The Rugby League Four Nations is an annual rugby league football tournament run in partnership between the Australian Rugby League Commission, Rugby Football League and New Zealand Rugby League representing the top three nations in the sport: Australia, England and New Zealand. A fourth partner, France, accepted an invitation to play in the inaugural tournament. In the 2010 Tournament, Papua New Guinea was represented as they won the 2009 Pacific Cup. In 2011 they were replaced by the 2010 European Cup winners, Wales. The tournament is sponsored by Gillette and therefore officially known as the Gillette Four Nations.

The tournament was first contested in 2009 and replaced the Tri-Nations tournament that previously involved Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain.

The Four Nations is an integrated part of the Rugby League International Federation's 'International Calendar', with the fourth participant for 2010 and 2011 decided by the 2009 Pacific Cup and 2010 European Cups respectively. There was no tournament in 2012 to allow teams to prepare for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup.

Format[edit]

Qualification[edit]

In 2009 a qualifying tournament was held, the Pacific Cup, involving Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and the Cook Islands. The winners, Papua New Guinea, qualified for the 2010 Four Nations. Likewise in 2010, the European Nations Cup decided the fourth participant in the 2011 tournament, Wales.

The competition[edit]

The tournament is organised in round-robin format. Each team play the others once, before the top two teams play each other in a tournament final. The top two teams are calculated using a league table. Teams receive:

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a draw
• 0 points for a loss

For and against then separates teams on equal points.

History[edit]

2009 logo for the tournament featuring France

2010 logo for the tournament featuring Papua New Guinea

Tournament logos feature elements representing the participants.

The 2009 tournament began on Saturday 24 October, after the National Rugby League Grand Final and the Super League Grand Final. The tournament ran for 4 weeks with a total of 7 matches, the final was played at Elland Road, Leeds, United Kingdom on Saturday 14 November.

Tournament finals[edit]

Tri Nations (1999-2006)[edit]

Year	Host nation(s)	Winner	Score	Runner-Up	Final venue	Final crowd
1999	New Zealand  Australia	Australia	22 – 20	New Zealand	Ericsson Stadium, Auckland	21,204
2004	United Kingdom	Australia	44 – 4	Great Britain	Elland Road, Leeds	39,200
2005	United Kingdom	New Zealand	24 – 0	Australia	Elland Road, Leeds	26,514
2006	Australia  New Zealand	Australia	16 – 12 Golden point	New Zealand	Sydney Football Stadium, Australia	27,325

Four Nations (2009-)[edit]

Year	Host nation(s)	Fourth nation	Winner	Score	Runner-Up	Final venue	Final crowd
2009	England  France	France	Australia	46 – 16	England	Elland Road, Leeds	31,042
2010	Australia  New Zealand	Papua New Guinea	New Zealand	16 – 12	Australia	Lang Park, Brisbane	36,299
2011	England  Wales	Wales	Australia	30 – 8	England	Elland Road, Leeds	34,174
2014	Australia  New Zealand	Samoa				Westpac Stadium, Wellington

See also[edit]

Rugby league portal

References[edit]

• Official website