The Farah Palmer Cup (formerly known as Women's Provincial Championship until 2016), is the highest level domestic women's

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

competition in New Zealand and is named after the former

Black Ferns The New Zealand women's rugby union team, called the Black Ferns, represents New Zealand in women's international rugby union, which is regarded as the country's national sport. The team has won six out of nine Women's Rugby World Cup tournamen ...

captain,

Farah Palmer Dame Farah Rangikoepa Palmer (born 27 November 1972) is a professor at Massey University and a former captain of New Zealand's women's rugby union team, the Black Ferns. Youth and early career Palmer was born in Te Kuiti, New Zealand and rais ...

. This contest is held annually from late August to early November and managed by the

New Zealand Rugby Union New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is the governing body of rugby union in New Zealand. It was founded in 1892 as the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), 12 years after the first provincial unions in New Zealand. In 1949 it became an affiliate to t ...

, or NZRU. The competition was first introduced in 1999, with a total of fourteen teams competing initially. The number of teams increased to eighteen in the year 2000, but has decreased to as few as six teams, with 13 currently featured. Canterbury are the current holders of the JJ Stewart Trophy, the women's equivalent of the

Ranfurly Shield The Ranfurly Shield, colloquially known as the Log o' Wood, is a trophy in New Zealand's domestic rugby union competition. First played for in 1904, the Shield is based on a challenge system. The holding union must defend the shield in challeng ...

. The Farah Palmer Cup is an amateur competition; players are not paid salaries and hold jobs outside of rugby.

Competition format

All teams face each other at least once, with the top four teams in the championship proceeding to the semi-finals. From 2011 to 2014, the semi-finals round was eliminated and the top two teams in the championship automatically qualified for the finals. In 2015, the semi-finals round was reintroduced. In 2017 the Farah Palmer Cup was split into two divisions with promotion and relegation between the two. The top division is named the Premiership while the bottom is called the Championship. A team will play every team in their division once in the regular season before a semi-final then final for each division. In 2019 Northland joined the competition, causing the Premiership to expand to seven teams and leaving the Championship at six teams. In 2020 the competition was instead run in two pools split geographically between the north and south of New Zealand. The north pool contains seven teams and the south pool contains six, a single

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is played in each pool. The top two teams from each pool take part in a crossover semi-finals with the final being held a week later.

Teams

:1. * ''Denotes Town/City named the same as the region.''

Champions

Premiership

Championship

Past Premierships

Total Wins

Notes and references

External links

Official Facebook of the New Zealand Women's Rugby

Official website of the ITM Cup
{{DEFAULTSORT:Women's Provincial Championship Women's rugby union competitions in New Zealand Rugby union competitions for provincial teams 1999 establishments in New Zealand