Australia, unlike its "
Tri-Nations" partners
New Zealand and
South Africa, has never had a consistent national professional rugby union competition below
Super Rugby. In 2012, player
Luke Morahan called for a national club competition as a means of bridging the gap between the semi-professional competitions in
Sydney,
Brisbane and the
Australian Capital Territory, and
Super Rugby. In 2014, a national professional club competition known as the
National Rugby Championship (NRC) was formally established. Nine newly-created clubs played in a round-robin format across eight rounds, finishing with a four-team knockout stage to decide the season winners. The NRC was praised for improving Australia's player depth. In 2023, CEO Tony Lewis told
The Sydney Morning Herald that an Australian third-tier competition was a necessity, stating: "All the Super coaches [in Australia] who participated in that third-tier comp [the NRC] that was running before COVID... all waxed lyrical about how good a competition it was and the number of coaches that come through it, and the number of S+C coaches [strength and conditioning], the number of analysts, the number of players. So it's just not about players, it's about coaches, about analysts, about physios. If you're not preparing them for the next level, the jump is horrendous. The first time you do economics, they do needs and wants." It was speculated in October 2024 by Australian sports news-website
The Roar that a new national club competition was in the works and would not be like its predecessors with newly-created teams across the country, but instead involve the four Australian Super Rugby teams (the , the , the and the ), and could possibly involve
Japanese teams. It was revealed months later that a new "third-tier" competition was indeed in the making by
Rugby Australia (RA). In June 2025, it was confirmed that a national "third-tier" professional competition was launched by Rugby Australia. Known as
Super Rugby AUS, the competition consists of the four
Australian Super Rugby teams: the , the , the and the , and its inaugural season took place between September and October 2025 across four weeks. In December 2025, it was reported by
The Roar that three new teams from the Pacific nations of
Fiji,
Samoa, and
Tonga could join the competition if a
A$150 million partnership was signed between the
Australian government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the governments of Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga.
The Roar report stated that the deal was pending approval from the
Prime Minister of Samoa Laʻauli Leuatea Schmidt, and had been in the works for six months. ==Teams==