Taking even one week out of the Six Nations Championship, a proposal driven by English club owners, would compromise the tournament according to Irish outhalf Johnny Sexton.
Speaking at the launch of Rugby Players Ireland (RPI), the Irish rugby players’ representative body, Sexton added that from a welfare viewpoint, it would not be a good idea to truncate the time period during which the competition is run.
“From a player’s point of view, the way it is now is very good. Taking one week out is probably a compromise,” said Sexton.
“They are talking about playing it over five or six weeks which would be tough going. Now, the World Cup is the same but during the group stage of a World Cup you might have one or two games depending on the group where you can rotate one or two guys.
“In the last World Cup, we changed up the team totally for Romania so that was essentially a week off, although you could argue that there are no weeks off at a World Cup.”
Sexton added that not only would the burden fall on the core players, who Irish coach Joe Schmidt would want fit and fresh for every match, but any change would also hurt the tournament in that the top players, who fans want to see play, are unlikely to be as available.
England’s leading clubs are seeking the reduction from seven to five weeks. The tournament’s committee will consider the proposal by the Premiership to remove the two fallow weekends, thereby freeing up time towards the end of the domestic and European season.
A potential start time for the new format, which would see five rounds of matches played on consecutive weekends, has yet to be discussed. Any change would align with the beginning of the new global season in 2020.
“It is different at a Six Nations, isn’t it?” added Sexton. “Every game is full on, pretty intense, so think the way it is now is pretty ideal. Trying to cram it down would compromise . . . you would see a lot more players missing out on games, basically, because a lot of those weeks are about getting ready for the next game.
“You want to see the best players play in those games and I think that would be reduced. You might have players missing a few games with a small niggle whereas you mightn’t miss any with the way it is now. The other argument would be that the best squad would win.”
The current thinking is that such a change would favour bigger nations, such as England and France who have access to a larger number of players and arguably deeper squads.
“Yeah, that probably suits England,” said Sexton. “They seem to have three or four or five players of the same standard through different positions, but it would test our depth as well and we have maybe a little more depth than we would be given credit for.”
Sexton added that the very existence of RPI, which was launched on Tuesday in Lansdowne RFC by its chairman Irish and Leinster fullback Rob Kearney, is so players have a say in issues such as these.
Player welfare, their health and the length of their careers in the sport, runs to the heart of the matter.
“That’s exactly why we have the player’s associations,” added Sexton. “To be the voice of the players. When it comes down to these meetings, we all had to answer a survey on this subject and the board of IRUPA, as it was, and Rugby Players Ireland as it is now, will go back to World Rugby who will make the decisions.”
Sexton also said that his shoulder was good and that he was back to full training as Leinster face into a Pro12 match with Connacht this weekend in Galway.
