The Rebel Sport Super 14 is widely considered the finest provincial rugby competition in the world. Its unique blend of Pacific flair, Afrikaans power and Australian tenacity has not only successfully bridged the amateur and professional eras, but captured a new generation of fans like nothing else before it.

Established in 1996, the competition has its roots in the South Pacific Championship that sparked sporting imaginations a decade earlier. The original teams included three from New Zealand (Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland) as well as Queensland, New South Wales and Fiji. Relaunched in 1992 as the Super Sixes, the competition soon expanded to the Super Tens as it embraced its first South African teams.

As the participating nations - New Zealand, South Africa and Australia - proceeded to dominate the 1991 and 1995 World Cups to a spectacular degree, the commercial potential of continuing a Southern Hemisphere showdown at provincial level proved too much for Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp to resist. Alongside professionalism, the Rebel Sport Super 14 was born.

With five teams from New Zealand, three from Australia and four from South Africa, the package quickly proved its worth on the world stage, launching a new breed of superstar who carried the spectacle of frenetic, high-intensity rugby around the globe.

Yet only after wins in 2001 and 2003 did the ACT Brumbies begin to crack the vice-like grip New Zealand teams held on the competition: the Auckland Blues achieving back-to-back titles in 1996 and 1997, before the Canterbury Crusaders battled their way to an enviable hat-trick in 98, 99 and 2000 - when they famously denied a highly-favoured Brumbies side victory at home in a 20-19 heart-stopper.

The Crusaders rallied brilliantly once more in 2002 to win a record fourth championship. The Blues claimed their third trophy in 2003, but the Brumbies extracted revenge on Canterbury in 2004, dispatching them 47-38 in this year's final. The Crusaders have since gone on to win the competition in 2005 against the Waratahs and 2006 against the Hurricanes.