Fiji on England’s 2024 Tour
There is a possibility that Fiji will be included in Steve Borthwick’s first tour as England head coach in 2024. According to The Times yesterday while the tour is yet to be finalised, England is likely to have two tests against the All Blacks, with option to also play a Pacific nation or Maori All Blacks.
The article written by The Times (United Kingdom) deputy rugby correspondent Will Kelleher reports that the full schedules for the trips have not been finalised, but it is believed that there are options for teams to add a third test against an emerging nation to their tour programme. For example, England could arrange an extra match against Fiji, Tonga, Samoa or the Maori All Blacks, if they wish to. These match-ups between southern and northern hemisphere nations could be the last of the fully fledged traditional tours, as the British &
Irish Lions will go to Australia in 2025, and then the Nations
Championship set to begin in
2026.*
There will be no summer tour next year, with Borthwick having the Six Nations and four warm-up matches on these shores before the World Cup, which starts in September.
Wales is due to face Australia, Ireland is primed to go to South Africa and Scotland are set for tests in the Pacific Islands. It is also understood that the plan is for France to visit Argentina and for Italy to play the United States and Canada. England has not played in New Zealand since 2014, when Stuart Lancaster was head coach and they lost the series 3-0. They have faced the All Blacks only three times in the past eight years. Borthwick
has succeeded Eddie Jones - who never took his team to New Zealand during seven years at the helm - this month, and has nine tests before the start of the World
Cup.
Five of those will come in the Six Nations, plus four World
Cup warm-ups, against Wales (twice), Ireland and Fiji in August.
When this set of northversus-south tours were pencilled in five years ago the original plan was for them to comprise only two tests, to reduce player workload in the year after the World Cup, but that may be altered by 2024.
Global rugby executives are still finalising plans for a revamped calendar, with the centrepiece a 24-team, two-division international league with promotion and relegation and a grand final every two years. If that is introduced by 2026, as planned, it would involve teams playing multiple countries in July and November as part of a league table, rather than the present model, in which stand-alone crosshemisphere series are played each summer.