The 2009 end of year rugby internationals, also known as the Autumn internationals in the Northern Hemisphere, saw

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

and

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, tour the northern hemisphere. The headline event of the series was an attempted Grand Slam tour of the Home Nations by Australia. This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Wallabies' only previous Grand Slam tour, which saw the Wallabies sweep all four matches and saw

David Campese David Ian Campese, AM (born 21 October 1962), also known as Campo, is a former Australian rugby union player (1982-1996), who was capped by the Wallabies 101 times, and played 85 Tests at wing and 16 at fullback. He retired in 1996 and was aw ...

Mark Ella Mark Gordon Ella, AM (born 5 June 1959) is an indigenous Australian former rugby union footballer. Ella played at flyhalf/five-eighth and was capped by the Wallabies 25 times, captaining Australia on 10 occasions. Ella made his debut tour wit ...

Nick Farr-Jones Nicholas Campbell Farr-Jones AM (born 18 April 1962) is a former Australian rugby union footballer. His position was scrum-half. He is probably best remembered for winning the 1991 Rugby World Cup with his team against England. He now works at ...

, and

Michael Lynagh Michael Patrick Thomas Lynagh, AM (born 25 October 1963) is an Australian former rugby union player who played mainly as a fly-half. Lynagh represented Australia from 1984 to 1995, playing at both inside centre and fly half. Lynagh was capped ...

achieve international prominence. Also, for the second consecutive year, a

Bledisloe Cup The Bledisloe Cup is an annual rugby union competition originally staged between the national teams of Australia's Wallabies and New Zealand's All Blacks that has been contested since the 1930s. The frequency that the competition is held has va ...

match was contested by New Zealand and Australia outside of either country, this time in Tokyo. The final event of the series, the Barbarians' traditional Final Challenge, involved New Zealand, with the Barbarians winning over a mostly second-string All Blacks side. For the first time since the inception of the

IRB World Rankings The World Rugby Rankings (formerly the IRB Rankings) is a ranking system for national teams in rugby union, managed by World Rugby, the sport's governing body. There are separate men's and women's rankings. The teams of World Rugby's member natio ...

in 2003, all of the top 20 teams in the rankings played matches in the November window. The only top-20 teams not playing in the November tours were

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, which played a two-legged 2011 Rugby World Cup qualifying tie during November. This year's series was also marked by more non-Test matches pitting Test teams with top-level club teams than in recent years. Matches of this type are often called "midweek matches" because they are traditionally played at midweek, most often on Wednesday, although they can also be scheduled on a weekend when the touring team has no Test scheduled. Australia and South Africa both scheduled two such matches; the Wallabies won both of their matches comfortably, while the Springboks lost both of theirs.

Matches

Week 1

Week 2

---- ----

Week 3

---- ---- ---- * Ras Dumisani's controversial rendition of the South African national anthem before the game caused a minor diplomatic incident afterwards. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- * Japan's victory saw them achieve their highest ever spot on the

. ---- * Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll became the 11th player to reach 100 Test

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

Week 4

---- ---- ---- ---- * Dan Carter became the all-time leading Test point scorer for the All Blacks, surpassing

Andrew Mehrtens Andrew Philip Mehrtens (born 28 April 1973) is a New Zealand former rugby union player. He was regarded as a top first five-eighth, having played first for Canterbury in 1993, before being selected for the All Blacks (New Zealand's national te ...

. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Week 5

---- * This was Italy's first win since June 2008, ending a 13-game losing streak. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Week 6

* This was New Zealand's first loss in the Northern Hemisphere since 2007, as well as the first time in two years a team had managed to score tries against them in the Northern Hemisphere.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:End-of-year

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

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