Super Cup (rugby union)

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The Super Cup is an annual international rugby union competition contested by national teams from Canada, Japan, Romania and the United States. It was previously known as the Super Powers Cup.

The Super Powers Cup was first contested in 2003. It was planned that China, Japan, Russia and United States would play each other once. However, because of the SARS outbreak the Chinese team withdrew from the competition. Russia won the inaugural competition, defeating the USA 30-21. ^[1]

For the 2004 competition Canada was substituted for China. In May 2004 Japan won the second Super Powers Cup played between four nations in Tokyo, beating Russia 29-12 (May 27) and Canada 34-21 (May 30) in the process. The USA beat Russia in the third-place play-off.

In 2005 the competition was renamed the Super Cup and Russia was replaced by Romania who had been given 'second tier' status by the IRB. The finalists were Canada and Japan, but this time the Canadians won it 15-10. The USA beat a Romanian team stripped of their France-based players 23-16 in the third place play-off.

The competition was discontinued after the 2005 tournament.