The Nations Championship starts this weekend as part of an exciting and innovative new direction for international rugby union.
England have the toughest start possible as they face a daunting trip to South Africa’s high-altitude Ellis Park fortress in Johannesburg, beginning against the reigning back-to-back world champion Springboks.
New Zealand against France is another huge highlight on opening day, along with Australia vs Ireland, Argentina vs Scotland, Fiji vs Wales and Japan vs Italy.
But what is exactly is the Nations Championship and how does it work? Standard Sport explains...
What is the Nations Championship?
The Nations Championship is a brand new international rugby union competition that was first announced in 2023.
It is beginning in 2026 and will be held biennially moving forward, with the next edition coming up in 2028.
It replaces the old summer tours of Northern Hemisphere teams going south for multi-Test series and the autumn internationals, when the Southern Hemisphere nations would then come north to play several games across November.
The idea is to link those international windows and make particularly the summer far more impactful, bringing in an overarching competition that makes every match important.
There is also the new World Rugby Nations Cup that will essentially operate as the second tier of the Nations Championship, involving Georgia, Hong Kong, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Zimbabwe, Canada, Chile, Samoa, Tonga, USA and Uruguay, who are split into ‘Europe, Africa and Asia’, and ‘Americas and Pacific’ pools respectively.
However, there will be no promotion or relegation at all during the first two editions of the Nations Championship - something that has attracted plenty of criticism.
How does the Nations Championship work?
The Nations Championship sees the Northern Hemisphere teams that compete annually in the Six Nations - England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy - pitted against the Southern Hemisphere giants in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, plus Argentina, Japan and Fiji.
There are two six-team pools, one containing the Northern Hemisphere teams and the other comprised of the nations from the Southern Hemisphere (plus Japan).
However, despite being ranked that way they do not actually play against the teams in their own pools, but rather one game against each nation from the corresponding pool.
Those round-robin fixtures take place across six matchdays - three in the summer and three in the autumn.
The Southern Hemisphere teams (and Japan) are at home in the summer, before travelling north in the autumn. That is all except Fiji, whose home games are being held in the UK as their national stadium is not seen as being up to the required standard to host regular Test matches.
Once those six matchdays are complete, a finals series takes place across three days in late November - with every match being held at Twickenham in the 2026 edition.
The teams that finished in the same position in each pool will go head to head then, culminating in the final between the two nations that finished first in their respective pools, with the winners of that match lifting the trophy.
How to watch the Nations Championship
ITV has bought the rights for the first two editions of the Nations Championship in 2026 and 2028, showcasing every match live and free-to-air across ITV1 and ITV4 - beginning with wall-to-wall coverage of all six opening games on Saturday (July 4).
They have decided to pause the in-game adverts that proved so divisive during the Six Nations earlier this year, though that is only expected to be a temporary measure.
