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* RugbyWA Premier Grade * Shute Shield }} The Australian Rugby Championship, often abbreviated to the ARC (also known as the Mazda Australian Rugby Championship for sponsorship purposes), is a now-defunct domestic professional men's Rugby union football competition in Australia, which ran for only one season in 2007. The competition, similar to New Zealand's ITM Cup and South Africa's Currie Cup, aimed to bridge the gap between existing club rugby and the international Super Rugby competition then known as Super 14. The ARC involved eight teams: three from New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one each from the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Western Australia. From its inception the ARC divided many in Australian rugby, with arguments over the structure and format of the competition and concerns that the creation of arbitrary state-based teams undermined the strong club competitions in Sydney and Brisbane. On 18 December 2007, the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) announced that the ARC would be scrapped due to financial losses of A$4.7 million (US$4.0 million, € 2.8 million, £2.0 million).〔 On 10 December 2013, Bill Pulver, the CEO of the Australian Rugby Union announced a new competition along similar lines, the National Rugby Championship, to include 8 to 10 teams in "major population centres".〔 == History == The official announcement on the agreement of a national rugby competition in Australia was made in mid-2006, following a 70-person three-day summit in Sydney that agreed to an eight team competition.〔 However, the competition was not without its share of controversy, with some of the clubs being against the forming of a new level of competition, claiming it could harm club and grass roots rugby.〔 In September an ARU board meeting gave the competition an official green light.〔 A month later the competition kicked off for its inaugural year, the Queensland teams performed poorly as the East Coast Aces & Ballymore Tornadoes finished last & second last respectively. The Perth Spirit performed the best out of the regular rounds winning 6 out of 8 games although due to bonus points finished third on the ladder behind Central Coast Rays & the competitions first minor-premiers the Western Sydney Rams. After the top four teams took part in the semi-finals the Melbourne Rebels and Central Coast Rays would compete in the first ever ARC Grand Final. The Rays took out the competition defeating the Melbourne side 20–12. A review of the tournament was undertaken following the 2007 season. This review found that the competition had run at more than $2 million over budget and that forecast losses for the 2008 season came to a further $3.3 million. The ARU said that the cumulative loss of $8 million over two years would be fiscally irresponsible.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Australian Rugby Championship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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