The 2012 Super Rugby season is the second season of the new 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involves teams from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. Including its past incarnations as Super 12 and Super 14, this is the 17th season for the Southern Hemisphere's premier transnational club competition. The conference games will take place every weekend from 24 February until 14 July (with a three week break between rounds 15 and 16 for internationals games), followed by the finals series, culminating in the grand final on 4 August.

Competition format

Covering 24 weeks, the schedule features a total of 125 matches. The 15 teams are grouped by geography, labelled the Australian Conference, New Zealand Conference and the South African Conference. The regular season consists of two types of matches:

• Internal Conference Matches – Each team plays the other four teams in the same conference twice, home and away.
• 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.. There will be a three week international break between rounds 15 and 16 of the regular season.

The top team of each conference, plus the next top three teams in table points regardless of conference (wild card teams), will move 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 #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 #2 conference winner hosts the higher surviving seed from the first round, and the #1 conference winner hosts the other first-round winner. The final is hosted by the top remaining seed.

Standings

Pos	Team	Rnd	W	D	L	Bye	PF	PA	PD	TB	LB	Pts
1		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Pos	Team	Rnd	W	D	L	Bye	PF	PA	PD	TB	LB	Pts
1		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Pos	Team	Rnd	W	D	L	Bye	PF	PA	PD	TB	LB	Pts
1		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Pos	Team	Rnd	W	D	L	Bye	PF	PA	PD	TB	LB	Pts
1		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Source:


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

Regular Season

The following fixtures were released on 2 September 2011. Some venue details must still be finalised.

Round 1

Round 2

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

Qualifiers

Semi-Finals

Final

See also

• Super Rugby franchise areas
• List of Super Rugby records

External links