Which of the four southern hemisphere giants has won the annual contest most often?
There’s still plenty to play for as the 2025 Rugby Championship heads into its final round of matches – the last Rugby Championship games this side of 2027.
Argentina are too far behind to claim their first ever title, but Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all in with a shout of claiming the trophy on Saturday.
Between them, those three sides have also won all but one of the Men’s Rugby World Cups to date, but which of these southern hemisphere giants has been the most successful in the SANZAAR sides’ answer to the Six Nations?
Below we go through the numbers to see who has won the most Rugby Championship (formerly the Tri Nations) titles in history?
How long have the southern hemisphere giants been competing for the Rugby Championship title?
The Rugby Championship was formed in 1996. Back then it was the Tri Nations, contested by Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – the latter, fresh off their 1995 World Cup win, had returned to the international fold following their exclusion during the country’s Apartheid era.
The competition was rebranded as the Rugby Championship it expanded to include Argentina in 2012, though the Covid-19 pandemic meant the Pumas didn’t participate in 2020.
Who has won the most Rugby Championship titles in history?
The All Blacks have been spectacularly dominant, winning 20 of the 29 Tri Nations/Rugby Championship titles to date – that’s a whopping 69% success rate. The Springboks have claimed five and the Wallabies four, while the Pumas are yet to get their hands on the trophy.
New Zealand’s record has peaked during the Rugby Championship era, as they’ve won 77% of tournaments compared to 63% in the Tri Nations days. Their winning run was only interrupted by Australia in 2015, and South Africa in 2019 and 2024.
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Are New Zealand as successful in the Bledisloe Cup?
The All Blacks and the Wallabies were competing for the Bledisloe Cup long before the Springboks got in on the Tri Nations action, with the trophy first awarded in 1932. Since then, New Zealand have won 112 games to Australia’s 37, with seven matches drawn – a win rate of 71%. New Zealand have claimed the trophy on 51 out of 64 occasions, a success rate of 80%.
If you go all the way back to the first fixture between the sides in 1903, the All Blacks are similarly dominant, winning 70% of encounters.
The Pumas are yet to etch their name on the Rugby Championship trophy (Steve Christo – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
Who’s won the Rugby Championship Wooden Spoon the most often?
Remarkably, the most frequent “winners” of the prize nobody wants to win are the Springboks, who’ve claimed the Wooden Spoon 11 times – that’s a rate of roughly one in three tournaments.
However, since Argentina have come on board they’ve come bottom in nine of the 12 Rugby Championships they’ve contested. That 75% Wooden Spoon record is actually slightly worse than Italy’s 70% in the Six Nations, albeit over approximately half the tournaments.
Australia have propped up the table seven times, New Zealand just twice.
Has any team dominated the Six Nations in the same way?
Since the Six Nations championship began as the Home Nations in 1883, no team has dominated northern hemisphere rugby as the All Blacks have in the south.
England top the charts with 29 outright wins but they’re only one ahead of Wales’ 28. France have 19, Ireland have 16 and Scotland have 14, with Italy still waiting to get off the mark. (Those figures don’t shift around much when shared victories – a possibility until 1994 – are taken into consideration. England and Wales both have 39 wins, France 27, Ireland 24, Scotland 22 and Italy 0.)
In other words, no tier one nation has been quite as dominant in annual tournaments as New Zealand – though that success hasn’t always translated to the Men‘s Rugby World Cup, where the Springboks’ four wins famously eclipse the All Blacks’ three.
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