Australian Rugby Championship
[5] A month later, the competition kicked off, however the Queensland teams performed poorly as the East Coast Aces and Ballymore Tornadoes finished last and second last respectively.The Perth Spirit performed the best out of the regular rounds winning six out of eight games, but due to bonus points finished third on the ladder behind the Central Coast Rays and minor premiers the Western Sydney Rams.The ARU announced in June 2007 that the inaugural championship would adopt the Experimental Law Variations (ELVs), which were initially trialled at South Africa's Stellenbosch University and which aim to bring more free-flowing play into the game.The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) secured the rights to exclusively televise the competition from 2007 through to 2009 by agreeing to accept a substantial fee from the ARU in order to cover the matches.[10] The fact that the sport's governing organisation had to pay a television station to broadcast the Championship arguably left worrying implications for a code that was struggling to attract mainstream interest in Australia.The top four sides in the regular season advanced to the knock-out stage of semi-finals and final to decide the Australian Rugby Championship title.