New 12-team championship proposed

While World Rugby’s proposal was ultimately binned, with concerns of player welfare also a factor due to the number of games proposed, a less demanding schedule that would not involve every country playing each other every other season could be the key to establishing a new championship series.

Another reported crucial difference from the scrapped World Rugby plan is that the new series would be ring-fenced by restricting it to only the ten Six Nations and Rugby Championship countries, along with Fiji and Japan.

The future of the Japanese at Test level has become critical following their progress to a first-ever World Cup quarterfinal. World Cup success eventually convinced the Tri-Nations to invite Argentina into their fold and create the Rugby Championship.

Now, preliminary discussions have taken place in the southern hemisphere about the possibility of inviting in Japan and Fiji, although it has also been reported that the Japanese could secure an invite to a seven-team Six Nations.

Monitoring these developments in the wings is CVC Capital Partners, the private equity firm whose talks with Six Nations were a contributory factor in that organisation not going along with World Rugby’s Nations Championship.

They have apparently agreed a still-to-be-announced £300million deal to buy 15 per cent stake in the Six Nations and are said to be in support of recent discussions in Japan to potentially establish a new world series.

World Rugby, though, would ultimately be required to give their blessing to any new tournament.