History and structure of the Paterson Trophy

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This Trophy was donated by a general goods firm A. S. Paterson for the challenge competition in the South Island which was developed because of the high costs involved in challenging for the Welch Trophy.
Today there are six Paterson Trophies and the winners of each compete for the Welch Trophy. Today the West Coast districts play a preliminary round between Buller, Hokitika and Greymouth to decide which district will be their representative. This means 35 districts are included in the draw and are divided into six zones as follows:

1. Roskill and Districts, Northland, Auckland, North Harbour, Thames Valley, Counties,
2. Poverty Bay, Hawkes Bay, Waikato, Tauranga, Bay of Plenty.
3. Manawatu, King Country, Central King Country, Wanganui, Taranaki, North Taranaki.
4. Hutt Valley, Wairarapa, Upper Hutt Valley, Horowhenua, Bush Ruahine, North Wellington.
5. Buller, Marlborough, Canterbury, Ashburton, Nelson, Golden Bay-Motueka
6. South Otago, South Canterbury, North Otago, Otago, Central Otago, Southland.

The venues are rotated in the order listed except where districts agree on a central venue.

All of the zones compete in a zone final on the third complete weekend in July. The   winners of each competition win the six Paterson Trophies.
In 2006 it was decided to reduce the number of districts competing for the Welch Trophy to three as it was in 1988. To achieve this the six Paterson Trophy winners met in three elimination play offs (two in the North Island and one in the South Island) to find the three representatives to go forward to compete in a National event, the winner of which won the Welch Trophy for the season;

This was not popular and in  2008 it was decided to return to the six Paterson Trophy winners going to the national final to compete for the Welch Trophy