From The Times :
England are set to play up to seven Tests this autumn after the RFU revealed contingency plans for reshaping the international calendar that include moving the summer tour of Japan to October or even staging a second Six Nations championship.
World Rugby has been working with unions and leading club competitions on a range of proposals to be triggered if, as is widely expected, all July tours are called off because of the coronavirus crisis.
Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, said one option was for England to delay their two-Test tour of Japan until October, when they also expect to play their rescheduled Six Nations game against Italy in Rome.
Sweeney said those three away fixtures could be combined with England’s existing November internationals — home Tests against New Zealand, Argentina, Tonga and Australia — to make a bumper seven-game autumn programme.
In the event that international travel restrictions prevent all November tours, discussions have also taken place about expanding the Six Nations into a home-and-away Championship.
The first set of fixtures would follow completion of the 2020 Championship and take place in October and November this year with the return matches played in the traditional February-March window.
Either way, Sweeney believes it is feasible for England to play six or seven Tests matches - the same number of matches it takes to win a World Cup - in one extended autumn campaign at the start of a season that runs into a British & Irish Lions tour.
“What is under threat are the July tours. One option is that we would go down [to Japan] and then we’d come back up and play our autumn [internationals]. We’re looking at various different ways that we could possibly combine those,” Sweeney told the BBC.
“If we weren’t able to travel to each other . . . we’re looking at a range of different contingencies and one of them is ‘Do you stage a Six Nations in the autumn and link it into the next year so you have a home and away series?’
“That would be one of a number of potential fall-backs. With everything we’re dealing with at the moment, it’s all discussion and nothing is fully nailed down.”
Rugby Australia had warned that November tours may have to be cancelled so the Wallabies, All Blacks, South Africa and Argentina could fulfil broadcast contracts by playing the Rugby Championship.
That threat appears to have subsided, with World Rugby confident of striking upon a structure that would allow both the Rugby Championship and November tours to go ahead.
Sweeney said he had been in contact with England’s autumn opponents “two or three times a week” and was working on the basis those games will go ahead, suggesting Eddie Jones’s team could face a seven-game autumn campaign.
An extended international window would have a direct impact on the structure of the 2020-21 club season, with league and European fixtures presently scheduled for October. Premiership Rugby has already made clear it is prepared to restructure next season given the present campaign, which has been on hold since March 16, will not finish until at least August.
Wishful thinking or not?
Topic: England set for 7 game Autumn (Read 984 times)
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