What The Rugby Championship needs to do to rival the Six Nations

It was the greatest Six Nations in the competition’s 26-year history. It might go down as the greatest rugby union tournament of any iteration, be that a World Cup, Rugby Championship, Tri-Nations or Heineken Cup.

Tries, tries and more tries. A record 111 of them. Louis Bielle-Biarrey notched nine himself. Rhys Carré bagged a stunner that will live forever. Thomas Ramos won the title with a kick at the death and Italy beat England for the first time in their history. It was simply magnificent. Six weeks that reaffirmed what many of you reading already know. That rugby union fans, players and coaches are breathing rarified air. That the game has never been better at the elite level.

The beauty of the Six Nations isn’t only found in historic rivalries, full stadiums or the sense that, for five weekends, nothing else matters as much as the fate of an oval ball. It’s the format that works so well. Six teams, five games each, everyone plays everyone once. It’s clean, simple and carries a ruthless sense of jeopardy in every contest. There’s no padding. No messy return fixtures that dilute the occasion. It’s a sprint to the finish and every game has consequences.

This is where the Rugby Championship falls short. This isn’t a criticism of the rugby played by South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina and Australia. One only needs to look at World Rugby’s rankings, the list of World Cup winners and each nation’s head-to-head record against their rivals in the north to get a sense of where rugby’s true power lies. And despite the Europeans boasting a long and storied history, there is no contest that can match the prestige and heritage of the Springboks versus the All Blacks.

But The Rugby Championship feels dull by comparison. Four teams play each other twice. Sometimes only once proving the point that the whole thing feels slightly inconsequential. The travel is punishing and occasionally results in understrength teams trekking halfway across the world.

It’s unsustainable. Empty seats in Brisbane, Durban, Mendoza and Wellington are a testament to this. However, with a few tweaks, and more political will from those with their hands on the levers of power, international rugby in the southern hemisphere can position itself alongside the Six Nations.

The first thing that needs to change is the size of the tent. Fiji and Japan – ninth and 12th on World Rugby’s charts – must be included. They have already been deemed worthy enough of a place in the rebranded Nations Championship. In order to fully elevate them to tier 1 status, they must have a seat at the Rugby Championship table.

This would immediately change the feel of the competition and allow the schedule to be spread across one-off matches, either home or away. This would not diminish key contests such as the Bledisloe Cup. In fact, as the annual Calcutta Cup match proves, rarity has a value of its own.

The inclusion of Fiji in particular feels long overdue. The idea that one of the most naturally gifted rugby nations still sits outside the sport’s core competitions is getting harder to justify. They’ve already shown they can beat tier-one sides, their player base is deeper than ever and they bring something no one else quite does. They add unpredictably and chaos from the backfield. If you love the sight of French wingers screaming down the trams, or Scottish counter-attacks from a neighbouring postcode, then you’ll surely be drooling at the sight of a flying Fijian cantering across the park in Dunedin or Pretoria once a year.

Japan’s case is different, but just as compelling. They don’t bring chaos, they bring methodical control. Since 2015 they’ve proven, repeatedly, that they belong at this level. Not as a novelty, not as a World Cup outlier, but as a serious Test side with a clear identity. Their domestic league is well-funded, their national team is well-coached and, crucially, they offer access to a market the game has spent years talking about without properly committing to. If rugby is serious about being global, Japan cannot remain on the periphery of its premier annual competitions.

Of course, the immediate stumbling block is geography. The Six Nations works, in part, because it’s compact. Fans jump on trains in London, Paris or Edinburgh and are in another capital within hours. Away support part of the spectacle. It feels connected in a way few sporting competitions do. The Rugby Championship could never replicate that.

But that shouldn’t be the reason to dismiss an expansion. It should be a reason to manage it properly. Because the reality is, the current system already asks players to criss-cross the globe. It already produces understrength touring sides, it already drains squads and already struggles to maintain consistent fan engagement across multiple rounds of the same fixture.

Expanding to six teams and moving to a single round robin format doesn’t increase that burden. It reshapes it into a manageable piece. There could be fewer repeat journeys, fewer dead rubbers and more meaningful one-off Tests.

This would also give Fiji the chance to host major nations in Suva and Lautoka. Their absence on the list of host cities for the Nations Championship is a crying shame. Fiji belongs at the summit of the game and so do its major cities.

Yes, there are commercial realities. There are broadcast demands that will shape certain fixtures. But they shouldn’t dictate everything. If rugby is serious about global growth, it has to invest in places like Fiji and Japan, not just talk about them. Take the game there, build it there, and let it breathe. Otherwise, the idea of expansion is nothing more than convenient rhetoric dressed up as progress.

Without change, the Rugby Championship runs the risk of slipping further behind the Six Nations. Australia and Argentina run the risk of fading in the rearview. South Africa and New Zealand will continue to plough their own field alone. And Japan and Fiji will remain secondary characters on the stage. It doesn’t have to be this way. Because the Rugby Championship doesn’t have a rugby problem. It has a format problem.

Suggested fixture list:

Week 1:
South Africa v Japan
Fiji v New Zealand
Argentina v Australia

Week 2:
South Africa v Fiji
Japan v Argentina
Australia v New Zealand

Week 3:
Rest / travel window

Week 4:
Argentina v South Africa
Australia v Fiji
New Zealand v Japan

Week 5:
Rest / travel window

Week 6:
South Africa v Australia
Argentina v New Zealand
Japan v Fiji

Week 7:
New Zealand v South Africa
Japan v Australia
Fiji v Argentina