{"id":224273,"date":"2025-10-19T03:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T03:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224273\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T03:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T03:55:13","slug":"erasmus-prefers-february-start-for-rugby-championship-no-reason-others-cant-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224273\/","title":{"rendered":"Erasmus prefers February start for Rugby Championship, &#8216;no reason&#8217; others can&#8217;t move"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Springboks head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/rassie-erasmus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rassie Erasmus<\/a> has shared his preference to move the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/the-rugby-championship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby Championship<\/a> window to February, at the same time as the Six Nations.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with media after the announcement of the 2026 Greatest Rivalry tour, where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa<\/a> will host the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a>, Erasmus gave his opinion on the Rugby Championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope this doesn\u2019t go against SA Rugby\u2019s wishes or the way they\u2019re thinking,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760269811_297_spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Rassie Erasmus reveals his rotation secret<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760269811_297_spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/>Rassie Erasmus reveals his rotation secret<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want this to be a headline, this is my opinion. But I think it would be fantastic if we could (start) the Rugby Championship in February, when the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/six-nations\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Six Nations<\/a> is on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be so much easier if all the teams were aligned, not having some countries flat in (July) and others are peaking in November and we are flat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Playing the Rugby Championship in February would align the Southern Hemisphere international competition with Europe, with South Africa\u2019s clubs already involved on a European calendar.<\/p>\n<p>Due to South Africa\u2019s exodus from Southern Hemisphere club competitions in 2020, their contracted players already play on a European season.<\/p>\n<p>Erasmus said he saw \u201cno reason\u201d why the other nations couldn\u2019t play in February, which is still summer in Australia, Argentina, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe law changes or variations would be easier to implement across the board with all the competitions starting at the same time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my honest opinion, I can\u2019t see a reason why New Zealand, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/argentina\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Argentina<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/australia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australia<\/a> can\u2019t play that competition at the same time as the Six Nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere might be a big thing that I\u2019m missing here. I\u2019m just naming a few things; I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus has shared his preference to move the Rugby Championship window to February, at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-224273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}