Sooo much rugby in November. Can’t wait for England vs Japan already. France vs NZL I suspect the top ranked match by world ranking spots currently too
It always blows me away when I look at the end of year northern hemisphere tours how all the 6 nations countries play all their internationals in one stadium. NZR would get crucified if they tried to shift even more tests to Eden Park instead of playing around the country.
Can’t say I’m particularly happy to wațch portugal in Murrayfield. Would have liked an away day, and have enjoyed seeing Scotland play in Kilmarnock and Aberdeen in the past. England haven’t done it since 2015, Wales have had a ‘home’ game in London ffs. Ireland have to go back to 2010 when they redeveloped landsdown road, and France are sprucing up the Stade de France for the olympics, hence they were touring this 6n.
Each of the home unions own their home stadium, hence why it happens. But I think it poor form, I’d rather promote the game wider. I’d love to see the 2nd team do tours like this also, and would love to see Scotland A take on the Maori ABss for instance in Inverness
Yeah - obviously there’s also a significant geographic disparity that makes it far easier and quicker for fans particularly in Ireland, Scotland*, Wales & England to get to their union’s home stadium compared to New Zealand. But for sure taking weaker games like Portugal out to a smaller regional stadium surely makes a lot of sense!
*Surely Google Maps is cooked though, does it really take 7h26m to take the train from Inverness to Murrayfield including 2 different busses a flight, and walking a whole bunch?!
More like 3hour on the train. Murrayfield itself about a 20 minute walk to a station, about 5 minutes by tram. The Caledonian stadium in Inverness a similar distance. And yeah, NZ with the two islands makes it better to travel around and with NZR not owning a large stadium long may that continue!