Bledisloe nations at odds even before a ball is kicked in anger

Bledisloe Cup Tests against the All Blacks have been pencilled in for Brisbane and one other Australian city.

The venues for this year’s Bledisloe Cup series is still up in the air Picture: Getty Images

Bledisloe Cup Tests against the All Blacks have been pencilled in for Brisbane and one other Australian city in October before the Wallabies head off to New Zealand for an all-in Rugby Championship tournament that they will treat as a mini-World Cup.

At least, that is Australia’s understanding of what has been arranged. It perhaps comes as no surprise – given the confusion generated by the coronavirus pandemic and the somewhat strained trans-Tasman communication of recent days – that New Zealand appears to have a slightly different view of what will take place.

According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, while the plan most definitely was to stage two Bledisloe Cup Tests in Australia, that may not now be possible because of the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in Victoria and parts of NSW.

“At the moment they (Australia) are signalling they would like to host two Bledisloe matches but it is a fairly fluid situation,” New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson told the Herald. “We’re going to have to try to understand what that means if we do play in Australia in terms of getting back to New Zealand in terms of quarantine and then having to go into Rugby Championship with the timing and what that means and if it can be done. They’re still things it’s early days with.”

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The plan Rugby Australia is working to has the Brisbane Test being played at Suncorp Stadium on October 17. But where the opening Test of the series will be played is in doubt, in more ways than one.

As far as Australia is concerned, the venue might well be decided by how the coronavirus pandemic is being handled across the continent, and whether a bubble can be created for the All Blacks to travel across the Tasman and whether they will need to go into quarantine when they arrive. But from New Zealand’s perspective, the first Test has already been scheduled for Wellington on October 10.

How that would lead into a six-week Rugby Championship tournament in November-December is unexplained, not unless the Kiwis are preparing for a Christmas Test against the Wallabies in Australia.

Australia does not appear to be demanding any more of the All Blacks than New Zealand is asking of the Wallabies but the devil really is in the detail. It would be excessive, for instance, if the All Blacks were required to go into shutdown for two weeks in Australia before playing the two Tests and then be required to go into further isolation on their return to New Zealand.

It’s an argument that Wallabies coach Dave Rennie could warm to, given that he will leave New Zealand to come to Australia next week, where he will set up home at the northern end of the Gold Coast. But whether he faces a further period of isolation on his arrival in Australia is unclear.

News that The Rugby Championship looks like going ahead after so much uncertainty must come as a huge relief to Rugby Australia. For starters, the tournament will generate some desperately needed revenue. Gate-takings are to be split among the four joint venture partners, NZ, South Africa, Argentina and Australia, which explains why SANZAAR chose New Zealand to play host. It is the only country in the world that has opened its rugby stadiums to unlimited crowds.

Precisely how the broadcast rights will be split up remains to be seen. Rugby Australia and Fox have held off negotiating the international component of the 2020 rights until something resembling an itinerary was known.

According to Rugby Australia’s director of rugby, Scott Johnson, the Wallabies will use the tournament-like environment surrounding The Rugby Championship to prepare for what they will encounter in France at the 2023 World Cup.

“It’s not perfect but it’s not an imposition,” Johnson said of the isolation period. “We are presuming that it will be a bubble of some description (that will allow the Wallabies to train, even while in shutdown). We are planning ahead and we are in it together. ‘’