Rassie Erasmus: ‘It looks like everybody’s taking global calendar seriously now’
Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus and ex-Los Pumas scrum-half Agustin Pichot (inset).
Rassie Erasmus has expressed his excitement at the possibility of a global calendar becoming a reality after it was revealed recently that crunch talks on the matter are set to take place next month.
Last week, it was revealed that the long-standing topic of aligning the northern and southern hemispheres’ respective calendars will receive attention as World Rugby aim to achieve synergy for the first time since the game turned professional in 1995.
According to a Midi Olympique report, a meeting for rugby’s bigwigs is set to take place in London in mid-February to iron out differences and find common ground regarding alignment on the global calendar.
Former Los Pumas scrum-half and ex-World Rugby vice-chairman Agustin Pichot will lead the discussions on behalf of the SANZAAR countries – Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Erasmus made his position known on the global calendar last October during a press conference after the announcement of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour, when the Springboks coach said: “I don’t want this to be a headline; this is just my opinion, and I don’t want to go against the wishes of SA Rugby or what they are thinking.
“But I think it would be fantastic if we could all play the Rugby Championship in February, when the Six Nations is on.
‘Much easier to know all the teams and be aligned’
“It would be much easier to know all the teams and be aligned, rather than having some countries flat in June and others peak in November, and then we are flat at that time.
“To implement law variations right across the board would be so much easier because all competition will start at the same time.”
Erasmus expanded on those comments by saying that he is encouraged that the matter is being taken seriously, and although he has no idea when a global calendar will eventually be implemented, it’s good that progress is being made regarding it.
“There’s real talks about it. When you’re in meetings and you start looking at calendars and you think what can work and what can’t work and then some people voiced it out publicly,” he said on Monday.
“Then some people took the route to get it done and it looks like everybody’s taking it seriously now to do it.”
He said getting everybody on the same page with regards to a global calendar would be especially beneficial to players, while there would also be improvements to other important aspects of the game.
‘It will sort out a lot of problems for us’
“I think it will sort out a lot of problems for us. Players resting or managing the number of games a player can play, so getting it synced, I think player welfare and rules of competitions, all those kinds of things are easier to implement and to adapt to.
“So, it looks like they’ll keep putting questionnaires out and high-performance committees looking at it. I’m not sure where it is (negotiations regarding it at the moment) and when it will start, but I think it will be awesome.”
Erasmus also explained how certain law changes would be easier to implement due to a global calendar with the 20-minute red card, which was initially introduced in the Rugby Championship but not used in the northern hemisphere.
“It syncs everything,” he explained. “Our players (will) have a pre-season, now they go into a series (and) you know when it gets bad, some players (might) get banned in November, maybe not as black and white like that, but it influenced banning, it influenced a pre-season that we have sometimes.
“And some players have played in the Six Nations, then a new law that’s coming in, and you’re only playing in June, so the global calendar will help that.”
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