Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: How many rugby teams does Wales have?
Wales' four professional rugby regions play in the Pro14 league and take part in the European Rugby Champions Cup, European Rugby Challenge Cup and Anglo-Welsh Cup. The first two of these competitions, set to launch in 2014–15, replace the now-defunct Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup. Since 2006 they have also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup against clubs from the English Premiership.
How the Cambridge wooden spoon idea came to be used in rugby union is not exactly known, but in the early years of what is now the Six Nations Championship there were many Cambridge graduates playing, so they may have attempted to preserve the concept after the last one was awarded in 1909. It is certain, in any case, that the tradition first arose in Cambridge and rugby adopted and perpetuated the tradition. In 1894 the "South Wales Daily Post" remarked that within the Home Nations Championships the Ireland-Wales match has been to decide which team should be recipient of the ignominious Wooden Spoon; one of the earliest mentions of the term within rugby union.
Although best known for representing Wales in the very first rugby union international, Rees had played matches for the South Wales Football Club, which was the forerunner of the Welsh national team. Formed in September 1875, the S.W.F.C. was formed with the intention of not only playing local teams, but also to play '...the principal clubs in the West of England...' When the S.W.F.C. played Clifton at Cardiff in January 1876, Rees was on the team sheet, showing his willingness to be involved with a larger club that allowed him to face more established opposition. 
On 19 February 1881 Rees represented the Wales national rugby union team in the country's very first international rugby match, in a friendly against England. The match was a sporting disaster for the Welsh, with the players having little if any knowledge of playing together, and many of the team placed out of position. The English won by eight goals, scoring 13 tries in total, with Wales unable to score. The game was to be Rees' only cap for Wales, with most of the team replaced for the next Wales international in 1882. He was the first Jesus College alumnus to play for Wales.
Rugby union was first played in Australia in the 1860s and is followed predominately in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The national team is known as the Wallabies. Despite having a relatively small player base, Australia has twice won the Rugby World Cup, in 1991 and 1999, and hosted the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Other notable competitions include the annual Bledisloe Cup, played against Australia's main rivals, the New Zealand All Blacks, and the Rugby Championship, involving South Africa, New Zealand, and Argentina. Provincial teams from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand compete in the annual Super Rugby competition. Rugby test matches are also popular and have at times become highly politicised, such as when many Australians, including the Wallabies, demonstrated against the racially selected South African teams of the 1970s. Notable Australian rugby union players include Sir Edward Dunlop, Mark Ella and David Campese.
In 1908, rugby league was established in Australia, by former rugby union players and supporters as a breakaway professional code. The new code gained and has maintained a wider following in Australia than rugby union, which remained amateur until the 1990s. The sport has roots in the working class communities of Lancashire and Yorkshire in Northern England, translating to similar areas in Sydney and Brisbane. The elite club competition is the National Rugby League (NRL), which features ten teams from New South Wales, three teams from Queensland, and one team each from Victoria, Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The season culminates in the NRL Grand Final. The New South Wales Blues and Queensland Maroons compete in the annual State of Origin series. Australia's national team, the Kangaroos, has contested all 15 Rugby League World Cup titles, winning 11 of them.
The New South Wales Rugby League Team of the Century is a hypothetical team comprising the best players who have played for New South Wales to form a team for 1908 until 2007. Rugby league in New South Wales was initiated in 1908 with the New South Wales Rugby Football League competition, which evolved into the New South Wales Rugby League in 1984. Today, ten New South Wales clubs participate in the national competition while thirteen formerly did so.
Wales Rugby League () (WRL) is the sole controller and national governing body for Rugby league in Wales. Its objective is to promote, encourage and develop the sport of rugby league in Wales. Having been granted "stand alone status" in Wales from the Rugby Football League, WRL is responsible for the successful running of the game in Wales, for organising games and competitions and for selecting the squad for the national teams. In addition to managing professional and amateur national representative senior teams, WRL runs several age grade international sides from under 13s to a student team. The senior teams each play in annual European competitions, and the professional side compete in the World Cup every 4 years.
