The Nations Championship promises meaningful Tests, but could be flawed from the outset, writes SIMON BORCHARDT.
You can understand the rationale behind the new Nations Championship.
The Sanzaar and Six Nations unions want to make Test matches in the July and November international windows more meaningful for teams and fans – and more lucrative for broadcasters.
Until now, southern hemisphere nations have either hosted one opponent in a three-Test series or faced multiple touring sides in July, before heading north in November for one-off Tests against up to five different opponents. In recent years, those November fixtures were marketed as the Autumn Nations Series, but there was no overall winner.
The 12-team Nations Championship will change that. The four Sanzaar countries – South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina – plus invitees Fiji and Japan will face the Six Nations teams (England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales) in a series of cross-hemisphere matches, with log points awarded for every match in separate northern and southern tables.
The Springboks will host England, Scotland and Wales in July, before taking on Italy, France and Ireland in November.
The fourth and final weekend in November will feature six playoff matches over three days at Twickenham, culminating in a Sunday finale between South 1 and North 1.
On paper, it makes sense. But a credible winner requires a credible tournament – and the Nations Championship’s credibility could take a knock in its very first match, when the All Blacks host France at Christchurch’s One New Zealand Stadium on 4 July.
What should be a cracking start to the tournament may instead fall flat, with France travelling to New Zealand without players involved in the Top 14 final the week before.
MORE: France B team to face All Blacks again
That was also the case last year, when a France B team lost the Test series 3-0 to the All Blacks. With his Six Nations stars unavailable, coach Fabien Galthié included eight debutants in his match 23 for the first Test – a game they lost by just four points. You couldn’t help but wonder what a full-strength Les Bleus might have done against Scott Robertson’s average All Blacks.
The Nations Championship was meant to prevent that scenario, yet the likes of Antoine Dupont, Romain Ntamack and Louis Bielle-Biarrey will again miss the July trip if their club reaches the Top 14 final.
Questions were also raised when the July venues were announced.
Fiji’s ‘home’ matches against Wales, England and Scotland will be played
at Cardiff City Stadium, Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool and Murrayfield in Edinburgh respectively – reportedly at the behest of the Fijian Rugby Union, for commercial reasons. Those three Six Nations sides effectively gain an additional home fixture.
MORE: No home games for Fiji in Nations Championship
Player welfare is another concern.
The July window comes at the end of a long northern hemisphere season. England, for example, travel to Joburg to face the Springboks on 4 July, return home to host Fiji on 11 July and then fly to Argentina to take on Los Pumas on 18 July. Coach Steve Borthwick may have little option but to rotate heavily for the Fiji fixture to manage workloads.
Meanwhile, southern hemisphere teams enjoy shorter flights between European venues in November.
MORE: ‘Nations Championship more than a tournament’
SA Rugby president Mark Alexander has described the Nations Championship as the ‘biggest step forward’ for rugby since professionalism began 30 years ago.
It may prove to be exactly that. But if the concept is fundamentally flawed from the outset, it risks becoming a case of one step forward, two steps back for world rugby.
Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images
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