Background

An annual Tri-Nations competition was one consequence of the agreement reached between News Limited and the Australian, New Zealand and South African Rugby Unions (SANZAR) to form a partnership in 1995.

The  competition kicked off on July 6 1996 in New Zealand when the All Blacks hosted the Wallabies in wintry conditions at Wellington’s now defunct Athletic Park.

New Zealand won the inaugural match, setting a winning margin that remains a record in Tri-Nations fixtures between the trans-Tasman rivals.

New Zealand and Australia provided another record three years later when a world record 107,042 people gathered at Stadium Australia in Sydney to watch the two nations battle in the Tri-Nations.

The total has since been topped just once, at the same venue involving the same teams 12 months later, when 109,878 people witnessed one of the most exciting games of rugby ever played.

Despite its relatively short history, the Tri-Nations has already provided its fair share of historical moments, including record victories for New Zealand over Australia, Australia against New Zealand, New Zealand against South Africa and South Africa against Australia.

A number of individual milestones have also been set.

New Zealand has dominated the Tri-Nations thus far, with 10 successes (1996, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2010) in the tournament.

2009 was South Africa’s third success in the tournament, with that success adding to the earlier titles secured in 1998 and 2004. Australia has won the Tri-Nations twice with the Wallabies going back-to-back in 2000 & 2001.

Such is the closeness of the rivalry; on only five occasions have the tournament winning teams finished the competition unbeaten.

Last year, when New Zealand completed the first unbeaten season since the format expanded to three full rounds in 2006, represented the first time a team had achieved an unbeaten competition 2003, when a New Zealand side coached by John Mitchell and Robbie Deans made the clean sweep.

In 2004 South Africa won the closest tournament to date, by virtue of the number of bonus points it secured, after all three teams won their home matches in the competition.

For its first decade, the Tri-Nations was conducted over six matches, with each country playing the other home and away. The championship was then extended, following an update of the SANZAR agreement with News Limited in 2005, being expanded to nine matches - three home, three away – from 2006.

In 2007 as it will this year, the competition reverted to its original format to cater for the impact on the playing schedules of the Rugby World Cup tournament.

 
Tri-Nations Historical Notes

• The first ever Tri-Nations match was refereed by Ed Morrison. It was the first of five appointments in the competition for the now retired Englishman. Ireland’s Alain Rolland has refereed more Tri Nations matches than anyone else, with the two matches he controlled last year taking his career tally to nine. South Africa’s Jonathan Kaplan is second; having controlled seven Australia-New Zealand matches in the Tri Nations.

• New Zealand won its first eight Tri-Nations matches prior to losing to Australia in the opening game of 1998. That remains the biggest winning streak in the history of the competition. The All Blacks head into this year’s competition riding their second longest winning run, being currently unbeaten in seven dating back to the last game of the 2009 tournament.

• Two weeks after conceding its highest ever score in an international match when New Zealand scored 55 points in Auckland, South Africa raised the highest score to date in Tri-Nations against Australia at Pretoria. The Springboks’ 61 points were not enough to save coach Carel du Plessis’ employment; however, although they did ensure that Australian coach, the late Greg Smith, also found himself out of a job.

• All Blacks fullback Christian Cullen and wingers Joe Rokocoko and Doug Howlett, South African winger Bryan Habana and Wallabies flyhalf Matt Giteau, are the only players to have been multiple try-scorers in more than one Tri-Nations match. Remarkably, Cullen scored two tries on five separate occasions.

• The MCG in Melbourne attracted a crowd of 90,119 when it debuted as an international rugby venue for the Test between Australia and New Zealand in 1997. The venue was used for the same game the following year when a crowd of 75,127 was in attendance, and in 2007 when 79,322 turned up. Subiaco Oval in Perth is another ‘non rugby’ venue to have hosted Tri-Nations matches in Australia, being the venue for six Wallaby-Springbok matches.

• Andrew Mehrtens kicked a world record equalling nine penalty goals when New Zealand beat Australia at Auckland in 1999. His feats were nearly matched in 2009 by South Africa’s Morné Steyn, who kicked eight penalty goals during his team’s defeat of New Zealand at Durban, and backed that up with seven a week later during South Africa’s win over Australia. The 15 penalty goals Steyn kicked during the course of that week saw him eclipse the previous South African record for penalty kicks in a single Tri Nations season, which was previously the 13 recorded by the current Wallaby kicking advisor Braam van Straaten in 2001.

