The Liga Națională de Rugby () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in Romania. In the

2023 season 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

there are 14 teams competing. The competition was established in 1913 and is governed by the Romanian Rugby Federation. Steaua București is the most successful club in the competition with 24 titles.

History

The first Romanian competition took place in 1914 between two Bucharest team's in Tennis Club Român and Sporting Club with Tennis Club Român taking out the first title winning both of the matches by eight and three points respectively. The competition expanded and grew in the 1920s and 1930s (with a peak in the 1970s and 1980s), after Stadiul Român and seventeen more (other) teams were founded in Bucharest-only ever since. The championship took place on an annual basis, with some gap years caused by the two World Wars mostly. The first team set up outside Bucharest (to play the top-tier competition) was IAR Brașov in 1939, a team owned and run by the famous Braşov aircraft factory I.A.R. ''( Industria Aeronautică Română)'', but the first one to become champion of Romania was Universitatea Timișoara, only in 1972. The European Champions Cup in its early years (1960s) used to be a Franco-Romanian affair, with RC Grivița București (1964) and

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(1967) grabbing their fair share of glory. In 1995 it was Farul Constanţa the team to represent Romania in the newly born

Heineken Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...

(splitting with

Stade Toulousain Stade Toulousain () ( oc, Estadi Tolosenc), also referred to as Toulouse, is a professional rugby union club based in Toulouse, France. They compete in the Top 14, France's top division of rugby, and the European Rugby Champions Cup. Toulou ...

the honour of playing on home ground the first ever match of the competition), but that was to be followed by no other participation of a Romanian side ever since (as of 2020). Nonetheless, the Romanian teams turned to the

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although never actually advanced to the quarterfinals. To better cope with the strong clubs of the 6 Nations countries the Romanian Rugby Union pulled together an all-domestic franchise - Stejarii ''(The Oaks)'', to be later renamed Lupii București '' (Bucharest Wolves)'' - but despite the healthy idea and some gleams of success, the mighty SuperLiga clubs forced the Romanian Rugby Establishment to back off and allow again the champions of the SuperLiga to take part in the

Current teams

Note: Flags indicate national union as has been defined under WR eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-WR nationality

Champions

Winners by year

References

External links