Test match (rugby league)

A Test match in rugby league football is a representative match between teams representing members of the Rugby League International Federation.

The definition of a Test match differs from that of an international match. An international match can be played "between senior/open age or restricted age-level teams from different countries".

As in test cricket, a rugby league Test match is a "test of strength and competency" between the sides involved, both fielding their strongest possible teams. A test cap may be awarded by a team's governing body to the players participating in the match.

Recognition

Members of the international governing body can make their own recognition of a match as having test status. It is possible for a match to be considered a test by one side but not the other. Matches may also be given test status retrospectively by their governing bodies.

A notable instance of a different in opinions of the status of past matches is a consequence of the Super League war. The Australian Rugby League does not recognise the games played in 1997 by the Australian Super League side against Great Britain and New Zealand. The three sides were representing members of the Super League International Board, the ARL's rival. The five matches (two against New Zealand and three against Great Britain) are recognised by the Rugby League International Federation, Rugby Football League and New Zealand Rugby League as tests. There have been calls for the Super League Tests to be included in the ARL's records but ARL Chief Executive Geoff Carr said in 2010, "All historians, and the NRL, agree this is the way it should be treated". ARL historian David Middleton has stated that those players who joined Super League did so in the knowledge that they were forfeiting their chance of representing the established national team.

Test match

Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to:

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket and is considered its highest standard. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The two teams of 11 players play a four-innings match, which may last up to five days (or longer in some historical cases). It is generally considered the most complete examination of teams' playing ability and endurance. The origin of the name Test stems from the long, gruelling match being a "test" of the relative strength of the two sides.

The first officially recognised Test match began on 15 March 1877, between England and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), where Australia won by 45 runs. A Test match to celebrate 100 years of Test cricket was held in Melbourne from 12 to 17 March 1977, in which Australia beat England by 45 runs—the same margin as that first Test.

In October 2012, the International Cricket Council recast the playing conditions for Test matches, permitting day/night Test matches. The first day/night game took place between Australia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval, Adelaide on 27 November 2015.

Test match (rugby union)

A test match in rugby union is an international match, usually played between two senior national teams, that is recognised as such by one of the teams' national governing bodies.

History

Some teams do not represent a single country but their international games are still considered Test matches (for example the British and Irish Lions and the Pacific Islanders). Likewise some countries award caps for games between their full national teams and invitation teams like the Barbarians. The first men's international game of rugby football – between Scotland and England – was played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, the home ground of Edinburgh Academicals, on 27 March 1871. (This being six years before the first cricket test match, one year before the first association football international and 24 years before the first field hockey international.)

The first recorded use of the word in relation to sport occurs in 1861 when it was used, especially by journalists, to designate the most important (but at that stage non-international) games played as part of a cricket tour by an unofficial English team to Australia and it is thought to arise from the idea that the matches were a "test of strength and competency" between the sides involved. When official and fully representative Australian and English cricket and rugby teams began touring each other's countries a decade or so later the term gradually began to be applied by journalists exclusively to the international fixtures on each tour, though this was not widespread until well into the 1880s.