Editing The Rugby Championship (section)

===Foundation===
Australia and New Zealand first played each other in 1903. South Africa toured both nations in 1921 but there was never any formal competition between these teams, unlike the [[Six Nations Championship|Home Nations]] (now known as the [[Six Nations Championship]]) in the Northern Hemisphere and the three nations only met sporadically.

In the 1930s, Australia and New Zealand started contesting the [[Bledisloe Cup]] during rugby tours between the two countries.

The final acceptance of professionalism in rugby union launched the Tri Nations concept<ref name="history">{{cite web | title=History of the Tri Nations | work=scrum.com | url=http://www.scrum.com/trinations/trinations05/history.asp |access-date=27 October 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061020115056/http://www.scrum.com/trinations/trinations05/history.asp <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 20 October 2006}}</ref> - nearing the completion of the [[1995 Rugby World Cup]], multimillion-pound negotiations between the South African, New Zealand and Australian unions took place to form [[SANZAAR|SANZAR]]. The new union soon announced a ten-year deal worth £360 million. The competition was established to create an equivalent to the [[Rugby Union Six Nations Championship|Five Nations]] in Europe.<ref name="creation">{{cite web | title=About the Tri Nations | work=rugby.com.au | url=http://www.rugby.com.au/fixtures_results/tri_nations/tri_nations,22036.html | access-date=27 October 2006 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060518131200/http://www.rugby.com.au/fixtures_results/tri_nations/tri_nations%2C22036.html | archive-date=18 May 2006 }}</ref>

In [[2012 Rugby Championship|2012]], this competition was extended to include [[Argentina national rugby union team|Argentina]], a country whose impressive performances in international games (especially in reaching the third place in the 2007 Rugby World Cup) was deemed to merit inclusion in the competition. As a result of the expansion to four teams, the tournament was renamed The Rugby Championship.<ref name="“The Rugby Championship” to replace Tri Nations">{{cite web | title="The Rugby Championship" to replace Tri Nations | work=rugby.com.au | url=http://www.rugby.com.au/wallabies/News/NewsArticle/tabid/1516/ArticleID/4906/Default.aspx |access-date=8 November 2011}}</ref>