 |
 |
 |
 |
2021 Women’s Championship rescheduled to April
Six Nations Rugby Limited has announced new dates for the rescheduled 2021 Women’s Six Nations Championships.
The announcement comes following the recommendation of a working group specifically tasked to examine various rescheduling options after the decision was taken on January 12th to postpone both championships due to the ongoing challenges presented by COVID-19.
Starting on the weekend of 3rd/4th April and finishing on 24th April, this year’s Women’s Championship will see a new and condensed format similar to that of the recent Autumn Nations Cup, culminating in a grand final weekend to crown the Six Nations Champions 2021. The format will comprise of two pools of three teams with each team playing one home and one away fixture. Once the pool round matches are complete, teams will face off against the opposing ranked team from the other pool in the play-offs matches, i.e. 1st place Pool A v 1st place Pool B.
France and England will also play a Women's Six Nations exhibition game as part of the series, with the two set to meet at Villeneuve d'Ascq on Friday, 30 April.
For the first time, all games will be available in one place in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Italy, with the BBC, RTÉ and Eurosport carrying all nine matches on a mix of terrestrial and digital services.
In the UK, two matches will be shown on terrestrial television. BBC Wales will show Wales v Ireland and the final game involving England will be shown on BBC2 network, meaning a Women's Six Nations game will be shown on the main BBC network for the first time. All other games will be on BBC iPlayer.
RTÉ will show Wales v Ireland, Ireland v France and Ireland's match on Finals Weekend live on both RTÉ 2 and RTÉ Player. The other six games will be shown on RTÉ Player for fans to enjoy.
France TV will continue its fantastic support of the women's game by showing France v Wales on France 4, Ireland v France on France 2 and the final game involving the French team on France 2.
In Italy, Eurosport will show all nine matches on the Eurosport Player.
2021 U20s Six Nations Championship will take place in an early summer window.
Six Nations Rugby Limited has confirmed its intentions for the 2021 U20s championship to take place across June and July in the same format as originally planned, but through a condensed 3-week period. This plan will ensure all 6 Nations provide appropriate experience of such tournaments for the 2021 U20 generation. The tournament is expected to start on June 19th 2021 and further planning work is required to finalise details on fixtures, venues and kick off times which will be shared in due course.
More news to come as it is released...