• While he is just seventh in all-time Tri Nations point-scoring heading into the 2011 tournament, Morné Steyn surely must take the kudos as the most accurate goal-kicker the competition has ever seen. Steyn starts the year having raised the flags with his last 29 shots at goal in the competition. He didn’t miss with a single attempt during the 2010 tournament.

• The least number of tries conceded in a Tri Nations campaign is three – by Australia in 1999 and South Africa in 2001. Interestingly neither side won the championship that year.

• The most tries conceded in a single season of Tri Nations is 22; conceded by South Africa last year. This beat the previous record of 18, which was also let in by South Africa, in 1997.

• The 2010 tournament saw a record 52 tries posted from the nine matches, beating the tournament’s previous high water mark of 48, which was established from six matches in 1997.

• Only two matches have failed to produce a try and they both involved New Zealand – v South Africa at Cape Town (12-3) in 2001 and v Australia at Christchurch (12-6) a year later. The All Blacks won both games.

• Home advantage has proved considerable in matches between Australia and South Africa since the Tri-Nations began. South Africa’s three wins in Australia have all been both posted at Perth in 1998, 2005 and 2009. The first was a one-pointer, 14-13. Australia’s first win on South African soil was also by a point, 19-18 at Durban in 2000. Australia’s second success in South Africa was also achieved in Durban, 27-15 three years ago, while last year’s two-point win at Bloemfontein brought up win number three.

• The 41-39 win achieved by the Wallabies in Bloemfontein in 2010 represented the team’s first success on the South African high veldt from 13 matches across 47 years.
   
•  In claiming that success, Robbie Deans became the first Australian coach to have won two Test matches on South African soil in the professional era.

• Australia twice won matches against Tri Nations rivals with after the final siren goals in 201. Kurtley Beale supplied the penalty which beat South Africa at Bloemfontein, while James O’Connor scored and converted to win the non Tri-Nations Bledisloe Cup Test against New Zealand in Hong Kong, 26-24.

• New Zealand has come from behind to win eight matches against South Africa after trailing at halftime, and seven against Australia.

•  Australia’s success in the 2000 championship owed much to the iron nerve of the side. In successive matches, the Wallabies kicked penalty goals in the last minute of games to beat New Zealand at Wellington and South Africa at Durban.

• The All Blacks have lost just six of the 34 Tri Nation’s matches played to date in New Zealand. Australia has won three of those, at Christchurch in 1998, Wellington in 2000 and Dunedin in 2001, while South Africa’s wins came at Wellington in 1998 and Dunedin and Hamilton in the last two years.

• New Zealand has won 20 of its 34 away matches in Tri-Nations. Of the defeats on foreign grounds, seven have been in Australia (Melbourne 1998 & 2007, Sydney 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004 & 2008).

• Australia has led New Zealand at halftime on seven occasions in Tri-Nations Tests in 1996, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 – Auckland & Sydney, 2010), only to lose the game. This also occurred in the non-Tri-Nations fixtures at Hong Kong and Tokyo in 2008 and 2009. On three occasions (2004, 2005 & 2007), Australia has led South Africa at halftime but lost.

• On just four occasions has Australia trailed at halftime in a Tri-Nations Test and come back to win. These were all achieved on Australian soil: against New Zealand in 2002 and 2007, and South Africa in 2004 and 2007. Australia also came from behind at the break to win the non-Tri Nations Bledisloe Cup Test against New Zealand at Hong Kong last year.

• Only two players in the history of the game have scored in excess of 150 Test points against two countries. They are both All Blacks – Andrew Mehrtens and Daniel Carter. Mehrtens scored 202 points against Australia, 156 of which were scored in Tri-Nations matches, and 209 against South Africa, 172 of which came in Tri-Nations games. Mehrtens has scored the most points of anyone against South Africa but was recently over-taken by Carter in relation to Australia. Carter has scored 221 against South Africa (all in Tri-Nations games), and 245 against Australia – 205 of which have been totalled in Tri-Nations play.