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It feels like an eternity since the Springboks last played a test match.

November 2, 2019, in case you’ve forgotten, which means today is day 329 of 1 449 as world champions.

I intend to keep this count going for a while still, so get used to it.

Springboks fans, and rugby fans in general, were delighted when the Rugby Championship fixtures were announced last week.

All the matches are set to take place in Australia, and our opening match would be against Argentina on November 7, followed by a showdown with the Wallabies on November 14.

In total, we would play six test matches between November 7 and December 12, and you’re not the only one struggling with the logistics of it all.

Rassie Erasmus, SA Rugby’s current director of rugby, has stressed that despite being keen to play those tests, “we just don’t know how it’s going to be possible”.

In order to play that first test against Argentina, players would need to arrive by October 18 to quarantine for two weeks, before having some time to train.

That would mean that all members of the squad who are based in South Africa would have played a maximum of 240 minutes of rugby, which is a major player safety concern.

Securing our overseas-based players is also proving problematic.

Teams in Australia and New Zealand have been playing for months now.

Below via the Citizen:

“We desperately want to play because it would be terrible to have a year with no Test rugby. But we’ve had no clear answer from the English clubs about their semi-finals and final, we have to take a massive squad because you need four players in each key position and we all have to arrive at the same time because of two weeks quarantine, during which we can practise together,” said Erasmus who, for health reasons, has decided to work remotely and will not be with Team Gold during the build up to the Castle Lager Springbok Showdown, nor at the match on Saturday.

Those health reasons have been well documented in the past.

“The science tells us that the players need five or six games, 400-500 minutes, before playing Test rugby is safe because of the injury risk and player welfare,” said Erasmus. “It’s a tough one because we know we have to go, but we just don’t know how it’s going to be possible. And we don’t have much time to sort it out, the decisions all have to be done by October 10…”

The idea of intra-squad matches has been flouted, with two teams of 23 playing against one another, but that could lead to further injuries.

Essentially, players would be competing for Springbok test spots, rather than just having a warm-up, so the intensity would be high.

To further complicate matters, there is the fact that SA Rugby is in a perilous financial position, which has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

EWN reports:

The national body posted losses in 2016 and 2017, made small profits in the following two years, and slashed the 2020 budget by R1.2 billion due to COVID-19.

“We want to go and we have to go (financially speaking) so we are working out how we make it possible to go,” [Rassie] said.

Australian officials have said that the competing nations will share the Rugby Championship costs and profits, without revealing any figures.

It’s not just the Springboks that are concerned about the scheduling and logistics.

The final round of matches takes place on December 12, and the All Blacks would have to quarantine for two weeks after arriving back home.

New Zealand is taking no chances, and so far, they’ve been pretty successful.

Crunch the numbers, and that means the All Blacks would spend Christmas in quarantine, which has left coach Ian Foster fuming.

He says SANZAAR, the body which organises the Rugby Championship, had “reneged” on a deal, and that changes will need to be made to the schedule in the very near future.

A mess all around, and a mountain of logistical nightmares to overcome before we can be confident that we will see test rugby come November.

At least we have Chasing the Sun to tide us over, which premieres this Sunday.

[sources:citizen&ewn]