , 2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , 2015 , 2016 , 2017 , 2018
6	Wellington	0	6	.000	2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2019
5	Tasman	2	3	.400	2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 , 2020
5	Auckland	2	3	.400	2007 , 2012, 2015, 2018 , 2020
3	Waikato	1	2	.333	2006 , 2010, 2011
1	Taranaki	1	0	1.000	2014

Trophies

The Air New Zealand Cup was unveiled by New Zealand Rugby Union Deputy Chief Executive Steve Tew and Air New Zealand Chief Executive Rob Fyfe at the official launch of the Air New Zealand Cup competition in Auckland. The trophy stands 45 cm tall and weighs 3.9 kilograms. It was hand forged from 2.7 kilograms of sterling silver by master silversmith Thorkild Hansen. The inside of the cup is gilded with gold. Waihi stone carver Jeff Beckwith handcrafted the polished stone base from black basalt quarried from the Bombay Hills. ^[12]

Ranfurly Shield

Main article: Ranfurly Shield

The Ranfurly Shield, colloquially known as the Log o' Wood, is perhaps the most prestigious trophy in New Zealand's domestic rugby union competition. First presented to Auckland in 1902, the Shield is based on a challenge system, rather than a league or knockout competition as with most football trophies. The holding union must defend the Shield in challenge matches, and a successful challenger becomes the new holder of the Shield. The Shield holder at the end of each season is required to accept at least seven challenges for the following year. All home games during league play, but not during knockout playoffs, in the Mitre 10 Cup or Heartland Championship are automatic challenges. The remaining Shield defences must be made up of challenges from unions in the other domestic competition. For example, since North Harbour, an Air New Zealand Cup team, held the Shield at the end of the 2006 season despite losing their home quarter-final to Otago, they were forced to defend the Shield against Heartland Championship teams during the 2007 pre-season. Having successfully done so, all their home fixtures in the round-robin phase were Shield defences until they lost the shield to Waikato. The Shield is currently held by Hawke's Bay.

Inter-union trophies

Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2	Trophy
23 September 2018	Manawatu	7-49	Wellington	Coronation Cup
28 September 2018	Auckland	26-31	Otago	Lindsay Colling Memorial Trophy
9 August 2019	Auckland	28-28	North Harbour	Brian Purdy Battle of the Bridge Memorial Trophy
9 August 2019	Auckland	28-28	North Harbour	The Newstalk 1ZB Trans Harbour Trophy
11 August 2019	Manawatu	13-31	Hawke's Bay	Kel Tremain Memorial Trophy
16 August 2019	North Harbour	25-39	Counties Manukau	The Lion Red Challenge Cup
17 August 2019	Otago	41-22	Southland	Donald Stuart Memorial Shield
23 August 2019	Wellington	23-22	Canterbury	Harry Saundercock Trophy
24 August 2019	Auckland	19-13	Bay of Plenty	John Drake Memorial Trophy
29 August 2019	Wellington	29 -22	Counties Manukau	Jonah Tali Lomu Memorial Trophy
31 August 2019	Waikato	20-20	Auckland	Stan Thomas Trophy
8 September 2019	Auckland	22-32	Canterbury	Supporters' Club Cup
14 September 2019	Taranaki	17-31	Bay of Plenty	Peter Burke Trophy
12 October 2018	Taranaki	10–34	Wellington	John F Henning Trophy
22 September 2018	Canterbury	47-25	Otago	Payne Trophy
20 October 2018	Auckland	38-17	Wellington	Fred Lucas Memorial Trophy
12 September 2018	Canterbury	31-21	North Harbour	The Kevin Gimblett Memorial Trophy
9 September 2018	Taranaki	19-33	Waikato	Ryan Wheeler Memorial Trophy
8 September 2018	Hawke's Bay	29-28	Bay of Plenty	MacRae-Shelford Bay Cup

Player of the year

In 2017, New Zealand Rugby announced that the player of the year in the Mitre 10 Cup will receive the Duane Monkley medal named in honour of the Waikato great, playing 135 matches for the province between 1987 and 1996. The Player of the Year awards will be determined by a season-points system, with match officials picking their players of the match awarding three points, two points and one point for the game's top three performers.

