Rugby Champs: Boks have 'hurdles to clear'

NEWS: SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux has welcomed the confirmation that the Rugby Championship would be held in 2020, but cautioned that the participation of defending champions, South Africa, still had to be confirmed.

The announcement that the event would be held in Australia from November 7 to December 12 was made by SANZAAR on Friday morning.

"We are pleased that the venue has now been confirmed and would like to commend SANZAAR and Rugby Australia for their work behind the scenes to make it possible," said Roux.

"We are very eager to see the Springboks return to play but there are still some hurdles to clear and we will be addressing those in the coming weeks."

Roux said that SA Rugby could not confirm participation while a ban on international sporting activity remained in place in South Africa, while there were other high performance and player wellness issues to consider.

He pointed out that New Zealand resumed match play three months ago while Australia had been in action for 10 weeks.

By contrast, South African players only resumed contact training two weeks ago.

An announcement would be made in due course.

Under Australian quarantine conditions, teams are expected to be able to train together in large groups while in mandatory 14-day isolation.