From the moment news broke that the New Zealand and South 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.
In some respects, it might be more benefit to RA and the UAR to not play the TRC in the tour years.
But the rugby calendar in 2026 and 2030 will still have significant TRC-shaped holes that need to be filled, and this is where a recent podcast conversation has stuck with me over the last few weeks.
London-based South African Planet Rugby scribe Jared Wright joined Harry Jones and I on The 8-9 Combo Rugby Podcast a few weeks ago to wrap up The Rugby Championship for 2024, and within that we pondered the tournament’s future, with news of the NZ-SA tours still fresh in our minds
With the three of us none the wiser what might happen in 2026 – there’s that complexity and uncertainty again – I wondered if this was the opportunity for SANZAAR to finally bring Japan and Fiji into The Rugby Championship, even if just as a gap-filler in these tour years. It was a throwaway line based on nothing more than a feeling, but we all agreed that it was an idea worth exploring.
“If I approach this just as a fan, just as a fan, that would be all-time,” Stan Sport’s voice of Australian rugby, Sean Maloney said when I put the idea to him this month.
“That would be so good to see. And just as a pure rugby fan, I think the reason it would be so good is because there’s automatic buy-in on the other side as well.
“The Japanese fans are going to turn up, they’re going to fill whatever stadium they get a chance to get to, and the same with Fiji. So, from a fan perspective, seeing full stadiums, and seeing people going berserk for their team would be unreal.”
If we just look at this from an understanding the game better point of view, it would give Australians the chance to travel to Fiji to see firsthand how much the game means to them over there.
Sean Maloney
Maloney still speaks in glowing terms of his experience covering the 2019 RWC in Japan, and even the local support for the Sunwolves during their time in Super Rugby convinces him of Japan’s need to be more involved than they currently are.
“They’re insatiable over there. Even when the ‘Moondogs’ were going along, you’d still get new full houses. They’ve got a massive appetite for it,” he says, name-dropping the endearing colloquialism given to the Sunwolves by Australian and New Zealand Super Rugby fans during their five-year run.
Maloney says there would be no trouble selling tickets for Test Matches in Suva or Nadi, either, quickly adding that he could easily see Wallabies fans jumping at the idea of a rugby weekend in Fiji with a few days golf at one of many outstanding resort courses on the islands either side. He quite likes the idea himself, in fact.
“I mean, if we just look at this from an understanding the game better point of view, it would give Australians the chance to travel to Fiji to see firsthand how much the game means to them over there,” he says.
“Go and see how they can take an empty 1.25 litre Coke bottle and turn it into a footy and have the time of their lives. It would just give Aussie fans the chance to get true perspective, from a rugby sense and a life sense.”
But the idea of Argentina, Fiji, Australia, and Japan – currently ranked 6th, 9th, 10th and 14th respectively on the World Rugby standings – coming together in a single tournament quickly brings with it a sense of expectation. Those four teams, on current form, would match up quite well and would create a genuine spectacle.
“It’s not just that. It’s the contrasting styles of play as well, which is awesome,” Maloney agrees.
“Those four styles of play generally bring points. So, the pace at which Japan play, and then the offloading game with Fiji, and then Argentina and the Aussies pulling it together.
“I reckon it would be awesome. I really do. I think it would be a fantastic way to fill that void if we don’t get a chance to see the established Rugby Championship through those periods of time, and I also think there’s elements of it being the right thing to do.”
The last point is an important one. The idea of expanding The Rugby Championship has certainly been around since the Brave Blossoms’ superb showing as RWC hosts in 2019, and even gathered pace for a short time when the Flying Fijians reached their first ever RWC knockout stage in France in 2023 – ironically, at the expense of the Wallabies not reaching a RWC knockout stage for the first time.
But progress has been glacially slow since then. In fact, the emergence of the Nations Championship, and Japan and Fiji’s widely assumed but still yet to be confirmed inclusion as the 11th and 12th teams has perhaps brought TRC expansion talk to a grinding halt.
Under an Eddie Jones second coming of their own, Japan have slipped from 11th and 12th in the world rankings earlier in the year to their current 14th as they embark on the inevitable re-jig under a new coach. They’ll play New Zealand, France and England in the November window, but like all teams trying to break into the top ten, crave more so-called ‘top tier’ fixtures.
Fiji, on the other hand, have just carried on under new national coach Mick Byrne, and rose from 11th to their current 9th on the back of thumping Japan 41-14 in Osaka, to claim the Pacific Nations Cup last month.
Their rise has been a continuation of the good work Simon Rawailui started 18 months ago in the run-up to the RWC in France, and has benefitted tremendously from the promotion of Byrne to the national side from the Fijian Drua in Super Rugby.
