Lions tours to be cut to eight games

Don’t expect another 10-game British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand.

Premiership Rugby, which employs the leading English players, has confirmed to the Daily Mail that the 2017 tour will be the last in its current six-week format.

‘‘We have been fairly outspoken,’’ Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty said.

‘‘At the start of the season we said we were unhappy about the intensity of the schedule that had been signed up several years ago and it needs to change,’’ McCafferty said.

‘‘To go through this kind of programme in the future is not feasible.

‘‘To be playing 10 matches in a five-week period is too much and our views on that have not changed.’’

Premiership Rugby has taken the same stance as the Rugby Foot- ball Union, the game’s governing body in England.

RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie called last week for future Lions tours to be reduced to eight games.

McCafferty expects the reduced format to be in place by 2021 when the Lions are scheduled to tour South Africa.

‘‘Hopefully come 2021 some of those changes will come into place and they have largely been agreed. The duration of the tour is scheduled to come down by a week so that will mean a decrease in games.

‘‘Ultimately it is up to the Lions how many games they put into the time frame, but we have a big interest in how players are managed through that.’

The Daily Mail said Premiership Rugby were considering a Ryder Cup-style global club competition between northern and southern hemispheres, while South African Currie Cup teams could be invited to join the Anglo-Welsh Cup.