The 2014 National Rugby Championship (known as the Buildcorp National Rugby Championship for sponsorship reasons) was the inaugural season of Australia's National Rugby Championship, involving nine professional rugby union teams from around Australia. The competition kicked off on 21 August 2014. The final was held on 1 November 2014 and won by Brisbane City.
The nine teams for the 2014 NRC season included four from New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one each from Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, and Western Australia:
Home match venues for the 2014 NRC season:
As part of the initial championship, the ARU was given approval by the IRB to conduct experimental law trials as part of the 2014 National Rugby Championship. Proposed law variations were first considered by a panel composed of the current Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie, former Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer, former Wallaby Rod Kafer and former top referee Wayne Erikson. The variations were then put to the voting public, before returning to the panel.
The variations in place for the 2014 and 2015 seasons are listed below.
The nine teams compete in a round-robin tournament for the regular season. Each team has four matches at home and four away, and one bye. The top four teams qualify for the title play-offs with semi-finals and finals.
The top four sides in the regular season advanced to the knock-out stage of semi-finals and final to decide the National Rugby Championship title.
The leading scorers in 2014 over the regular season and play-offs combined were:
Source: rugby.com.au
Source: rugby.com.au
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