Thumbs up for Boks and All Blacks long tours

Billed as "The Greatest Rugby Rivalry", the Springboks and the All Blacks' long tours initiative will kick off in 2026 with the latter playing three Tests in SA and one at a neutral venue.

The tours, which will take place every four years, will alternate between the two countries with the All Blacks set to embark on the inaugural eight-week tour with matches against the four United Rugby Championship franchises, a potential clash against the SA A team, as well as three Test matches.

A fourth Test will be played at a neutral venue, most likely in the northern hemisphere.

Officials from SA and New Zealand have been in talks this week in the build-up to Saturday's much anticipated clash between the Springboks and the All Blacks at Ellis Park.

A funding model for the tours has been agreed. The tours will roughly follow the model built around British & Irish Lions tours.

The All Blacks' tour of 2026 will see them play matches at the coast before the three Test matches. Another Test match will be played outside the country, with the primary aim of raking in as much revenue as possible. It is yet to be determined whether “the money game” will be played before or after the tour.

Having staged sellout matches over the past two years against the All Blacks and Wales at Twickenham, London may have seemed the obvious destination in 2026, but the Women's Rugby World Cup will be played in the UK at the same time.

The Rugby Championship will likely take place in that year, with SA preferring a single round of matches but New Zealand making the case for it not to be played. If that route is pursued, Argentina and Australia will play a Test each against the Springboks in 2026.

SA Rugby and the New Zealand Rugby Union hope to reach finality in the second week of September.

The four Sanzaar affiliates, meanwhile, are exploring ways to revitalise the Rugby Championship.

It seems unlikely the competition will be moved from its slot to an earlier window, closer to when its northern hemisphere counterpart the Six Nations is played.

The move was said to be integral to World Rugby's plans to bring about their much mooted global season. Six Nations bosses, however, are reluctant to move their competition back by three weeks, which would helped pave the way to the formalisation of a global calendar.

Not playing the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship concurrently will present the game's administrators with a challenge in meeting player welfare objectives. It will be more difficult to agree on a mandatory concurrent rest period for the game's top professionals.

The global season, as envisaged by its World Rugby architects, may be on the back burner but the Nations Cup, another international competition that will help them realise that ideal, is on the cards.

The Nations Cup, which is also set to launch in 2026, will bring a competition structure to the Tests played in the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere in the traditional midyear and November windows respectively.

Having SA and New Zealand's women's teams play each other was also a discussion point between SA and Kiwi officials this week, but the former fear their team may not be up to it two years down the line.

New Zealand, who are ranked second in the world, have won six of the nine World Cups played since 1991, while SA is ranked a lowly 12th.

SA Rugby harbours real fears a series will make for a mismatch, but have set the team the target to advance the Springbok women's team into the top eight in the world.

SA and New Zealand are also looking into the possibility of having a Maori team tour SA.

SA Rugby wants to get the long tours deal over the line before getting stuck into the other proposals.