During the 1951 French rugby league tour of Australia and New Zealand Queensland played one match against the successful France national rugby league team, a 19-all draw. As the twentieth century progressed, New South Wales proved to be the dominant team. Queensland did not win an interstate series against New South Wales until 1958. The powerful New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership attracted many Queenslanders south of the border, and the "residential" selection policy meant that the Maroons would often be disadvantaged against New South Wales teams containing many Queenslanders playing in the New South Wales club competition.
The line runs from the Northern Territory-Queensland border, south through Birdsville, Queensland, through southern New South Wales north of the Riverina, through Canberra and on to the Pacific Ocean at Cape Howe on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. The exact location of the division may be disputed and the stylised straight line is not particularly accurate in representing the division. No areas of Queensland favour Australian rules football over rugby league and, in the Riverina area in southern New South Wales, both codes vie for dominance. In the Canberra area, there is one professional team playing rugby union, the Brumbies, and one rugby league team, the Canberra Raiders, whereas there is no AFL side in Canberra, and only a few matches are played there each year, even though many Australian rules football teams compete in Canberra at levels lower than the AFL.
The New South Wales Under-20's rugby league team, also known as New South Wales Under-20s or New South Wales U20, represents New South Wales in the sport of rugby league at an under-20 age level. Since 2012, the team has played an annual fixture against the Queensland Under-20s team for the Darren Lockyer Shield. The team features players selected from the National Rugby League (NRL), Holden Cup, Jersey Flegg Cup and Intrust Super Premiership competitions. They are administered by the New South Wales Rugby League.
The New South Wales Waratahs team is the representative team of the NSWRU. The Waratahs have competed in the transnational Super Rugby competition since the start of the professional era of rugby in 1996.
Rugby union and Wales' national team hold an important place in Welsh culture and society. Sport historian John Bale has stated that "rugby is characteristically Welsh", and David Andrew said that "To the popular consciousness, rugby is as Welsh as coal mining, male voice choirs, "How Green Was My Valley", Dylan Thomas, and Tom Jones". Welsh rugby's first 'golden age' (1900–1911) coincided with the country's zenith during the 20th century, and rugby was important in building Wales' modern identity. There is a long tradition of Welsh supporters singing before and during matches. The choral tradition developed in Wales during the nineteenth-century alongside the rise of nonconformity, and has extended to singing at rugby matches. Commonly sung songs include the hymn "Bread of Heaven", Tom Jones' "Delilah", and Max Boyce's "Hymns and Arias".
Rugby-like games have a long history in Wales, with games such as cnapan being played for centuries.[3] Rugby seems to have reached Wales in 1850, when the Reverend Professor Rowland Williams brought the game with him from Cambridge to St. David's College, Lampeter,[4] which fielded the first Welsh rugby team that same year.
In 1986 the Australian Rugby Union accorded Test status to the matches New South Wales played against full international teams in the 1920 to 1928 period, but the New Zealand Rugby Union does not record these matches as Tests.
The national team play at the WRU-owned Principality Stadium, and compete annually in the Six Nations Championship, as well as having competed at every Rugby World Cup. Wales are ranked as a tier-1 nation by World Rugby (WR). Wales also competes as one of the 15 "core teams" in the annual World Rugby Sevens Series, and won the 2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens.
List of Wales national rugby union players is a list of players who have represented Wales at rugby union. The list only includes players who have played in a Test match for the senior men's team. The players are listed in order of chronological appearance for the national team. Players that were first capped during the same match are listed in order of those that began in the starting line up before replacements and then in alphabetical order by surname.
Ten former Welsh internationals from the Wales national rugby union team have been inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame, while eight have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame. One Welsh player, Shane Williams in 2008, has been awarded World Rugby Player of the Year (formerly known as the International Rugby Board Player of the Year).
Since the 1908 establishment of rugby league in Australia, the sport's two major states, New South Wales and Queensland, have played representative matches against each other which have continued into the "state of origin" era which began in the 1980s. The two states' teams are frequently referred to as the Blues and Maroons, reflecting the respective colours of their jerseys. These were the colours of the Australia national rugby league team's jersey until the adoption of the green and gold. The Blues team is administered by the New South Wales Rugby League and the Maroons by the Queensland Rugby League. The New South Wales team are sometimes referred to by the nickname "Cockroaches" and the Queensland team as "Cane Toads", due to names given to them by Barry Muir and Johnny Raper respectively. It was reinforced by a marketing campaign used in the 1980s where the respective teams were caricatured as such.
