LEGEND CARTER NOW ALL BACK!

allowed to participate for as long as they keep on winning.”

English Premiership chiefs hope to restart, using two neutral venues, in mid-august, after clubs were given the green light to return to non-contact training yesterday. The Pro14 has pencilled in an August 22 date to resume behind closed doors.

French rugby cannot get going again before September, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has ruled, which means the best-case scenario is Europe’s three knockout rounds starting that month and concluding with the final in October.

But by then, England’s secondtier Championship could well have started its new season with a fixture list containing a Saracens club also still to complete its 2019/20 Premiership campaign. The next four to six weeks are key to rugby mapping out its future.

What is certain is the scheduled September 12 start date for next season’s Premiership can be binned.

“In the very short term we are all screaming with pain due to the financial impact of no rugby and no crowds,” said Halliday, chief executive of European Professional Club Rugby. “It’s horrendous what it’s doing to the game and its revenues.

“But there is a belief that we can get our players fit enough and safe enough to play three big weekends of European rugby through September and October.”

A month after Halliday used these pages to complain that the sport was not working together to devise a future strategy amenable to all, he now says there is a united front between World Rugby, national unions and club concerns.

“We’re all talking and I’m really pleased,” he said. “Hopefully by the end of June there will be consensus building on how best to deal with the very short term – and perhaps the years ahead as well.”

Saracens star Owen Farrell after winning the Champions Cup in Newcastle last year DAN CARTER is set for a comeback when New Zealand’s Super Rugby sides return to action next week. Carter, 38, is being lined up by the Blues as an injury replacement for the all-kiwi Aotearoa competition which is the first to return globally since the sport was shut down by coronavirus. The All Blacks legend (above) has spent the last three seasons at Kobe Steelers but returned home when the Japanese League was cancelled because of the virus. He is poised to join Beauden Barrett at the Auckland franchise after Barrett’s move from the Wellington-based Hurricanes.