Rugby League Four Nations

Founded	2009
Abolished	2016
Region	International (RLIF)
Teams	4
Related competitions	World Cup
Last champions	Australia (3rd title)
Most championships	Australia (3 titles)

TheRugby League Four Nations was arugby league football tournament run in partnership betweenAustralia,England,New Zealand, and a guest nation which changed with every edition.^[1]

The tournament replaced the previousTri-Nations format by including a fourth nation that qualifies by winning their respective regional competition in a rotation between Europe and the South Pacific.

The Four Nations replaced the Tri-Nations tournament that was contested between Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. The competition ceased in 2006 with theRLIF wanting more nations to play in regular tournaments with the 'Big Three'. England replaced Great Britain as the third nation and the fourth nation has to qualify, depending on where the tournament is being played the fourth nation is either from the Northern or Southern Hemisphere.

The inaugural Four Nations was played in England and France in 2009 with France qualifying to be the fourth nation via winning the2005 European Championship. The big three dominated the tournament with Australia beating England in the final. The next tournament was played the following year in 2010 with Australia and New Zealand hosting the tournament. Papua New Guinea qualified as the fourth nation through the2009 Pacific Cup. The big three again dominated and Australia beat New Zealand in the final for their third title. 2011 was the third consecutive year the tournament took place, and it was held in England and Wales, Wales qualified by winning the2010 European Championship. The final was a repeat of 2009 with Australia beating England. The tournament was not played in 2012 to give teams a rest before the2013 World Cup.

The next Four Nations was played in 2014 after the World Cup. The competition was played in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time since 2010 with Samoa qualifying as the fourth nation. Samoa impressed, although they did not win a game they had close games against the big three. New Zealand beat Australia in the final. The following, and what would be final tournament took place in England in 2016. Scotland qualified for the tournament and also became the first qualifying nation to avoid losing every game when they drew with New Zealand 18-18. The final for the 2016 tournament took place atAnfield Stadium inLiverpool where Australia won for the third time in five tournaments, defeating New Zealand in the final.

The fourth nation alternated between Europe and the Pacific and saw a different team take part in each competition.

In 2009 a qualifying tournament was held, thePacific Cup, involvingPapua New Guinea,Samoa,Tonga,Fiji, and theCook Islands. The winners,Papua New Guinea, qualified for the 2010 Four Nations. Likewise in 2010, theEuropean Nations Cup decided the fourth participant in the 2011 tournament, Wales.^[2] In 2014, a single game was staged to decide the fourth team for that year, withSamoa beatingFiji 32–16. That same year, it was announced that the winner of the2014 European Cup would qualify for the 2016 Four Nations, the winning team beingScotland who qualified on points difference by three points overFrance.

Year	Competition	Qualifier
2009	2005 European Nations Cup	France
2010	2009 Pacific Cup	Papua New Guinea
2011	2010 European Nations Cup	Wales
2014	2014 Pacific Qualifier	Samoa
2016	2014 European Nations Cup	Scotland

The tournament was organised in round-robin format. Each team played the others once, before the top two teams played each other in a tournament final. The top two teams were calculated using a league table. Teams received:

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a draw
• 0 points for a loss

To date no fourth nation has appeared in the final of the Four Nations and no team from outside of Oceania has won the tournament despiteEngland appearing in two finals, losing both toAustralia. Furthermore, no fourth nation has even won a single game howeverScotland managed to draw 18–18 againstNew Zealand in 2016.Samoa came close to a win in 2014 losing their first two games by just one try.

The largest winning margin in a game was in 2010 whenNew Zealand beatPapua New Guinea by 76–12, a margin of 64 points. There has only been two draws in the history of the tournament whenAustralia andNew Zealand fought out a 20–20 draw in the 2009 tournament and again a draw when New Zealand played Scotland in the 2016 tournament with an 18–18 draw.

