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Dates confirmed for rescheduled women's and U20s Six Nations
By Online Editors
Dates for the postponed Six Nations women's and U20s championships have been confirmed, a condensed women’s championship taking place in April with the U20s set to take centre stage in June and July.
A statement from the tournament organisers read: "Starting on the weekend of April 3/4 and finishing on April 24, this year’s women’s championship will see a new and condensed format similar to that of the recent Autumn Nations Cup, culminating in a grand final weekend to crown the Six Nations champions.
"The format will comprise two pools of three teams with each team playing one home and one away fixture. Once the pool round matches are complete, teams will face off against the opposing ranked team from the other pool in the play-offs matches (1st place Pool A vs 1st place Pool B etc).
"Six Nations also confirmed its intention for the U20s championship to take place across June and July in the same format as originally planned, but through a condensed three-week period.
"This plan will ensure all Six Nations provide the appropriate experience of such tournaments for the 2021 U20 generation. The tournament is expected to start on June 19. Further planning work is required to finalise details on fixtures, venues and kick-off times which will be shared in due course."
Ben Morel, Six Nations CEO, said: “We are delighted to make this announcement and confirm new plans for our women’s and U20s championships. The promotion and development of rugby at all levels is a key strategic priority for Six Nations.
"We see huge opportunity for growth in the women’s game in particular and feel it will benefit hugely from having its own specific window and being firmly placed in the limelight. Our priority has always been to deliver two outstanding tournaments but equally ensuring both competitions can be played safely, taking every consideration for player welfare.
"A significant challenge we faced in rescheduling the women’s tournament was the limited available window due to World Cup qualifiers, domestic leagues, rest periods and World Cup preparations for qualified teams. Following consultation with our unions and federations as well as other key stakeholders, it was agreed that April would be the best window in which to stage the championship.
“The U20 Six Nations championship is also a hugely important competition in terms of player development and for those representing their country at this level, it is a major milestone in any career. We look forward to announcing fixture details for the U20s in due course.”
2021 Women’s Six Nations
Pool A: England, Italy, Scotland
Pool B: France, Ireland, Wales
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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