Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. With a 2019 estimated population of 147,255, it has more residents than the rest of the sparsely populated Northern Territory. It is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australian capital cities and serves as the Top End's regional centre.
Alice Springs is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd, wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. Now colloquially known as The Alice or simply Alice, the town is situated roughly in Australia's geographic centre. It is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin.
Rugby Australia, known as the Australian Rugby Union until 2017, is the governing body of rugby union in Australia. It was officially constituted in 1949 and is a member of World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. Rugby Australia has eight member unions, representing each state and territory. It also manages Australia's national rugby union teams, including the Wallabies and the Wallaroos.
The Arafura Games is a unique, inclusive multi-sport event where athletes with a disability compete in the same program as able-bodied athletes. Competitors from around the world compete in the week-long games held every 2 years in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
NRL Northern Territory is the organisation responsible for administering the game of rugby league in the Northern Territory. It controls the Darwin Rugby League, Darwin Junior Rugby League and Central Australian Rugby Football League.
James McManus is a Scottish former professional rugby league footballer. A New South Wales State of Origin representative, he played for the Newcastle Knights in the National Rugby League as a winger and centre.
Many sports are played in the Northern Territory of Australia.
The Australian Schoolboys & U18 rugby union team is the national team for schoolboy rugby union & U18 players in Australia. Considered to be the pinnacle of schoolboy & U18 rugby in Australia, the team plays in fixtures against other national representative schoolboy teams from around the world. Many players who have played in the Australian Schoolboys team have gone on to further representative careers with Super Rugby franchise teams and the Australian national rugby union team.
Rugby league in the Northern Territory is administered by the Northern Territory Rugby League and is played in Darwin at Richardson Park and in Alice Springs at Anzac Oval.
Rugby union football is one of the leading professional and recreational team sports in Queensland.
The National Women's Championship was the highest-tier competition of women's rugby union in Australia through the 2017 season. It is set to be superseded as the top level of the women's sport by the new Super W competition from the 2018 season forward.
The Southern Kings were a South African professional rugby union team that competed in Super Rugby and Pro14. They were based in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province and played their home matches at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. They were created in 2009, and had their first match against the British & Irish Lions during their 2009 tour. After competing in Super Rugby in 2013, 2016 and 2017, they joined Pro14 prior to the 2017–18 season, along with the Cheetahs.
The Australia women's national rugby sevens team were champions of the inaugural Women's Sevens World Cup in 2009. The team plays in the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series as one of the "core teams" on the world tour, of which they were crowned Champions in 2015–16. The team also played in the preceding competition to the current world series, the IRB Women's Sevens Challenge Cup. In 2016, they won the inaugural gold medal at the Rio Olympics.
Cody Meakin, is a wheelchair rugby player. He was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in wheelchair rugby.
Rugby union is a mostly amateur sport within the Northern Territory in Australia. The game is run by the Northern Territory Rugby Union, composed of representatives from clubs, regional rugby unions, referees, and affiliated bodies for schools and junior rugby.
The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian national rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams — seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded at the end of 2020 following the change of the Australian rugby TV broadcasting deal from Fox Sports, who funded the competition, to Stan Sport. The 2020 competition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Darwin Hottest Sevens, known as the Hottest 7s in the World or the Hottest 7s, is a rugby sevens tournament held annually in Darwin, Australia on a weekend in late January. The event is sponsored by Heineken and is hosted by the Northern Territory Rugby Union. The tournament draws club teams and national teams from many countries around the world, including New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, England, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Australia.
The National Rugby Sevens Championship is an annual rugby sevens competition hosted by the Australian Rugby Union. Tournaments are held for senior men's and women's teams, as well as for junior men's and women's teams with an under-18 age requirement. It is contested by teams from Australian states and territories, and National Indigenous representative sides, as well as teams from the Australian Armed Services, and Australian Universities.
The Black Falcons is a representative rugby union team based in Adelaide, South Australia. The team is selected from the best senior club players in South Australia and represents the state in matches against other Australian representative teams. They currently play in the Emerging States Championship against Tasmania, Victoria Country and the Northern Territory. The Black Falcons previously competed in the Australian Rugby Shield run by the Australian Rugby Union.
