The 2015 National Rugby Championship (known as the Buildcorp National Rugby Championship for sponsorship reasons) was the second season of Australia's National Rugby Championship, involving nine professional

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 it ...

teams from around Australia. The competition kicked off 20 August 2015. The regular season was dominated by two teams, and , who went on to play in the championship final. The deciding match, played at Ballymore, was won 21–10 by Brisbane to claim their second consecutive NRC title.

Teams

The nine teams confirmed for the 2015 NRC season include four from

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, two from

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, and one each from

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding township#Aust ...

, Victoria, and

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

: Home match venues for the 2015 NRC season:

Television coverage and streaming

One (or more) of the NRC matches each round is broadcast live via

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

, typically the Thursday night match. Streaming of the three non-broadcast matches per round, usually played on Saturday or Sunday, is hosted by Fox Sports online. Discussion of the NRC competition is included on Fox Sports' Rugby HQ program on Thursday nights following the live match broadcast, and on the review show NRC Extra Time on Monday nights.

Experimental Law Variations

The ARU was given approval by

World Rugby World Rugby is the world governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international rug ...

(then known as the International Rugby Board) to conduct experimental law trials as part of the 2014 National Rugby Championship. These law variations were retained for the 2015 season. Consideration was given to reverting the value of a successful conversion kick to 2 points to restore a converted try to 7 points, but the 3 point conversion variation was retained.

Regular season

The nine teams compete in a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

for the regular season. Each team has four matches at home and four away, with one bye. The top four teams qualify for the title play-offs with semi-finals and finals. During this section of the tournament, teams can also play for the Horan-Little Shield, a challenge trophy that is played for when a challenge is accepted or offered by the holders.

Standings

Competition rounds

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Title play-offs

The top four sides in the regular season advanced to the semifinals of the knock-out stage, which was followed by the final to decide the National Rugby Championship title.

Semi-finals

Final

Total season attendances

Players

The leading scorers in 2015 over the regular season and finals combined were:

Leading try scorers

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Leading point scorers

Source
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Barbarians tour

After the NRC finals, an

Australian Barbarians The Australian Barbarians, nicknamed the "Baa-Baas", is an invitational rugby union team which has been a major part of Australian rugby since the team was founded in 1957. The club is based in Australia. The idea came from the concept of the ...

team selected from the NRC played a two-match tour against the

New Zealand Heartland XV The Heartland XV is one of several New Zealand representative rugby union teams, although it is at a lower level than the All Blacks and the Māori All Blacks. The side is drawn exclusively from players for provincial unions that compete in the He ...

. NRC players that were not contracted for

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

were eligible for the Barbarians. The series was won 2–0 by the Australian Barbarians.

Notes

There were six late replacements made to the Barbarians squad with some players originally selected being unavailable to tour.

References

External links

*
NRC
on Fox Sports

Team webpages

{{DEFAULTSORT:National Rugby Championship 2015 2015 National Rugby Championship 2015 in Australian rugby union 2015 rugby union tournaments for clubs