New Zealand Rugby remains open to radical calendar shift for All Blacks, Rugby Championship

Sunday, 12 October 2025

The All Blacks coach hailed his team's mental toughness after beating the Wallabies in the wet in Perth.

Shift to start of the year depends on Six Nations starting two weeks later.
Australia reverses course on Rugby Championship tours concept.
All Blacks, Los Pumas might still play third test in 2028.

As incongruous as it seems, the prospect of the All Blacks playing tests in February and March as part of a longer-term move for the Rugby Championship remains on the agenda for rugby administrators.

The Sunday Star-Times understands that while there is still plenty of water to flow under the bridge, New Zealand Rugby is not philosophically opposed to an idea that have major ramifications on the rugby calendar.

However, there are some signficant sticking points. Despite a push from other Sanzaar partners to line up the timing of the Rugby Championship with the Six Nations, NZ Rugby is not prepared to go that far.

The Six Nations currently starts in the first week of February, raising player welfare issues for New Zealand, with the All Blacks typically not finishing their long season until late November.

A start for the Rugby Championship in early February would cut into rest periods for the All Blacks, and almost certainly necessitate that they were back in training over Christmas to get ready for the Springboks, whose franchises now begin their United Rugby Championship campaigns in late September.

Ardie Savea in action against the Springboks in Wellington last month.

However, the Star-Times understands that NZ Rugby is open to a Rugby Championship window that begins in the second half of February, if the Six Nations organisers could be persuaded to start their tournament two weeks later.

There are other obstacles. If the Rugby Championship and Six Nations windows take place at the same time, European clubs who employ South Africans, Argentinians and Australians would face a significant period without those players at the same time that their domestic test players were also unavailable.

If that were to happen, the threat of a legal challenge to World Rugby’s Regulation 9, which obliges clubs to release players for test duty, would hover in the background.

Yet, none of these potential roadblocks have been enough for NZ Rugby to categorically dismiss the idea, particularly as it would assist South African to address player welfare issues of their own.

Rugby Australia also appear to be keen, although they have had a change of heart on the Sanzaar tours plan that had been pencilled in for 2028.

Buoyed by the success of the Rugby Championship this year, the Australians now want the current format to remain in 2028, especially as the Rugby Championship is unlikely to be played in 2026 and 2030 due to reciprocal tours agreement between New Zealand and South Africa.

Those tours, the Star-Times understands, were partly a result of the previously fractious relationship between NZ Rugby and Rugby Australia.

With Rugby Australia demanding millions each year under the chairmanship of Hamish McLennan to be part of Super Rugby Pacific, NZ Rugby is of the belief that it gave the Australians plenty of warning that those demands would lead NZ Rugby to pivoting to the likes of South Africa and Ireland, whom the All Blacks play next in a lucrative test in Chicago.

Further tests in the United States are also on the horizon in the buildup to the Rugby World Cup in 2031, either against Ireland or countries such as Argentina.

While the Sanzaar tours concept is now unlikely to take place, planning of some detail had already taken place for the All Blacks to tour Argentina for three tests.

As a result, the All Blacks and Los Pumas could yet play a third test in 2028, with cities such as Miami a logical choice if they choose to take it to the US.