England Rugby Players Question Nations Championship Travel Demands

England’s players have questioned the current Nations Championship format after being required to play Test matches on three different continents on successive weekends.

Steve Borthwick’s squad have covered 26,000 miles this month and at least one senior player believes the tournament should consider reducing the travel demands for all involved.

Having spent the past three weeks flitting between Johannesburg, Liverpool and Santiago del Estero for games against South Africa, Fiji and Argentina respectively, the England No 8 Ben Earl is among those with strong views about the logistical demands of the schedule. “It’s been brutal,” said Earl, who was in the starting XV for all three fixtures.

“There’s no two ways about it, it’s tough, but we’ve got to do what we can and try to make the best of it. At the end of what’s been quite a long season for most of us, it’s been a tough way of ending: back and forth to England, seeing your families and then going away again. It has seemed a bit weird but it’s something we’re going to have to get used to. I think it’s just the beginning.”

England have been the team most obviously affected this month, with Ireland having insisted on facing Japan on neutral ground in Australia rather than trekking to Tokyo as well as Sydney and Auckland. England’s players, however, believe all involved would benefit from more teams being based in the same location.

“We’ve been speaking about it,” confirmed Earl. “You just go to one nation and have a festival feel. Why would we not all be playing in one country? I don’t know the financials but how good would that be for the fans? You come to Australia, South Africa or wherever and there’s just so much rugby going on. How cool would that be? [But] I’m not paid to make those decisions. We just get told where to go and where to play, and we just try and do that.”

The Nations Championship was launched this year as a broadcaster-friendly alternative to traditional tours, with all games available to watch free-to-air on ITV. From a playing perspective, however, the extra travel involved has affected the amount of preparation time available to visiting teams. “You just don’t do as much training,” confirmed Earl. “You train a little bit later in the week and you train harder, closer to the game.

“You’ve got to do certain things in the week to be able to perform. There are myriad different things that make it tricky but we’ve been adaptable. For those of us who were on the British & Irish Lions tour last summer, it was pretty similar.”