Reigning champions Brisbane City will meet the Perth Spirit in a Grand Final rematch at Ballymore on Thursday 20 August to launch the second year of the Buildcorp National Rugby Championship. With both the Reds and the Force having disappointing Super Rugby seasons and neither expected to provide a great deal of players to the Wallabies, you can expect the NRC season opener to involve plenty of Super Rugby talent.
There are two cracking NSW local derbies also in that first weekend, as the North Harbour Rays host the Sydney Stars at Manly Oval and the Greater Sydney Rams host NSW Country at Merrylands RSL, with both games on Saturday 22 August @ 3pm. The UC Vikings have the bye in the first round.
Once again a fantastic feature of the draw this year is the number of games at family friendly hours in the afternoon. Similarly the options by many of the teams to take their games outside of the traditional markets should also be applauded. Melbourne Rising will take their games to Morwell, Geelong and Frankston, while NSW Country’s games will includes home matches in Tamworth and Bathurst.
With squads having to be announced by 4 August, the Nick Stiles lead Brisbane team should feature the core group of his 2014 Champion team including the likes of Nick Frisby, Chris Kuridrani, Marco Kotze, Sam Talakai and Jake Schatz. All of Brisbane City’s games will again be at the home of Queensland Rugby, Ballymore, as they host three NSW teams in the North Harbour Rays (Thursday 10 September @ 7:30pm), NSW Country Eagles (Sunday 20 September @ 3:30pm) and the Greater Sydney Rams (Saturday 17 October @ 3:30pm).
Queensland Country, this year coached by the current Reds Under 20’s mentor Jason Gilmore, will again take their games regionally playing at four different venues. A tough encounter awaits first up as they host the Melbourne Rising at Bond University on Sunday 23 August @ 3:30pm. On Sunday 6 September @ 3:30pm, Clive Berghofer Stadium in Toowoomba will be the setting of the annual City v Country match up and will be a big part of the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Queensland Country Rugby Union. Queensland Country will then host the Perth Spirit at Rugby Park in Rockhampton on Saturday 19 September @ 6:30pm, before closing out the season with a game live on Fox Sports against the UC Vikings at Sunshine Coast Stadium on Thursday 15 October @ 7:30pm.
Fox Sports will once again broadcast one match a week on Thursday night throughout the season. A live stream solution is still be investigated for other matches.
The full NRC draw is below for the whole tournament and then in the slide show for each team. It is also available at www.rugby.com.au/nrc.
Fixture list per team:
