Sydney start: All Blacks
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New Zealand will begin their Rugby Championship title defence away to Australia when the tournament kicks off on August 17.
The first Bledisloe Cup match will take place at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, with South Africa entertaining Argentina in Bloemfontein.
The reverse fixtures will take place seven days later - with the Wallabies travelling to Wellington and the Pumas hosting the Boks to Mendoza.
That will be the first of three successive home games for the All Blacks - with Argentina taking on the World Cup winners at Waikato Stadium on September 7 before South Africa visit Eden Park.
SANZAR CEO Greg Peters said it was exciting to release the draw for the Rugby Championship as Test rugby closed out for the year.
"In 2012 we saw The Rugby Championship played for the first time, welcoming the Pumas into the fold alongside the original Tri-Nations teams, which saw the All Blacks claim inaugural success with an unbeaten charge to the title," Peters said.
"The Rugby Championship will again feature the best teams in the world. With the recent End of Year Tests yielding 10 victories for our competing rugby nations.
"The Pumas claimed a historic win in Cardiff against Six Nations champions Wales, the Springboks went through Europe unbeaten, while the All Blacks and Wallabies won three of their four Tests."
Peters said that the new dimension that Argentina brought to The Rugby Championship was evident with the fan response through the six rounds.
"A total of over 16 million viewers tuned into the twelve Tests of The Rugby Championship and an average of 44,000 attended the matches, which saw stadiums at 91% capacity, with the 88,739 crowd that saw the All Blacks come back from a half time deficit to defeat the Springboks 32-16 at FNB Stadium in Soweto the most attended match of the season," Peters said.
"The first round of action, with the Wallabies playing the All Blacks in Sydney, and the Springboks hosting the Pumas in Bloemfontein, will have added spice considering the last time each of these two nations played - the result was an 18-18 and 16-16 draw respectively.
"We are also pleased to announce that the format for 2013 will be consistent with the recent season to enable Unions and fans to have certainty on which weekends matches will be played in their territories."
2013 Rugby Championship fixtures
August 17: Australia v New Zealand, ANZ Stadium, Sydney. South Africa v Argentina, Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein.
August 24: New Zealand v Australia, Westpac Stadium, Wellington. Argentina v South Africa, Estadio Malvinas Argentinas, Mendoza.
September 7: Australia v South Africa, Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane. New Zealand v Argentina, Waikato Stadium, Hamilton.
September 14: Australia v Argentina, Patersons Stadium, Perth. New Zealand v South Africa, Eden Park, Auckland.
September 28: South Africa v Australia, Newlands Stadium, Cape Town. Argentina v New Zealand, Estadio Ciudad de La Plata, La Plata.
October 5: South Africa v New Zealand, Coca-Cola Park, Johannesburg. Argentina v Australia, Estadio Gigante de Arroyito, Rosario.
Comments
tha_mai says...
BokAvenger - nice to see you so positive at the start of the year.
Why do you even bother posting?
refreshing your memory, combined scores for 2012 were AB 53 SA 27, six tries to two, larger of the two wins to NZ was the away match in SA front of 81,000 SA fans, winning four tries to one.
Beaten get over it.
Or better still, go away.
Posted 11:46 15th January 2013
daibok says...
Bokavenger: NZ won because they are the best. We won a couple of years ago for the same reason. Refs are inconsistent and sometimes incompetent but never crooked.
Posted 11:33 15th January 2013
trinats2 says...
You are only as good as your last game ! Been a while since NZ has tasted success, and they will have to wait until Sept. for another win !
latin:
Arg should have beaten SA. Only a late charge down saved SA a draw. Aus beat Arg with a second string side, twice. I can see Arg beating SA this year.
Posted 11:32 15th January 2013
BokAvenger says...
Not sure why we're bothering with this rigged tournament again. Why not just award the All Pacific the trophy right now and save everyone a huge amount of travel expenses. IRB's crooked refs are never going to allow their paymasters' precious marketing gimmick to lose any games so why bother. Congratulations NZ on another win.
Posted 09:45 15th January 2013
latin says...
lets see if argentina can pull off a win this year ............ i suspect so, witht he most likely one being Australia again. However, it is not going to be too long before Pumas get a 'surprise' win against NZ or SA
Posted 09:34 15th January 2013