All’s well that ends well and from that front Rugby Australia is ecstatic Queensland will host the remainder of The Rugby Championship.
Yet, the distrust between Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby won’t be forgiven over a popping of champagne to celebrate this success.
While Perth will also host the delayed third Bledisloe, which also acts as the completion of the second round of the TRC, a date has still not been set because of a possible venue clash at Optus Stadium with the second weekend of the AFL finals.
RA on Tuesday confirmed foxsports.com.au’s report on Monday that the Sunshine State would host the remainder of the TRC.
It means Queensland audiences will witness four double-headers over as many weekends starting on the 12th September, including the historic 100th Test between the All Blacks and Springboks.
Even die-hard Australian fans will feel a sense of guilt of hosting such a fixture, which would have been much more apt in front of 60,000 fans at Ellis Park or a packed Eden Park, but Covid does not discriminate.
The final three rounds will return to their usual Saturday fixtures on September 18 and wrapping up on October 2, as it makes its way north from the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Townsville before returning to the Gold Coast.
RA CEO Andy Marinos thanked the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk for securing the tournament.
“This is a world Rugby first and a truly special celebration of the game, in what I see as a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Marinos said in a statement.
All four nations will quarantine at Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast, which has acted as the home of the Wallabies in 2021.
“We thought last year was tough when we had to implement a Tri-Nations tournament in Australia with South Africa absent due to the pandemic, but the current disruption caused by the ‘delta variant’ of COVID-19 has seen government authorities tighten up border bio-security measures substantially,” new-SANZAAR boss Brendan Morris said.
“This is understandable and therefore, we had no option but to basically move the remainder of The Rugby Championship to Queensland.”
It will be the first time the Springboks will have faced either the Wallabies or All Blacks since claiming their third Webb Ellis Cup in November, 2019.
The Springboks did not play a Test match in 2020, but announced themselves in stunning fashion by claiming a dramatic 2-1 series victory over the British and Irish Lions earlier this month.
Story first published on Fox Sports