African national unions had reached agreement for quadrennial bilateral tours beginning in 2026, one question has stood out in southern hemisphere rugby: What does this mean for The Rugby Championship?
Coming out of a rivalry that extends back more than a century, and fuelled by maybe the greatest Rugby World Cup final in ten editions of the game’s pinnacle tournament, reports emerged in early September that New Zealand Rugby and the South African Rugby Union were on the verge of ignoring SANZAAR partners, Rugby Australia and the Unión Argentina de Rugby, and are now simply making their own arrangements.
On top of the SANZAAR and Six Nations Rugby-led Nations Championship kicking off biennially from 2026, NZR and SARU’s agreement proposed South Africa would host in 2026 and New Zealand in 2030, and that the first iteration of the tour arrangement would have the All Blacks play the four South African URC teams – the Lions, Sharks, Bulls and Stormers – a match against South Africa A, and three blockbuster Test Matches against the World Champion Springboks. It would mark NZ’s first full tour of the Republic in three decades.
But when the news of “Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry”, as it’s been dubbed, did emerge in early September, the reporting as to the status of The Rugby Championship for 2026 and 2030 varied considerably.
Much of the reporting out of New Zealand echoed NZR’s preference for TRC to not be played at all in the tour years, while other reporting mentioned SARU’s preference to play the TRC as a single round as happens in RWC years.
“The Rugby Championship will still happen, but it will probably be a single round, which we are pushing for,” SARU CEO Rian Oberholzer was quoted in reporting.
“If it is not going to happen, we as SARU did say to Argentina and Australia that we will play one-off Test matches against them.”
NZR have similarly committed to still play two Bledisloe Cup fixtures in 2026 and 2030, and this being the case, it would certainly seem strange if games were played against SANZAAR partners and they weren’t included in annuls of The Rugby Championship.
Clearly, there’s still a lot to play out.
Indeed, SANZAAR were given the opportunity to outline any background role they had in the NZR/SARU tour discussions and TRC impacts for this column, but declined, citing the complexity of the next broadcast cycle from 2026, including the first iteration of the Nations Championship, now reportedly set to be played in London.
It is premature to go into any details around the future format of The Rugby Championship at present as there is much to finalise in terms of the overall playing window.
Rugby Championship spokesperson
“Therefore, it is premature to go into any details around the future format of The Rugby Championship at present as there is much to finalise in terms of the overall playing windows,” their spokesperson said in response.
From a Rugby Australia point of view, Chairman Daniel Herbert has alluded to compensation for Australia and Argentina for the loss of TRC fixtures against the Springboks and All Blacks, and there has been suggestion that the significant commercial benefits from the NZ/SA tours could make this a very real prospect.
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