2020 Autumn Internationals Replaced By New Tournament

Rugby’s 2020 northern hemisphere Autumn Internationals will be replaced by a new eight-team tournament.

Featuring each of the Six Nations participants plus Fiji and World Cup quarter-finalists Japan, the tournament will begin on 14th November and take place across four weekends, ending on 5th December.

The new competition will begin just two weeks after the end of the 2020 Six Nations tournament, which will see its final, postponed fixtures, take place in October.

There are three final round matches in the competition still to be played after it was postponed in March at the start of the coronavirus lockdown, as well as one outstanding penultimate round game between Ireland and Italy.

The final round will take place on 31st October, with the Ireland v Italy fixture taking place a week before that.

The new format of the Autumn internationals could see Scotland take on Japan in a rematch of the World Cup pool decider which saw Gregor Townsend’s team knocked out of the competition by the hosts in a match played after the devastation caused by Typhoon Hagibis, which caused disruption to the tournament.