Familiarity has been the key, as more and more Drua players fill the national Flying Fijians squad, and with Byrne now able to enhance the skillsets and gameplans he had as Drua coach with the addition of genuine international stars like centres Waisea Nayacalevu and Semi Radradra and so many others plying their trade in Europe.
Mark Evans, the former Saracens, Harlequins, and Western Force CEO, has overseen the Drua’s rise in Super Rugby as CEO since their admission, and has already seen the local pathways benefit from the presence of professional rugby on-islands has done for the game in Fiji.
“We run a 37-38 man senior squad for the Drua, with a 10-12 player development squad underneath,” Evans explains.
“This year, we’ve just started the Academy for 16-19 year-olds, which in two years’ time will be populated with around 90 boys. It’s created a pretty decent structure that should do two things – it should produce a constant stream of players, and it should give boys at 15 or 16 years of age an alternative to going overseas.”
No other team plays so many games away as Fiji. In the last 18 months, I think Fiji have played something like 25 games. Three of them have been at home.
Mark Evans
Evans mentions Radradra and others who have gone off to the NRL in Australia, and what he calls the “generational talents” that have left home at 17 to go into JIFF programs in France, the Joueurs Issus des Filières de Formation,designed to qualify players for Les Bleus by 22 or 23.
“We hope these pathways will encourage boys to stay in Fiji, come through and play for the Drua, then go on to play for the Flying Fijians, and then maybe they might go to Europe or Japan at 27 or 28 just like happens everywhere else,” he says.
Evans says the Nations Championship, if Fiji are included as has been reported since the concept was first mentioned, provides Fijian rugby the next important step in their international growth.
“That is really important for us at a number of levels,” Evans says.
“One, I think we’re ready for it. The other is that I think we will be a handful for any team in Fiji.
“No other team plays so many games away as Fiji. In the last 18 months, I think Fiji have played something like 25 games.
“Three of them have been at home.”
Importantly, the Nations Championship would finally give Fiji a chance to play ‘top tier’ nations on home soil, something that hasn’t really happened since they hosted Scotland in Suva back in 2017. Despite the proximity, and now the Super Rugby Pacific links, the Wallabies or All Blacks both haven’t played in Fiji since 1984.
The commercial and economic constraints are often cited as a prohibitor of top teams touring Fiji, but Evans rightly makes the point that it’s even harder to overcome these economic constraints if you never get any content to monetise in your home market.
“The Drua have shown time and time again that there is a market in Fiji. Only a million, or just under a million people, but they’re all bonkers about the game and there is a market. And so, with good management, I think the Nations Championship ticks every box at every level.”
Fiji playing in The Rugby Championship, even if only in those NZ-SA tour years would similarly tick those boxes. More international content on home soil would bring significant economic benefit with it, but it would also enhance the already visible and strengthening rugby pathways put in place by the Drua.
From a personal point of view, as a fan, I’d love to see Fiji and Japan come in, but as a broadcaster, you would just bend over backwards to call those games because they’re both teams that are awesome to watch.
More than that though, SANZAAR has also shown it can adapt when needed.
When the Springboks chose not to come to Australia in the first COVID-impacted season in 2020, SANZAAR resurrected the old Tri-Nations tournament, and the Wallabies, All Blacks, and Los Pumas just carried on. The precedent for SANZAAR members not playing in TRC for a season is right there in the history books.
But would they want to adapt? And would NZR and SARU let The Rugby Championship carry on without them?
We’ll find out in due course, with discussions around new broadcast negotiations for 2026 underway. It seems like the perfect appetiser toward what should be an inevitable step of expanding TRC, yet it remains far from certain.
“I don’t know why we don’t just start that in ‘26 as a taste test and see how it goes,” Maloney concludes.
“From a personal point of view, as a fan, I’d love to see Fiji and Japan come in, but as a broadcaster, you would just bend over backwards to call those games because they’re both teams that are awesome to watch, and that are then in turn soaked up by fans across those regions who absolutely love the game.
I mean, you can’t miss. They’re not just two awesome rugby-playing countries, they’re just two awesome countries full stop. It’s a no brainer.”
Not going to happen. Fiji met with SANZAAR a while back, and were told they had to fulfil certain requirements before they'd consider them. Not to mention 3 out of the 4 SANZAAR unions are in financial difficulty, so they'd be no use in playing a second-tier country like Fiji, when they could maximise profit with another first-tier nation instead.
Fiji should 100% be included. Not even debateable. If there is a debate to be had, it should be about Japan who have gone backwards at a rate of knots. Georgia are more worthy.
Quadrennial bilateral…
That’s either a group of muscles or 8?
🤔🧮