There is also a Welsh Premier Division and WRU Challenge Cup competed for by Wales' traditional club teams. Starting in 2009–10, the four Home Unions have instituted the British and Irish Cup, an annual competition for semi-professional teams throughout Britain and Ireland; beginning with the 2013–14 edition, the WRU conducts a play-off among the 12 Premier Division clubs to determine the four that will be entered in the British and Irish Cup. A regional rugby franchise, originally known as Rygbi Gogledd Cymru (Welsh language for "Rugby North Wales") and later known as RGC 1404, was established in North Wales; plans called for the side to enter the Welsh Premier Division as early as 2010–11 and eventually the Celtic League/Pro12, but the venture was unsuccessful and was liquidated in 2011. The team, however, continues to play as part of Wales' national rugby academy. RGC 1404 also had a partnership with Rugby Canada by which the franchise would have a secondary role of developing players for the Canada national rugby union team, at least until enough local players were developed to fill a complete competitive squad.
Several Old Goreans have played international rugby, for the Wales national rugby union team or the Wales women's national rugby union team
In 1907, several of the New South Wales rugby union team's players defected to play for the New South Wales rugby league team against a visiting rebel New Zealand rugby team. This was essentially the birth of rugby league in Australia.
During World War I, the NSW (and QLD) Rugby Unions ceased senior competition. The Queensland body however would not reform until 1929, which saw NSW have more responsibilities for Australian rugby. In 1921 the Waratahs toured New Zealand again, and out of their 10 fixtures, won nine games, including the Test.
Notwithstanding the hand over of control of the game at the elite level across Australia to the Commission, the NSWRL did retain responsibility for both the administration of the New South Wales rugby league team in State of Origin series, as well as day-to-day management of the state-based New South Wales Cup second-tier premiership, as well as junior representative competitions and divisional leagues throughout NSW and the ACT. It does so in conjunction with the NSW Country Rugby League. In a similar way, the rival Queensland Rugby League retained responsibility for that state's Origin team and lower tier competitions.
The year 1882 saw the first of many intercolony and interstate matches between Queensland and New South Wales rugby union teams. New South Wales took out the inaugural match, 28-4. The following year, Brisbane hosted its first intercolony match, defeating New South Wales 12-11 at the Eagle Farm Racecourse. Today, the Queensland team in Super Rugby, the Queensland Reds, face NSW, ACT, WA and Victoria representative teams home and away each season.
West Wales Raiders Rugby League Club previously known as Raiders RL is the rugby league club in West Wales formed in January 2015. They are based at Stebonheath Park in Llanelli. Formerly called Gwendreath Valley Raiders they moved to Llanelli when the club gained entry into the Conference League South which is level 4 of the Rugby League system. in addition to being a local club the raiders are more proactive than some of their professional counterparts by visiting all the local schools delivering rugby league training to pupils. They also have links with one of the oldest university rugby league teams in Wales the Warpigs from Swansea University. The raiders have taken over the running and coaching of the university rugby league team since 2017.
There are now two professional rugby league clubs in Wales. The Crusaders Rugby League team, based in Wrexham, played in the Super League competition up until 2011. After going into administration they have become North Wales Crusaders. The second club is llanelli-based West Wales Raiders established in 2017 following the demise of the South Wales Ironmen side which were based in Merthyr Tydfil. Both teams currently play in the League 1 competition in 2018.
The Wales national rugby league team represents the nation of Wales in international rugby league, and is governed by Wales Rugby League (Welsh: "Rygbi Cynghrair Cymru"). The team played its first official match in 1908. Since then, more than 500 players have made at least one international appearance for the team.
The Sydney Rugby League team, known as the City Rugby League team, or Combined Sydney, or Sydney Firsts, or Sydney Capitals, was a representative rugby league team consisting of players formerly of the New South Wales Rugby League competition, one of two federations in the state of New South Wales. City played annually in the City vs Country Origin competition against the representative team of New South Wales' other federation, Country Rugby League.