Super Rugby is back in Australia! Super Rugby AU kicks-off on 3 July when the Reds host their old enemy the Waratahs in Brisbane.

Yes, Super Rugby is back on the menu in Australia, with the five Australian clubs – including the Western Force for the first time since 2017 – set to go head-to-head in a 10-week campaign for the right to claim to honours as the best team in the country.

We had but a taste of all-Australian Super Rugby action in the earlier edition of 2020 Super Rugby, with just four matches played between Australian clubs, but even with that small sample we can see that there can surely be exciting rugby on the horizon for the nation.

The four games played between two Australian opponents in the opening seven rounds of the 2020 Super Rugby campaign saw an average margin of nearly 16 points per game. It was the highest differential between the winners and losers on the day of any Super Rugby season since the 2014 campaign.

The 2019 campaign was the most closely fought in recent memory between Australian clubs, with the average margin of Australian derbies sitting at just 9.5 points per game. It is the lowest average margin of Australian derbies in Super Rugby in the last decade of the competition.

Since the beginning of the 2015 Super Rugby season, no player has dominated Australian derbies more than the Brumbies’ playmaker Joe Powell. He has been directly involved in 21 tries throughout the last six Super Rugby campaigns, including a tally of 19 try assists which is four more than any other player.

No player has been directly involved in more tries throughout this period.

The Australian conference in 2020 boasts the most effective workhorse of the competition in the Reds’ Harry Wilson [pictured v Crusaders this year], who was leading the entire competition with 91 carries after the opening instalments of the 2020 Super Rugby season.

In fact, that tally of carries is 18 more than any other Australian player has managed thus far in 2020, but his workload certainly doesn’t end there. Wilson is one of only two Australians to have made 50+ carries and 50+ tackles throughout Super Rugby games in 2020 alongside one of the most experienced defenders in the game – Michael Hooper. Wilson, though, remains the only Australian to have made 50 or more carries so far this year and maintained a success rate of 90% or higher when he has been asked to defend.

Australian and worldwide audiences will have even more Super Rugby action to take in this weekend when Super Rugby AU kicks off with a brace of Round 1 fixtures and if the 2020 Super Rugby season as a whole is anything to go by, there is plenty of exciting rugby on the horizon.