The Nations Championship is exactly what international rugby needs and here are eight reasons that back up my claim…
As soon as the new Nations Championship had been announced, rugby’s village elders took to their pulpits to declare the new format a sin. But this couldn’t be further from the truth, it’s exactly what rugby needs.
But before we explain why it’s great news for rugby, let’s briefly outline what the new Nations Championship actually is.
What is the new format?
- In short, it’s a new biennial international men’s rugby union tournament featuring two conferences – one in the north, one in the south.
- The northern conference features England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. The Southern Conference features Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, plus invited Pacific nations Fiji and Japan.
- The championship culminates in finals weekend, where over three days, teams play a single ranking placement match against the country that finished in the exact same spot in the opposing conference table. i.e. 1st place north v 1st place south will decide the overall winner/ second place finisher. Then the teams who finished second in each conference will play to decide who finishes third and fourth – and so on until all teams have played one last game to decide the final finishing spots.
Read more: How to watch the Nations Championships from anywhere in the world…
Eight reason why I think the Nations Championships is a good thing…
It’ll finally link the test season together
Rugby’s season has always felt like a patchwork quilt that was stitched together in the medieval period.
Both the club season and test season suffer from this – but especially the test fixtures. Outside of the Six Nations and The Rugby Championship, the respective summer and autumn tours have always felt like weird sundries that never quite go together – it’s like having pilau rice with sweet and sour chicken balls.
But whilst the Nations Championship can’t truly answer the questions of a global season, it can at least run a common thread through two big chunks of the test season.
Think of it like having a stick of Blackpool rock, but with Nations Championship written through every bite.
Consequences
Rugby is a game which of course has consequences – loads of them. With tries, drop goals, penalties and conversions (all with slightly different scoring values attached to them) there are few sports in the world with such a varied set of consequences available.
Then there are the prime evil consequences of rugby, where if you don’t get your tackle technique correct, then you will be sat down on your ass like a doll at a teddy bears picnic.
But for a game with so many big (and small) consequential events, it’s amazing how many of the most important test matches have such little consequence on the overall sport.
Related: Download your FREE Nations Championship wall chart!
Yes, there are always ranking points on offer, and World Rugby’s rankings are important. But do supporters ever really dwell on a result from a summer tour as much as they do from the Six Nations or The Rugby Championship?
The Nations Championship will change this. It’ll mean that each game will have a causal consequence on the following game. Bonus points will now come into play and have an impact on summer and autumn tours like they never have done before.
At the end of the Nations Championship there will be objective data available for everyone to see, and the consequences and repercussions that come with that. Finishing top of the table will mean something, as will finishing bottom.
It’ll help remove the word ‘friendly’ from test rugby
Cobus Reinach of South Africa argues with George Martin of England. (Photo by Lionel Hahn/Getty Images)
‘Friendly’ is a great word. It can mean that someone will be nice to you i.e. they were friendly. It could mean that a bit of technology is easy to use i.e. that iPad is user-friendly.
Or that a dog won’t rip your calf muscle from your lower leg i.e. that dog is postman friendly. But in rugby, ‘friendly’, or ‘a friendly’, is an insipid word.
It means that you’re playing a match which has very little consequence. In a pro level pre-season game, or at amateur level, a rugby friendly is of course acceptable.
But when you’re selecting the best players in the world to play against each other, they deserve more than being involved in a friendly. How can a game built on aggression have so many friendlies? Finally, that is about to change.
Better for sponsors
When talking about professional rugby, we must of course discuss money – that is literally what differentiates professional sport from amateur sport.
Linking the summer and autumn tours will create a more defined and refined package for sponsors. The previous concept of tours and series were always hard to quantify and therefore difficult to price accordingly.
It meant that companies were often sponsoring just three/ four weeks of rugby, which is very difficult to generate any brand awareness from.
The new format will hopefully make rugby’s test matches far more packageable, presentable and of course profitable for all involved.
Related: Confused by the new Nations Championships? Here are all your FAQs in one place!
It’ll do away with test series ‘draws’
Not all test tours have featured three continuous tests – where you have a definitive winner. Many summer tours have resulted in two test series where a win each leaves everybody largely unsatisfied.
With the new format, those annoyingly awkward draws will be avoided – good news for those of us with rugby OCD.
Future Planning
One of rugby supporters’ main issues with the sport at test level, is that the big nations rarely play the smaller nations.
This is of course a valid point, from both sides of the debate. Yes, the developing test teams should have greater access to the more established nations.
But it’s also easy to see why some of the bigger nations aren’t always as keen – with many of the big nations struggling to make pro-rugby work financially.
The Hill Dickinson Stadium will host Fiji v England. (Photo by Jess Hornby/Getty Images)
Some unions are reporting massive losses, and the ones that are posting profits are the type of profits that you’d expect to see from your local corner shop.
However, a second-tier tournament, the World Rugby Nations Cup, will run concurrently with the Nations Championship and has the potential to open the door wider to those ‘smaller’ rugby nations who wish to get a foot in.
And whilst there is no promotion or relegation for the 2026 tournament, organisers plan to introduce promotion and relegation by roughly 2030.
Many will argue that this pathway isn’t a given, and until it’s confirmed it’s all hearsay. But it looks like the JCBs and bags of gravel have at least been ordered to begin laying down that path.
Removes the ‘all or nothing’ of the Rugby World Cup
The Rugby World Cup is awesome; you don’t need this column to tell you that. However, there is something a little bit frightening about World Cup rugby, in that if you don’t perform in that competition, then the entire four-year period leading up to it is ignored.
You could be ranked number one in the world for three years and dominate the test arena. Then through no fault of your own, you could pick up a few inquiries at the RWC, or get an iffy refereeing decision, and all of a sudden your team’s entire four-year Rugby World Cup cycle just got swiped left.
The Nations Championship will provide a much needed buffer in that regard.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: rugbyworld.com
