Ben Earl: Nations Championship Format Too Brutal

England number 8 Ben Earl has had enough. Four long-haul flights, four short-haul flights, 25,000 miles across three continents in three successive weekends — and now Earl is calling for a fundamental rethink of the Nations Championship format before it does lasting damage to player welfare.

"It's been brutal, there's no two ways about it," Earl said after England's 31-24 win over Argentina on Saturday kept Steve Borthwick's side alive in the race for a final spot. "We've been speaking about it — why would we not all be playing in one country? So you just don't travel, you go to one nation and have that festival feel."

The logic is hard to argue with. England played three Tests on three different continents on back-to-back weekends during the summer leg of the inaugural competition. The travel burden has cost players sleep and slashed training time — a compounding problem at the tail end of a long club season for most of the squad.

"It's been back and forth, coming back to England, seeing your families and then going away again," Earl added. "It has seemed a bit weird but it's just something we're going to have to get used to because I think it's just the beginning."

From a South African perspective, the Nations Championship format concerns resonate. The Springboks have navigated the same competition calendar, and with four Springboks named in the Nations Championship XV this week, the toll on South Africa's top players is equally real. The autumn leg resumes with England facing Australia on 8 November, and the final — if Borthwick's men get there — is scheduled for 29 November at Twickenham's Allianz Stadium. Whether the format survives its first full cycle intact is now an open question.