The 2011 Super Rugby season was the first season of the new 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involved teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Including its past iterations as Super 12 and Super 14, this was the 16th season for the Southern Hemisphere's premier transnational club competition. The season kicked off in February 2011, with pre-season matches held from mid-January. It finished in early July to allow players a recovery period for the 2011 Rugby World Cup to be held in September and October; in future non-World Cup years, the competition will extend into August. This season saw the arrival of the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They were the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia, until 2017 ...

, admitted to the competition as Australia's fifth team after entry by the

Southern Kings The Southern Kings were a South African professional rugby union team that competed in Super Rugby and Pro14. They were based in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province and played their home matches at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. They we ...

from South Africa was denied. This was also the first season of a revamped competition format, with a greater focus on matches within each participating country and an expanded finals series. During this season, the first ever Super Rugby game was played outside the

SANZAR SANZAAR (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina Rugby; previously known as SANZAR) is the body which oversees Super Rugby and The Rugby Championship competitions in rugby union. SANZAAR meets annually and is composed of the CEOs from ...

region, taking place at

Twickenham Stadium Twickenham Stadium () in Twickenham, south-west London, England, is a rugby union stadium owned by the Rugby Football Union (RFU), English rugby union governing body, which has its headquarters there. The England national rugby union team plays ...

between the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

and the

Sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorp ...

. The match was moved to Twickenham because of the February

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. local time (23:51 UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the entire of the Canterbury region in the South Island, centred south-east ...

. Proceeds of the game were also donated to the relief effort. The final was played at

Suncorp Stadium Lang Park, also known as Brisbane Football Stadium, by the sponsored name Suncorp Stadium, and nicknamed: 'The Cauldron', is a multi-purpose stadium in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, located in the suburb of Milton. The current facility co ...

in Brisbane between the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union club competitions ...

and the

. The Reds won 18–13 to claim their first Super Rugby title.

Competition format

Covering 21 weeks, the schedule featured a total of 125 matches. The 15 teams were grouped by geography, labelled the Australian Conference, New Zealand Conference and the South African Conference. With the new format, the regular season consisted of two types of matches: * Internal Conference Matches – Each team plays the other four teams in the same conference twice, home and away. (See table below for conferences.) * Cross Conference Matches – Each team plays four teams of the other two conferences away, and four teams of the other two conferences home, thus missing out on two teams (one from each of the other conferences). Each team plays two home and two away games against teams from each of the other countries, making a total of eight cross conference games for each team. The top team of each conference, plus the next top three teams in table points regardless of conference (wild card teams), moved on to the finals. The top two conference winners, based on table points, receive first-round byes. In the first round of the finals, the third conference winner is the No. 3 seed and hosts the wild card team with the worst record, and the best wild card team hosts the second-best wild card team. In the semi-finals, the No. 2 conference winner hosts the higher surviving seed from the first round, and the No. 1 conference winner hosts the other first-round winner. The final is hosted by the top remaining seed.

Standings

Source: NZ Herald Legend: * Rnd = Round Completed (Games Played plus Byes), W = Games Won, D = Games Drawn, L = Games Lost, Bye = Number of Byes, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, PD = Points Difference, TB = Try Bonus Points, LB = Losing Bonus Points, Pts = Log Points Points breakdown: * 4 points for a win * 2 points for a draw * 4 points for a bye * 1 bonus point for a loss by seven points or less * 1 bonus point for scoring four or more tries in a match The Overall Standings classification system: * Three Conference Winners/Leaders in log points order * Three Wildcard teams in log points order * The remaining nine teams in log points order * When teams are level on log points, they are sorted by number of games won, then overall points difference, then number of tries scored and then overall try difference Notes: * The Round 2 match between the Crusaders and Hurricanes scheduled for 26 February 2011 at

Westpac Stadium Wellington Regional Stadium (known commercially as Sky Stadium through naming rights) is a major sporting venue in Wellington, New Zealand. The stadium's bowl site size is . The stadium was built in 1999 by Fletcher Construction and is situ ...

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was abandoned by agreement of both sides and SANZAR due to the February

. The match was declared a draw, with both sides earning 2 competition points.

Fixtures

Round 1

Round 2

Note * : The match was cancelled and called a draw due to the February

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Finals

Qualifiers

;Qualifier 1 ;Qualifier 2

Semi-finals

;Semi-final 1 ;Semi-final 2

Final

Player statistics

Leading try scorers

Source: South African Rugby Union

Leading point scorers