Agreement has been reached between New Zealand and Australia that all 12 teams in next year's Super Rugby competition will play each other once, with a further three round-robin fixtures to be randomly allocated.
Eight teams will then feature in a traditional playoff format which will involve No 1 on the ladder playing No 8 and so forth.
The mechanism to determine which three ‘‘additional’’ opponents each team will play has not yet been determined.
It is understood that while Rugby Australia wanted these extra games to be domestic fixtures - Australian teams playing Australian teams and New Zealand teams playing New Zealand teams - that is not the case.
A formula is being developed based on how the transtasman table finished this year and the only certainty to date is that the two new teams, Moana Pasifika and Fiji Drua, will definitely play each other twice next year
The new competition will start in February next year and be finished in mid-June, before the July tests.
