What Rassie Erasmus will miss with World Rugby’s new tournament as Springboks boss lobbies for Six Nations alignment
Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus and an inset of England head coach Steve Borthwick
Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus hopes that the Rugby Championship and Six Nations schedule will be aligned in the future, and reveals what he will miss with the introduction of World Rugby’s proposed Nations Championship.
Earlier this week, SANZAAR revealed its global calendar through to 2030, with the Rugby Championship paused for the 2026 season due to the All Blacks’ tour of South Africa, dubbed Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, confirmed.
The Southern Hemisphere’s premier international tournament will resume in 2027, albeit at an earlier time in the year, as a full competition will take place before the Rugby World Cup in Australia.
The July-August slot still does not align with the Six Nations, which would go a long way to achieve a global calendar. It is reported that South Africa, Australia and Argentina have an appetite to move the Rugby Championship to the February-March window, but New Zealand are understood to be reluctant.
Unless another agreement is reached, the Rugby Championship will continue to be played in the usual August-September timeslot from 2028 onwards.
Aligning with the Six Nations
While he admits that he doesn’t know what the financial impact of moving the tournament to earlier in the year would be, Erasmus can’t see why the competition can’t be aligned with the Six Nations. He adds that if this occurred, southern and northern hemisphere teams would be on a more even footing when they did meet.
“It’s just my opinion, but I think it would be fantastic if we can all play the Rugby Championship when the Six Nations is on,” he said. “It would be so much easier to know other teams, to be all aligned. Not having some countries flat in June and others peaking in November, and then we are flat in November.
“Law changes or variations would then be so much easier to implement right across the board, because all competitions start at the same time. There might be a big thing I’m missing, but I can’t see any reason why we, New Zealand, Argentina and Australia don’t play that competition at the same time as the Six Nations.”
Also confirmed in SANZAAR’s calendar is the proposed Nations Championship that is set to kick off next year and replace the current July and November internationals.
This means that in July, northern hemisphere nations won’t head south for Test series except for in Rugby World Cup and British and Irish Lions tour years.
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Again, Erasmus concedes that he doesn’t know what the financial impact on the Nations Championship will be, but he says that he will miss tour matches and series against the northern hemisphere teams.
“Personally, for me, yes [I will miss them], but that’s without having to think about the commercial stuff and balance sheets, because I can say ‘Listen, it’s stupid, we should keep the tours’ but I don’t know what is going on in the boardrooms there and what makes the numbers work,” he said.
“From a rugby coach and players’ perspective, it’s always nice to play two or three Test matches against a team, get to know them, get to know their coaches and players, it’s almost like Super Rugby, we know when we play New Zealand, we really have to profile them from three weeks out.
“We didn’t know Ruben Love at all, the centre who scored the last try; we didn’t know him well either. While we had Super Rugby, I didn’t have a clue about Paul O’Connell, I didn’t know Felix Jones, but with them coming for tours here. The nice thing about the tours is that it’s not just that you see the guys on Saturday morning, you play the game, you drink a quick beer, and the guys are gone.
“But we all just have to adapt to where rugby is going, and if the numbers work and we don’t throw everything out, then I think we’re okay.”
Tough November
Erasmus made the remarks on the confirmation of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour, and while he says the aim will be to beat the All Blacks, the Springboks aren’t looking too far ahead with a testing November lying ahead.
“It’s always tough against New Zealand when they play here, there, in World Cups, anywhere. They’re always one of the top teams, but I would be very arrogant if I said ‘Yes, that’s the case’ [we aim to win that series] because the quality of the teams we are playing at the end of this year, we still have five more Test matches to play,” he explained.
“You can see in those five, we play France and Ireland, and then there are three others that can really cause problems for us. So, look, when the time comes, we will be up for it, and we’ll make it a goal for us, but it’s really too far.
“The only thing we can start planning from now is maybe the operational stuff, which Charles Wessels and his team do, like where we’ll stay and where New Zealand will stay and how we will release players and those kinds of things.
“Apart from that, it’s now the end-of-year tour, World Cup draw, and then we’ll get into that.”
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