‘PLAY 6 NATIONS IN ONE COUNTRY’

ROB BAXTER believes the Six Nations should be hosted by one country if the alternative is cancellation or playing in empty grounds.

With 30 days to go to the tournament there is uncertainty over whether crowds will be able to attend matches outside England because of Covid restrictions.

Wales and Scotland face having to play home games behind closed doors, while attendances in France and Ireland are capped at 5,000.

Organisers were yesterday discussing the options with government officials across the six nations. They have yet to respond publicly to Sir Ian McGeechan’s proposal that the championship be moved en bloc to England, where capacity crowds are permitted.

Wales are reportedly looking into switching their matches to England, with Tottenham’s stadium a possibility. A Six Nations game in Cardiff (top, Wales’ Kieran Hardy and England’s Anthony Watson in action at the Principality Stadium last year) is worth £5million to £7m to the WRU.

Exeter boss Baxter (above) says the sport cannot afford another Six Nations without fans. Of playing in a single country, he said: “From a rugby perspective it’s exactly what you don’t want to happen.

“The whole beauty of the Six Nations has been that change of environment, those change of weather conditions, going to play in Scotland, Wales, Ireland – those are the great challenges.

“You’ve seen French teams who one week can beat anyone in the world in Paris and the next week it doesn’t go quite so well in Cardiff. That’s the beauty of the tournament, that’s what from a rugby perspective I’m sure we would all want to see happen.

“That said, we can’t all sit here and pretend the world is in an ideal place. For the national bodies, their responsibility goes beyond the professional sport, it goes right down to grassroots rugby.

“So if playing the tournament provides a level of income that cancelling it or no crowds doesn’t create, then we’ve got to look at the next best scenario.

“If that’s playing in one country, where you can have sell-out crowds, raise revenue and keep that income stream going for all the bodies, that’s got to be better than cancelling it.”