Women’s Six Nations to get ‘distinct schedule’ from men’s competition

The Women’s Six Nations fixture list had copied the men’s order since Italy replace Spain in 2007

The Women’s Six Nations fixture list had copied the men’s order since 2007 (PA Wire)

The Six Nations CEO Ben Morel says the women’s competition will get a “distinct schedule” from the men “going forward”.

The Women’s Six Nations fixture list had copied the men’s order since Italy replace Spain in 2007 but Morel is keen to give the women’s its own identity.

“One of the real benefits to having a specific window is not to be dependent on the men’s schedule,” he said per Scrumqueens. “This year was a bit of a coincidence, simply that it matched the interest of the women’s game to keep the fixtures as they were.

“But going forward, that will be distinct. For the time being, I do anticipate the fixture between England and France to be on the final weekend for that particular reason.”

France will host England in the 2022 competition on Saturday in what is billed as the Grand Slam decider. Both teams could take the clean sweep after they defeated Wales, Scotland, Italy and Ireland.

The order of who plays who may replicate the men but the women’s tournament is shorter. The men have one more rest week than the women which is another aspect of the tournament the governing body is looking into.

Morel added: “We want to take the time to review that. We’ve already got a schedule which is predetermined which we want to speak to broadcasters and unions about, based on the learnings from this year. I definitely expect that before the end of June, that will be communicated publicly.

“Player welfare is a central point but sometimes the length of the window with the amateur status goes into the direction where shorter is better. Those are two distinct things to look at which contradict each other.

“At the same time you’ve got the structuring of the entire season which is a factor in terms of how that fits in with the club game in each country and overlap with some of the 7s programme. We’re quite happy with six weeks and how it fits in the current calendar but we obviously need to review it and then look at the specific fixtures.”

France vs England will kick-off at 2.15pm on 30 April.