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The ITM Cup is a New Zealand domestic rugby union competitors, getting place from late August via October (or the 1st week of November). It was launched in 2006 with fourteen groups, following the National Provincial Championship (NPC) was break up into two separate competitions. The other 12 unions from the NPC now contend in the amateur Heartland Championship. From its inception by way of the 2009 year, it was sponsored by Air New Zealand, the national airline and flag provider of New Zealand, and named the Air New Zealand Cup. New Zealand also has 5 teams in Tremendous Rugby, an elite competitors which also involves sides from Australia and South Africa.

In March 2010 it was declared that the Air New Zealand Cup would be renamed the ITM Cup with the addition of creating provides cooperative ITM (Unbiased Timber Retailers) as the significant sponsor. The modify arrived since Air New Zealand chose to focus their rugby sponsorship on the country's national crew, the All Blacks.

The 2006 reorganisation of New Zealand provincial rugby changed the NPC's previous 3-division setup with two unique competitions. This differs from the original two-division setup utilised in the NPC from its creation in 1976 to 1984 in two key techniques. 1st, the two current competitions are nationwide, although the first NPC Division Two was break up on a North Island/South Island foundation. Second, the NZRU dominated that there would to begin with be no advertising or relegation in between the Air New Zealand Cup and Heartland Championship--a feature that had constantly been current in the previous NPC. watch rugby online

Also, the amount of groups was lowered to 26, as the Marlborough and Nelson Bays unions merged to kind the new Tasman union.

The 2006 expansion of the Super 12 and Tri Nations Sequence experienced a main result on the Air New Zealand Cup. This expansion created the Tremendous 14, introducing two further fixtures to that opposition, and also included two a lot more Tri-Nations matches for the All Blacks, at least in non-Entire world Cup years. Due to the fact of these modifications, it was supposed for players in the All Blacks choice pool to make only limited appearances in the Air New Zealand Cup.

The 2009 Air New Zealand Cup noticed a diverse structure than previous a long time, following a tiny pre-season the Round-Robin ran for 13 weeks with every single team facing every other once. The best 4 groups superior to the semi-finals and the winners from each semi competed for the title in the Grand Closing.

To make a decision which 4 groups went via to the semi-finals the Rugby Union Reward Factors Program was utilized.

The Rugby Union Factors Technique:

four points for a get two factors for a draw one point for scoring four attempts one level for shedding by seven details or considerably less

So the most factors a profitable crew can receive is five and the most a getting rid of staff can obtain is two points. Semi-Finals are played between four teams, the groups are seeded one to four and the two greatest seeded teams enjoy at property in opposition to the two least expensive seeded groups meaning 1 performs 4 and 2 plays 3. The optimum seed nevertheless remaining in the grand closing performed at property.