Rassie’s push to move Rugby Championship could speed up global season reform

When Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus and SA Rugby CEO Rian Oberholzer faced the media in Cape Town last week, they mentioned that World Rugby is starting to view South African rugby as a trendsetter on various fronts.

Shortly after that press conference, Erasmus gave an interview to a British newspaper in which he called for a seismic yet necessary change to the Test schedule.

The Bok coach wants the Rugby Championship tournament to move from its time slot in August and September and align with the Six Nations, which is traditionally staged in February and March.

Erasmus believes this shift will mitigate South Africa and Argentina’s player welfare issues, the product of a never-ending season.

The Boks and Pumas represent their clubs between September and June, and their national teams between July and November. There is no designated period for rest and conditioning, which is why SA Rugby has had to implement player management protocols during the season.

“I think [moving the Rugby Championship] would have sorted out a lot of problems, player load and injury wise, with the URC [United Rugby Championship] and European Cup. It would definitely free up a lot of weeks for us,” Erasmus told The Telegraph.

It was interesting to read that so soon after hearing Erasmus talk about World Rugby’s newfound respect for South African rugby. The Bok bosses have the ear of the governing body, and perhaps other key stakeholders may also be ready to listen to reason.

The Six Nations runs for seven weeks, between early February and mid-March. The Rugby Championship uses a different format, with each team playing each other twice. The competition is staged over six rounds and takes eight weeks to complete.

Bringing the Rugby Championship forward would require some buy-in from the respective club competitions, since an extra week would need to be added to that international window.

But if the move results in the players receiving a month-long rest in August – instead of competing in the Rugby Championship during that time – then all and sundry will benefit.

The players will have an extended period to rest their battered bodies, as well as prepare for the following season. The clubs will lose fewer players to physical and mental burnout.

New Zealand pushing back

Back in July 2022, following the conclusion of South African rugby’s debut season in Europe, Daily Maverick reported on the move to align the two regional tournaments in one international window at the start of the calendar year.

At the time, there was significant opposition from New Zealand, as bringing the Rugby Championship forward to the February-March window would force Sanzaar to stage the Super Rugby Pacific competition at a later stage. That tournament currently runs from February to June.

South Africans will be familiar with the Australasians’ schedule, since the local franchises used to follow it when they were part of Super Rugby between 1996 and 2020.

The club and international seasons are neatly divided – with Super Rugby running from February to June, and the Test schedule from July to November.

After that, players have two months to rest and condition their bodies ahead of the following season. Sports scientists and conditioning experts will tell you this schedule is ideal.

But in the move towards a truly global season, the southern hemisphere is more likely to follow the northern schedule than vice versa.

The South African season now runs from July to June rather than from January to November – as was the case in the past – and all of Argentina’s best players are playing club rugby in Europe.

Streamline and simplify

The proposal to shift the Rugby Championship has been on the table for several years.

Those in the know view it as the first step towards a truly global season. Once the two biggest annual international tournaments are aligned, club competitions may follow suit.

Although the south looks set to follow the north, the European schedule does leave a lot to be desired.

For rugby to become a truly professional sport like the NFL – which boasts a neatly structured off-season, pre-season and regular season, with the aim of boosting player welfare and performance – a much bigger change may need to be made.

Already we have northern and southern hemisphere Tests running concurrently in two international windows (July and November) sanctioned by World Rugby. It makes sense to move the Rugby Championship into the February-March window, and eliminate the August-September window altogether – for player welfare reasons described above.

Furthermore, the club tournaments need to be aligned, and flow into the international season. The players need a break at the end of the schedule, but the media and especially the fans need a clearer message about what’s happening and when.

The European season is a mess, and it’s not hard to understand why some of the domestic leagues are in trouble – as well as the Champions Cup itself.

Perhaps the domestic competitions need to be completed before the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup tournaments. That way, the domestic leagues as well as the regional competitions are given due attention at a specific time of year, and don’t lose momentum whenever the focus shifts elsewhere – as is now the case.

Perhaps the domestic competitions need to be scaled down.

Does the URC really need two rounds of local derbies, especially when rugby at large is struggling with a player welfare problem? And would it make more sense to run the URC in two tiers of 10 teams each – perhaps with a promotion-relegation element – rather than one league of 16?

France’s Top 14 may be the best and most lucrative league in the world, but with each team playing 26 games in a 10-month season, it’s impossible to take every game seriously. Indeed, the players themselves seem to take away games less seriously than home fixtures – at least at the start of the season. This poses the question: why do these extra fixtures exist?

What’s more, the long French season has a negative impact on the Test schedule. Test players from various nations who represent their clubs in the Top 14 playoffs in the latter part of June are routinely forced to miss one or more internationals at the start of July.

All of the above needs to be addressed. If the domestic tournaments were streamlined, especially in Europe, could that present an opportunity to rebuild the Champions Cup – and to a lesser extent, the Challenge Cup – into a more meaningful event?

Read more: Boks to add clashes as Rassie crams the schedule and player roster in 2025

A 16-team Champions Cup could be staged without interruption over seven weeks. After three consecutive pool matches, the qualifiers could enjoy a brief break before gearing up for a three-phase knockout.

These may seem like bold and drastic calls, especially since we’ve been led to believe that some of the European tournaments are printing money and have no reason to change course.

But rugby has a habit of overcomplicating matters and ignoring universally beneficial solutions.

Hopefully more people take Erasmus’s recent words to heart, and a move towards a global season is completed sooner rather than later. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.