Trisha Shetty (Editor)

2012 Super Rugby season

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Champions
  
Chiefs (1st title)

Official website
  
Official site

Dates
  
24 Feb 2012 – 4 Aug 2012

Attendance
  
2,725,929

Tries scored
  
609

Top point scorer(s)
  
Aaron Cruden (251)

Champion
  
Chiefs

Country
  
New Zealand

Matches played
  
125

Countries
  
Australia (5 teams) New Zealand (5 teams) South Africa (5 teams)

Tournament format(s)
  
Round-robin and knockout

Top try scorer(s)
  
Andre Taylor (10) Bjorn Basson (10)

Similar
  
2014 Super Rugby se, 2015 Super Rugby se, 2008 Super 14 season, 2016 Super Rugby se, 2015 Currie Cup Premier

The 2012 Super Rugby season was the second season of the current 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involves teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For sponsorship reasons, this competition is known as FxPro Super Rugby in Australia, Investec Super Rugby in New Zealand and Vodacom Super Rugby in South Africa. Including its past incarnations as Super 12 and Super 14, this was the 17th season for the Southern Hemisphere's premier transnational club competition. The conference games took place every weekend from 24 February until 14 July (with a three-week break between rounds 15 and 16 for international matches), followed by the finals series, culminating in the grand final on 4 August. While its three main broadcasting partners are Fox Sports (Australia), Sky Sport (New Zealand) and SuperSport (South Africa), Super Rugby can be viewed in many countries throughout the world.

Contents

The Chiefs, based in Hamilton, New Zealand, claimed their first-ever title in the competition's history, defeating the Durban-based Sharks 37–6 in the final held on 4 August at the Chiefs' home of Waikato Stadium.

Competition format

Covering 24 weeks, the schedule featured 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), advance 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

    Source: sanzarrugby.com

    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, TF = Tries For, TA = Tries Against, TB = Try Bonus Points, LB = Losing Bonus Points, Pts = Log Points, Q = Qualification

    • 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.

    Referees

    The following refereeing panel was appointed by SANZAR for the 2012 Super Rugby season:

    References

    2012 Super Rugby season Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA