South Pacific Championship

The South Pacific Championship, also known as the SPC, was a rugby union competition introduced in 1986 and contested through to 1990. It featured six teams: Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington from New Zealand, Queensland and New South Wales from Australia, and Fiji representing Pacific Island rugby. It was organised by the New South Wales Rugby Union on an invitational basis, to give its own team and Queensland regular matches while rugby league was expanding its domestic competition in Australia. New Zealand teams dominated, most of all Auckland: Canterbury won the first title in 1986, shared the second with Auckland in 1987, and Auckland won outright in the next three years. The competition collapsed when its organiser met financial difficulties before the 1991 season, and it was relaunched as the Super 6 in 1992 and expanded into the Super 10 in 1993. It was the predecessor of the Super 12, Super 14 and Super Rugby competitions.