Prior to 2017 it was simply awarded to the outstanding Player of the Year chosen by a panel of committee members, former players and media representatives. ^[13]

Year	Winner	Position	Union
2006	Richard Kahui	Centre	Waikato
2007	Isa Nacewa	Centre	Auckland
2008	Jamie Mackintosh	Prop	Southland
2009	Mike Delany	First five-eighth	Bay of Plenty
2010	Robbie Fruean	Centre	Canterbury
2011	Aaron Cruden	First five-eighth	Manawatu
2012	Robbie Fruean	Centre	Canterbury
2013	Andrew Ellis	Half-back	Canterbury
2014	Seta Tamanivalu	Centre	Taranaki
2015	George Moala	Centre	Auckland
2016	Jordie Barrett	Fullback	Canterbury
2017	Jack Goodhue	Centre	Northland
2018	Luke Romano	Lock	Canterbury
2019	Chase Tiatia	Fullback	Bay of Plenty
2020	Folau Fakatava	Half-back	Hawke's Bay

Salary cap

In 2015 the minimum value of any contract is $18,000, paid regardless of whether the individual plays a single game or not, with that payment counting towards the salary cap. No union can spend more than $1.025 million on salaries. The maximum value of any individual contract cannot exceed $55,000 a season. Provincial unions are reimbursed by the NZRU $50,000 for every contracted All Black on their books who goes to the 2015 World Cup. If that All Black becomes available for any reason, the union has to pay back a pro-rata fee to the NZRU to gain access to the player. All Blacks unavailable due to test commitments do not count towards the salary cap. ^[14]

Club competitions

Each respective province competing in the Mitre 10 Cup has a number of their own club leagues, which feed into Mitre 10 Cup teams. In New Zealand, the Mitre 10 Cup is the most prominent domestic competition below the Super Rugby, in which all the respective Unions are also aligned with Super Rugby sides.

See also

• Heartland Championship
• National Provincial Championship
• Ranfurly Shield
• List of New Zealand rugby union teams
• Lion Foundation Cup, women's equivalent competition
• Major League Rugby

References

1. "Northland and Tasman saved from axe". Stuff.co.nz . 26 September 2008. Retrieved 6 October 2011.
2. "North Harbour rugby". New Zealand History. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
3. "Tasman rugby". New Zealand History. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
4. "Northland rugby". New Zealand History. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
5. "Counties Manukau rugby". New Zealand History. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
6. "Rugby: Axed provinces eye legal fight". Otago Daily News. 12 August 2008. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
7. "No more ITM Cup as sponsor red-carded" (Press release). New Zealand Herald. 26 November 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
8. "Mitre 10 Named Competition Sponsor" (Press release). Manawatu Turbos. 14 December 2015. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
9. "Waikato's defence claims the prize". Way Back Machine. Archived from the original on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 21 October 2006.
10. "Air New Zealand Cup stats - final". Stuff. Retrieved 24 October 2007.
11. "Canterbury too strong for brave Tasman side in Mitre 10 Cup showdown". Stuff. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
12. "Stunning New Air New Zealand Cup Unveiled". 14 July 2006. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
13. "National provincial rugby's best men's player to get Duane Monkley Medal". Stuff. 16 August 2017.
14. "Rugby: ITM Cup snub for Pacific players" (Press release). New Zealand Hearld. 3 March 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.

External links

• Official website of the ITM Cup
• Air New Zealand Cup News from Prime Rugby
• ANZ Rugby News
• NPC Rugby News
• Summary of the 2006 Air New Zealand Cup format at allblacks.com (PDF)