Lions SA tour - wrangling started already

Warren Gatland trying to put pressure on Premiership to move 2021 final to free up players. Totally sensible from his perspective.

I went to the Lions website but match dates not fixed yet.

Original Guardian article here...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jun/15/lions-suffer-south-africa-premiership-final-warren-gatland

Wonder why PRL decided to have their final a week later in June 2021 compared to 2020 and 2022? Even though they start the season earlier in 2021.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be a capture to be used/traded for financial compensation - perish the thought.

Twickenham will host the Premiership finals on June 20, 26 and 18 for the years 2020-22 with the campaigns starting on October 19, September 12 and September 18 respectively."

Thus, the English season has to consider in the future 24 weeks Premiership incl semis/finals plus 3 weeks max Nov tests. 6N is 5 (+2 fallow) weeks; EPCR is 9 weeks. Total - 41 game weekends, excl the Premiership Kindergarten Cup thingy.

2018/19 season - Started 31 Aug and finished Jun 1st - 40 weeks with 4 Nov tests
2019/20 season - Starts Oct 19th and finishes June 20th - 36 weeks RWC but no Nov tests
2020/21 season - Starts Sep 12th and finishes Jun 26th
2021/22 season - Starts Sep 18th and finishes Jun 18th

Pot Hale wrote:Wonder why PRL decided to have their final a week later in June 2021 compared to 2020 and 2022? Even though they start the season earlier in 2021.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be a capture to be used/traded for financial compensation - perish the thought.

My understanding was that Pro14 was originally earmarked to be the same weekend. The original plan was to allow mid season breaks and fit with the agreed plan to move the Summer Tours to later into the Summer, ie fitting in with the Global Season plans agreed with World Rugby before they started the Nations League shenanigans.

What has complicated the issue is that SA want to start the Lions tour a week earlier than was originally envisaged. Pro14 have agreed to move I believe but PRL not yet.

sounds like all part of the same ongoing fest aka coming to agreement on a global rugby calendar

LondonTiger wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Wonder why PRL decided to have their final a week later in June 2021 compared to 2020 and 2022? Even though they start the season earlier in 2021.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be a capture to be used/traded for financial compensation - perish the thought.

My understanding was that Pro14 was originally earmarked to be the same weekend. The original plan was to allow mid season breaks and fit with the agreed plan to move the Summer Tours to later into the Summer, ie fitting in with the Global Season plans agreed with World Rugby before they started the Nations League shenanigans.

What has complicated the issue is that SA want to start the Lions tour a week earlier than was originally envisaged. Pro14 have agreed to move I believe but PRL not yet.

LT, the PRO14 already finished a week earlier this season. They start two weeks ahead of the Premiership next season but oddly, finish a week later - 27 Sep 2019 to  27 June 2020.  If they expand to PRO16 for 2020/21 as originally planned, they’ll be playing 18 games in the regular season instead of 21.

None of the Welsh clubs will qualify for anything so Lions will be fine