Sporty Sydney - Sydney - page 505

RUGBY UNION
Rugby Union ( www.rugby.com.au ) , which despite its punishing physical component, has a
more upper-class rep than rugby league and a less fanatical following in Sydney. Since
winning the Rugby World Cup in 1991 and 1999, Australia's national team, the Wallabies,
has been a bit off the boil. The annual southern hemisphere Rugby Championship
(formerly the Tri-Nations) between Australia's Wallabies, New Zealand's All Blacks, South
Africa's Springboks and Argentina's Pumas provokes plenty of passion - particularly the
matches against New Zealand, which determine the holders of the ultimate symbol of
Trans-Tasman rivalry, the Bledisloe Cup (mostly because the Aussies haven't won it since
2002).
In the SuperRugby competition, the NSW Waratahs bang heads with 14 other teams
from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.