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One of the prospective Australian bidders for the 15th Super rugby team when the competition is expanded in 2011 has withdrawn its interest in continuing with the bid, the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) said on Tuesday.

The New South Wales Country Union (NSW CRU), who had joined three parties from the southern state of Victoria, two from Queensland and one from Western Sydney in expressing initial interest last month in running the team, withdrew on Tuesday.

"Unfortunately, we were unable to meet all of the key criteria set by (governing body) SANZAR and felt it proper to withdraw... to allow the ARU to work with the other applicants," NSW CRU president Bruce Worboys said in an ARU statement.

The Super rugby competition is being expanded and reorganised in 2011 along a conference system based in each of the three SANZAR (South Africa New Zealand Australia Rugby) partners.

South Africa and New Zealand already have five teams in the existing competition. The 15th team will be included in the Australian conference.

South Africa's Southern Kings franchise submitted their interest to join the competition, while the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) received interest from a group in Taranaki and from the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union.

Both of the New Zealand bidders feed into the existing Wellington Hurricanes franchise and the NZRU was cool as to the viability of a sixth New Zealand team entering the competition.

Each of the South Africa, New Zealand and Australian unions are evaluating their respective bids and will submit one or more of them to SANZAR for consideration later this month.

The governing body will then evaluate all of those expressions from the unions before deciding how many should submit a full bid document.

Bids will be due by the end of September with a final decision from SANZAR expected in late October.

(Source: Reuters)