The relentless treadmill of the professional game is leaving a trail of battered bodies and a sport in need of a streamlined Test schedule
The perfect global rugby season will never exist. Well, maybe it does on paper but not in reality. There are competing hemispheres, unions and clubs to pacify, not to mention different financial imperatives, audiences, time-zones and ambitions. Sticking half-a-dozen adolescent ferrets down your trousers simultaneously is slightly less problematic.
Now imagine all six ferrets arriving with their own legal advisers and you begin to grasp the unenviable situation facing World Rugby as it attempts to broker a schedule that suits everyone. Small wonder the initial proposals to have emerged from negotiations have fallen short of jaw-dropping. A suspension of summer Test tours in the year after a World Cup? The northern hemisphere club season poking into June? The Six Nations staying broadly, if not exactly, where it is? We are talking cautious diplomacy, not revolution.
Related: Global season will only happen if New Zealand and home nations work together | Paul Rees
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