With the Super 14 season just around the corner, we bring you some handy trivia to wow your friends and colleagues with on match-day!

Here are a few factual numbers about Super Rugby since the game went professional in 1996. This obviously does not include stats about the amateur version - the Super 10.

The match between the Blues and Hurricanes, which kicks off the 15th Super Rugby season of the professional era will be the 1067th game of Super Rugby played since the game turned professional in 1996. The first professional Super Rugby (Super 12) match was between the same two teams at Palmerston North.

To date, 6095 tries have been scored in 1066 games, at a rate of one for every 13.9 minutes of rugby that has been played through the era.

The Super 12 era (1996-2005) accounted for 4191 tries from 690 games at an average of 6.07 per game.

To date, after four years and 376 games of the expanded Super 14 format, 1904 tries have been scored at an average of 5.06 per game, or one for every 15.79 minutes of playing time.

While the try-scoring average for matches has decreased slightly in the Super 14 era, it should be remembered that of the nine matches in Super Rugby that have failed to produce a try; four occurred in the one season ? three years ago in 2007, while another happened last year.

The 94 Super 14 matches that were played last year saw 514 tries scored. This tally a record 10 from the final, where the Bulls crunched the Chiefs 61-17 in the most one-sided of the competition's 14 finals to date.

The first try in professional Super Rugby was scored by Hurricanes centre Alama Ieremia during his team's loss to the Blues in the inaugural Super 12 game, which was played at Palmerston North in February, 1996.

The Waratahs start the competition's 15th year with a shot at becoming just the fourth side to post 100 individual match wins. The NSW state franchise has won 89 of 168 since 1996, and therefore requires 11 wins from the possible 15 games in order to notch up the 'ton'. The 'Tahs won nine matches in 2009. The Hurricanes could also give the hundred a nudge, starting the competition's 15th year with 87 wins.

Seven-time champions, the Crusaders, lead the way with 123 wins from 182 matches, raising Super Rugby's first century when they beat the Western Force in 2007. The Blues and Brumbies (both 104) passed the three figure mark last year.

How many points/wins do you need?

The importance of gathering bonus points is highlighted by the fact that, in each of the previous editions of the Super 14, at least one team finishing outside of the semifinal positions has won as many games as has the fourth placed getter.

In two instances ? in 2009 and 2006 ? the fifth placed side has actually won a match more than has the fourth semifinal qualifier. Last year, the Waratahs won nine matches to the Crusaders' eight but missed out. In 2006, the Brumbies won eight games, but were pipped for fourth by the Bulls on differentials, even though the South Africans won one game less. 2006 provided the tightest finish for the fourth semifinal position, with the Bulls, Brumbies, Chiefs and Sharks all finishing tied on 38 log points.

Forty-one log points has been the marker for a fourth placed finish in each of the last two seasons, earning the Crusaders (2009) and the Hurricanes (2008) away semifinals against the leading qualifier.

The year 2007 saw 42 points required for the Blues to finish fourth, while the Bulls scraped in with 38 in the inaugural Super 14 in 2006.

The condensed or otherwise nature of the point's table tends to be dictated, to some extent anyway, by the overall dominance of the leading side. The Crusaders clocked up 51 points (11 wins) in 2006, with their dominance helping even out the competition behind them to such an extent that four teams finished tied on the same number of log points (38) and had to be split by differentials to establish the fourth placed side.

The 52 points accumulated by the Crusaders (from 11 wins) in 2008 is the most scored by the top qualifier to date in Super Rugby. The Crusaders scored 51 in 2006, the Bulls 46 (10 wins) last year, and the Sharks 45 to top the table in 2007.

Such was the condensed nature of the 2007 competition, the Sharks topped the log with 45 (from 10 wins) but the fourth placed Blues were less than the point's value of a win behind them, finishing with 42 log points.

The Brumbies have either won as many, or more, games than the fourth placed qualifier in three of the four Super 14 competitions to date (2006, 2007 and 2009) without having featured in the semifinals.