New Zealand Rugby looks to stage full series of Tests in coming months

New Zealand Rugby is preparing the All Blacks for a full calendar of international fixtures between now and the end of the year, despite a reappearance of Coronavirus cases in the country having impacted the final round of the Super Rugby Aotearoa fixtures last weekend

While the itinerary for the remainder of 2020 has yet to be confirmed, Reuters has reported All Blacks coach Alan Foster as saying he is preparing his team for a full season beginning with a match against a combined Pacific islands invitational team on 3rd October.

Foster told reporters on a conference call “things are getting finalised and it’s what we’re working off, we’re also working off eight tests in a nine week-type Rugby Championship programme.”

Sanzaar, the umbrella body of the South African, New Zealand, Australian and Argentinian rugby unions, has already identified New Zealand, which has admitted fans to venues since mid-June, as the preferred destination for the 2020 Rugby Championship.

Last month World Rugby recommended a temporary international rugby union Test match window between 24th October and 5th December, opening the way for the Southern Hemisphere’s tournament to be played in November and December.

While one fixture in the final round of the Super Rugby Aotearoa competition was played behind closed and the other cancelled, New Zealand’s success in combatting COVID-19 and reopening sporting venues has been widely acclaimed.

However, Foster admitted that the new outbreak of Coronavirus could create a challenge, adding “we have got an itinerary that we are expecting to play, but as we all know in this world, we’ll take it one day at a time.”

New Zealand Rugby hopes to get more guidance from the Government about staging All Blacks tests in the next couple of weeks.

Foster also commented in on the domestic Super Rugby Aotearoa competition and the upcoming North Island v South Island game, describing the latter as a “once-in-a-generation” fixture.

The North v South match is set to be played on 29th August in Auckland, unless the city remains in lockdown in which case it will be played in Wellington. The match has been revived this year after New Zealand’s home Test schedule was disrupted by the pandemic.

Looking to the future of Super Rugby Aotearoa, Foster said the purely domestic competition is probably unsustainable in the long term and needed more than just the five New Zealand teams.

He added “the Aussies have been a clear playing partner for us for years and it has proven to be beneficial, so, hopefully something involving them at some point will happen.”

Rugby Australia is believed to have a different view about the future composition of a potential trans-Tasman competition.

Image: All Blacks captain Keiran Read in 2019.