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South Africa left out in the cold for developing 2020 mid-year schedule
By Tom Vinicombe
International rugby will go through the smallest of changes in 2020 with the mid-year Test window relocating from June to July.
The fixtures themselves are slowly being released, with Americas Rugby News now reporting that Argentina will likely host France and Italy next year.
This latest development could spell bad news for South Africa, with the top four European sides all having fairly packed schedules, if all the rumours are true.
New Zealand Rugby confirmed earlier this year that the All Blacks will host Wales (twice) and Scotland next season.
Australia are expected to unveil their own schedule shortly, which should see the Wallabies play Ireland (twice) and Fiji.
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England's official travel agents have promoted a two-match series between England and the current World Cup hosts, Japan.
Factor in the latest news from ARN, which suggests that France will play two games in Argentina then return home via Japan, and suddenly South Africa's opposition cupboard is looking incredibly bare.
Of the Six Nations teams, all six already have matches lined up (confirmed or rumoured) for July. There are a few gaps in the calendar, of course; Ireland, Wales and England will all likely play an extra match.
It would be unusual for any of those sides to travel all the way to South Africa for just one game, however, after already spending two weeks in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, respectively.
Scotland or Italy could be South Africa's saving grace - they both still have two spots left in their schedule - but it would be a major blow to the World Cup finalists to not host one of the big four Northern Hemisphere sides.
It should also be concerning for Springboks fans that England have confirmed 2020 end-of-year matches against New Zealand, Australia and Argentina - which means that there won't be a World Cup final rematch next season.
The current holes in the calendar could point to a number of games between tier one and tier two teams, which will come as a great relief to many fans around the world.
There's been plenty of discussion regarding how the likes of Japan and Fiji can be better integrated into the current Test calendar and it looks like 2020 will kick off with at least a few inter-tier fixtures.
At this stage, at least, it looks like South Africa could be the nation that loses out the most thanks to the changing programme.
Speaking of rumours, it sounds like Dave Rennie coaching the Wallabies from 2020 is a done deal:
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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