Restart is tough going

WORLD Rugby chairman Sir Bill Beaumont admits planning the return of international competition is difficult with countries experiencing varying stages of the coronavirus pandemic and holding different strategies.

The summer tour season in July looks set to be wiped out and the Scottish Rugby Union recently admitted there was ‘developing uncertainty’ over the fate of their November Test schedule at Murrayfield.

The Guinness Six Nations is unfinished while the southern hemisphere’s Rugby Championship is due to take place in August and September, but the fate of domestic leagues and European competitions is also uncertain.

Former England skipper Beaumont, father of Sale Sharks’ Josh Beaumont, pledged to get straight to work on dealing with the coronavirus crisis after being re-elected for a second four-year term as chairman but he added: “We don’t know when we are going to come out of it.

“Some countries are coming out of it quicker than others.

“We still have to plan the international games, the domestic games, and already you can see there is difference of opinions from country to country whereby last week the French government said there would be no sport played at all until September 1, and in the UK there is still a desire to get some club games started before then.

“So you can imagine what that is like for us when we are trying to put international matches together.

“Everything at the moment is scenario planning: what if, what if, what if.

“You don’t know if there’s going to be any inter-hemisphere travel at all this year. You don’t know whether you can start behind closed doors, we don’t know when that will be.”