National Rugby League

The **National Rugby League**, known also as **NRL**, is the top professional rugby league competition in Australia and New Zealand. It is also known as **Telstra Premiership** due to sponsorship rights. 16 teams play in the competition, 15 from Australia and one team from New Zealand.

## History

The NRL was born after the Super League war, as collaboration between the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and News Corporation, who controlled the Super League, after the two competitions ran in parallel until 1997. Since then, the NRL was won by 11 teams: Brisbane Broncos, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, Melbourne Storm, Newcastle Knights, Penrith Panthers, St. George Illawarra Dragons, Sydney Roosters, Wests Tigers, South Sydney Rabbitohs and North Queensland Cowboys.

The most successful teams are: Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles (2008, 2011), Melbourn Storm (1999, 2007, 2009, 2012), Brisbane Broncos (1998, 2000, 2006) and Sydney Roosters (2002, 2003).

At the beginning of the 2010 season, Melbourn Storm was fined by the League as the team surpassed the transfers' salary cap. As a result, of the titles won by Melbourne Storm from 2005 to 2009 were revoked, and the Storm had to take part to the 2010 season without receive points for any victory or draw. The lost titles are not assigned to the other teams, but are still vacant.

Every year, the NRL champions play a match against the European Rugby Super League in the World Club Challenge.

## Current teams

The season is divided into two stages: **Premiership Season** and **Final Series**.

### Premiership Season

The first stage, called Premiership Season, lasts 26 weeks and the teams play in a round every weekend, where every team plays 24 matches plus two byes. 2 points are assigned for victory, 1 for draw, 0 for defeat and 2 for each bye. At the end of the Premiership Season, the first eight teams qualify for the next stage: the Final Series. In addition, the first highest placed team in the Premiership Season wins the Minor Premiership.

### Final Series

The final series consist into a series of knockout stage matches:

1. **Qualifying & Elimination finals**: In this round, the four  highed placed teams in the Premiership Season (**Qualifying**) compete respectively 1st vs 4th (QF1) and 2nd vs 3rd (QF2) in the home ground of the better placed team, the two winning teams play directly the Preliminary finals (Round 3), while the two losing teams will play the Round 2. At the same time, the teams placed between the 5th to the 8th place in the Premiership Season (**Elimination**) compete in the Round 2, respectively 5th vs 8th (EF1) and 6th vs 7th (EF2) in the home ground of the better placed team, the two winning teams play the Round 2, while the two losing teams are out.
2. **Semi Finals**: In this round , the two teams which lost in the Qualifying and the two teams which won in the Elimination in the home ground of the better placed team in Premiership Season, respectively the QF1 losing team vs the EF1 winning team (SF1) and the QF2 losing team vs the EF2 winning team (SF2). The two winning teams will play the Preliminary Finals, while the two losing teams are out.
3. **Preliminary Finals:** In this round, the two Qualifying winning teams play against the Semi-finals winning teams in the home ground of the Qualifying winning teams, respectively the QF1 winning team vs the SF2 winning team (PF1) and the QF2 winning team vs the SF1 winning team (PF2), the two winning teams play the Grand Final, while the others are out.
4. **Grand Final**: It represents the NRL Final, played at the Sydney Olympic Park. The winning team becomes the NRL Champion (**Premiership**).