ITM Cup’s new format released
A new format for the competition has been implemented for ITM Cup 2011. This year’s ITM Cup is all set for an action packed tournament with fourteen teams, thirteen rounds in eight weeks. Festival of 72 matches will take place in between these 14 teams.
Today an official draw for the tournament has been released by the NZRU (New Zealand Rugby Union). The ITM Cup will kick off July 14th this year for the Ranfurly Shield.
ITM Cup is an annual domestic Rugby Union tournament for New Zealand. After the division of NPC into two separate tournaments, ITM was started from 2006 with fourteen sides on board. It takes place from July till October every year since then. The other
twelve teams who didn’t join in the ITM Cup now play in the amateur Heartland Championship. Five teams from ITM Cup have qualified in Super Rugby and play elite rugby with other teams from Australia and South Africa. Formerly known as Air New Zealand became
ITM Cup in 2010, when Air New Zealand solely started focusing on All Blacks.
In 2006, Waikato won the tournament after beating Wellington in front of 25,000 fans. In 2007 Auckland won the tournament after beating Lions and Canterbury took away the cup in 2008, after thrashing Wellington in final match. In 2009, only twelve teams
competed after the change of format and decreased the tournament’s tenure to 13 weeks.
The current format has following basic features:
Guarantee four and five home games per team. Featuring playoffs and a complete round-robin. Conclusion by October. Inclusion of Super 15 players. End the tournament in eight weeks. Give a standalone window.
The season will kick off when North Harbor visits Otago on 14th July. Neil Sorensen, the general manager of ITM Cp said, “There’s a lot of rugby to fit in the eight weeks of this competition. As well as all the great provincial pride and rivalry that comes
with the ITM Cup, the Finals will be played a week out from the start of the Rugby World Cup.”
This year the semifinals have been exempted too because of the World Cup campaign. ITM will get back to normal scheduling from 2012. Relegation and promotion are also a feature of this year’s new format. The team that will be finishing last will be relegated
to Championship and the winner of ITM Championship final will make it to ITM Premiership next year. Live broadcast is also an addition to the tournament this year.
Tickets for final matches are already being sold. The final will be played on 3rd September Saturday.
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