Year	Host(s)	Champions	Final score	Runner-up	Third Place	Fourth Place
2009	England  France	Australia	46–16	England	New Zealand	France
2010	Australia  New Zealand	New Zealand	16–12	Australia	England	Papua New Guinea
2011	England  Wales	Australia	30–8	England	New Zealand	Wales
2014	Australia  New Zealand	New Zealand	22–18	Australia	England	Samoa
2016	England	Australia	34–8	New Zealand	England	Scotland

Country	Appearances	Champions	Runners-up
Australia	5	3 (2009,2011,2016)	2 (2010,2014)
New Zealand	5	2 (2010,2014)	1 (2016)
England	5	0	2 (2009,2011)
France	1	0	0
Papua New Guinea	1	0	0
Samoa	1	0	0
Wales	1	0	0
Scotland	1	0	0

(as of 20 November 2016)

The average attendances of the Four Nations tournaments fluctuate between the northern and southern hemisphere competitions with the southern hemisphere always having higher averages than the previous tournaments in the northern hemisphere. The largest change between two tournaments was between 2009 and 2010 which saw an 18.45% increase or an average of 3,060. The largest total stadium capacity was 214,500 in 2010 despite this tournament having the lowest stadium occupancy with 64.10%.

Year	Host	Total attendance	Matches	Average attendance	% of change	Stadium Capacity	% Capacity
2009	England  France	116,089	7	16,584	N/A	159,300	72.97%
2010	Australia  New Zealand	137,504	7	19,644	18.45%	214,500	64.10%
2011	England  Wales	128,065	7	18,295	6.86%	193,100	66.32%
2014	Australia  New Zealand	144,722	7	20,675	13.00%	201,400	71.85%
2016	England	132,655	7	18,951	8.33%	193,300	68.62%

To date, there has been 4 attendances over 40,000 and 8 attendances over 30,000. Three of these attendances were double-headers which took place atEden Park,Auckland in 2010,Wembley Stadium,London in 2011 andLang Park,Brisbane in 2014; the latter two double-headers are also the largest attendances in the respective hemispheres. Four of these games were tournament finals in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2016. Only one final did not have an attendance over 30,000, this being the 2014 edition.

Rank	Game	Stadium	Attendance	Event
1	England v Samoa  Australia v New Zealand	Lang Park,Brisbane,Australia (double-header)	47,813	2014
2	Australia v New Zealand  England v Papua New Guinea	Eden Park,Auckland,New Zealand (double-header)	44,324	2010
3	Wales v New Zealand  England v Australia	Wembley Stadium,London,England (double-header)	42,344	2011
4	Australia v New Zealand (final)	Anfield,Liverpool,England	40,042	2016
5	Australia v New Zealand (final)	Lang Park,Brisbane,Australia	36,299	2010

As of 2016 Four Nations (in order of matches played and highest attendance).

(As of 2016 Four Nations)

Over the history of the competition 125 players have scored tries. The top try-scorers areJason Nightingale ofNew Zealand andRyan Hall ofEngland with 11 tries each. The highest try-scorer from a 'fourth nation' isDaniel Vidot fromSamoa who scored 3 tries in the 2014 competition.Australia has had the most try-scorers with 39 different players scoring. Both Samoa andScotland have had 8 try-scorers each, making them the 'fourth nations' with the most players scoring.

The five highest overall points-scorers are goal-kickers withJohnathan Thurston being top, having scored 126 points; 106 of these points have come from 53 goals. The highest points-scorers who are not goal kickers areJason Nightingale andRyan Hall who have both scored 44 points from 11 tries and are the joint sixth highest points scorers.

Overall Four Nations Tournament Top Point-Scorers
	Player	Team	T	G	FG	Pts
1	Johnathan Thurston	Australia	5	53	0	126
2	Cameron Smith	Australia	4	26	0	68
3	Kevin Sinfield	England	1	27	0	58
=	Benji Marshall	New Zealand	2	25	0	58
5	Gareth Widdop	England	3	18	0	48
6	Jason Nightingale	New Zealand	11	0	0	44
=	Ryan Hall	England	11	0	0	44
8	Greg Inglis	Australia	10	0	0	40
9	Brett Morris	Australia	9	0	0	36
=	Cooper Cronk	Australia	9	0	0	36
11	Shaun Johnson	New Zealand	3	11	1	35
12	Bryson Goodwin	New Zealand	2	13	0	34
13	Billy Slater	Australia	8	0	0	32
14	Sam Tomkins	England	6	0	0	24
=	Sam Perrett	New Zealand	6	0	0	24
=	Junior Sau	New Zealand	6	0	0	24

• Rugby League Tri-Nations
• Rugby League World Cup

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• Rugby League Four Nations

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