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Six Nations issue update on status of other championship matches following Ireland-Italy postponement
By Online Editors
Six Nations officials have agreed to the request to postpone the series of Ireland versus Italy championship matches.
Ireland had men’s, women’s and under-20s fixtures scheduled for the weekend of March 6-8 versus the Azzurri in Dublin and Cork, but the IRFU sought a postponement following the receipt of advice on controlling the spread of the coronavirus.
The statement read: “Six Nations notes the formal instruction provided to the IRFU by the Irish National Public Health Emergency team, which states that the upcoming series of championship matches between Ireland and Italy over the weekend of 6/8 March should not proceed.
“We are fully supportive of any preventative measures taken in the interests of overall public health in relation to the coronavirus and we will respect instructions provided by government authorities and health organisations. Six Nations also continues to liaise with its medical advisory group.
“We will be holding further discussions with all six Unions with respect to the rescheduling options for all the affected games, factoring in the current dynamic situation.
“All other matches are currently scheduled to go ahead as normal. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely with all unions and the respective government authorities and health organisations.”
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Latest Comments
I think it will end up as to who has the better depth/reserves
Go to commentsLeicester, Brodie, Lachlan, Frizell, Charlie, Burke, and then if you think about having that rule available, Warner Dearns, JGP, Bundee, Roots, Cunningham-South, Antonio, and then I'm not following the world game enough to know if players like Roots, Nankiville, Bridge, Goodhue, Rayasi, Robinson, Ioane, Murray, McKay, Moorby, TKB, Weber and the like enough to know if they are performing to that AB level. Plus you would have had individuals on sabbaticals that would just not have needed to miss any AB games as well as coming straight back in.
Of course, if you ask me, any coach other than Razor is not likely to pick any of those players even if they are better, form hardly even matters now, it's about cohesion and predictability and going against the grain would wipe the foundation of the All Blacks practices. But hey, if a coach wants to do such a thing why not have it be possible even if no one does it?
Ah! You're last paragraph is were you're going wrong imo, and kinda relates to your question above too. Those fringe ABs are leaving at their peak or just before, so when you asked 'could not be replaced from within at the ABs' I think you're missing a whole lot of factors like form and continued development once that player has left, and dips in specific areas within that remaining AB environment. Think about the 10 dilemma and how that could have been solved by being able to bring back the likes of Sopoaga, Cruden, even possibilities like Anscombe, during those turbulent years around 2017 without a clear first five, ditto more recently with Dmac and BB while they were on sabbatical, and now Mo'unga when all you've got is Dmac.
So there is obviously going to be an upside as well as a downside.
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