This week, the venues for the inaugural Nations Championship were confirmed, with its organisers the Six Nations promising ‘a schedule of unmissable clashes’.
Rugby’s new biennial tournament certainly has promise – it will add competitive edge to the summer and autumn Test windows, bringing them together into one structure.
In an ideal world, there would also be promotion and relegation, giving countries such as Georgia the chance to join the 12 teams currently seen as the game’s elite. But hey, you can’t have it all and maybe that will come.
What is more concerning, however, is that if you scratch just a little beneath the surface to see what the Nations Championship entails, a worrying picture emerges.
This summer, England will play three matches in as many weeks on three different continents against three different southern hemisphere opponents. Once again, the impact on rugby’s biggest commodity – its players – is being placed below everything else.
The growing demands are hugely concerning. There can be no doubt the £90million broadcast deal the Six Nations has struck with ITV will bring welcome revenue. But at what cost?
England must take on the Springboks in their Ellis Park fortress at Johannesburg, then fly directly to Liverpool and gear up for Fiji
| July 4 | South Africa v ENGLAND Ellis Park, Johannesburg |
| July 11 | Fiji v ENGLAND Hill Dickinson Stadium, Liverpool |
| July 18 | Argentina v ENGLAND Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades, Santiago del Estero |
| November 8 | ENGLAND v Australia Allianz Stadium, Twickenham |
| November 14 | ENGLAND v Japan Allianz Stadium, Twickenham |
| November 21 | ENGLAND v New Zealand Allianz Stadium, Twickenham |
On June 19, Steve Borthwick’s side will play against a French XV in Vannes the night before the PREM final, so the best players from England’s best teams won’t be involved. A 36-man squad will assemble three days later to fly to Johannesburg for a daunting clash with the back-to-back world champions at the Springboks’ Ellis Park fortress.
The next week it’s Fiji at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium (technically a home game for the Pacific Islanders, but they cannot provide a stadium up to World Rugby’s requirements) before going to face Argentina. That’s 25,000 miles in three weeks – or once around the world.
Enough is already being asked of England’s top stars even without this new competition. The back-to-back Six Nations defeats by Scotland and Ireland have been hugely disappointing for supporters, but they have also shown that captain Maro Itoje is spent.
A 30-game-a-season limit is supposed to apply to the country’s leading players, but both Itoje and Tommy Freeman sailed past that last term. It has clearly impacted Itoje, who since the summer has had to deal with head and knee injuries as well as the tragic death of his mother.
Since his 2016 debut, Itoje has played 8,301 minutes of Test rugby – comfortably the most of any player worldwide, leading second-placed All Black Beauden Barrett by more than 1,000. Now, he is expected to spend the summer flying here there and everywhere. It is totally unrealistic to ask players to perform at their best in such situations. Ahead of Ireland, Freeman admitted the mental impact of playing 34 matches last season had left him feeling hugely drained.
Why does rugby keep brushing off these stories as non-consequential? What’s the point of having a limit on matches if it can be exceeded? Those who totally discredit player welfare concerns only need to look at the words of Freeman and the performances of Itoje in the last fortnight for proof of impact.
There has been speculation Borthwick would name two squads this summer, sending one straight from South Africa to Argentina and using another entirely for the Fiji game in Liverpool to try to minimise the impact of travel. But that is unlikely to happen, predominantly because English rugby’s Professional Game Partnership agreement means that Borthwick can only name a 36-man party at any one time. It would also be expensive and rather futile for Borthwick to send just a handful of players straight to Argentina.
It is more likely that England will make some if not wholesale changes for Fiji – as they would during a traditional autumn campaign. But Fiji is no straightforward match, as England found out in 2023 when they were humbled at Twickenham.
Maro Itoje has already shown signs of burnout in this Six Nations, after a mammoth 2024-25 campaign, the Lions tour and then an injury-plagued 2025-26 season
Let’s not forget that Fiji beat England at Twickenham in 2023, and will be no pushovers at Everton FC’s Hill Dickinson Stadium
The organisers are aware of the travel impact, and took some precautions including ensuring no team had to go to Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand in the same window.
Every effort will be made to simplify the itineraries of teams and ensure all are treated fairly. And the competing nations did agree to this with the impacts well-known, of course.
But for the players, the Nations Championship could well do more harm than good. Don’t be surprised if in another 12 months, more of the game’s top stars are out on their feet, as Itoje is now.
Rugby continues to say publicly that player welfare is its No 1 priority, but this is just the latest example of the sport acting in complete disregard of it.
