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This year’s tour will be the last of the current 10-match format
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The news comes as World Rugby look to accommodate the new global season
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Until now reported changes were merely just speculation
The British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand this summer will be the last in its existing six-week format, Premiership Rugby has confirmed today.
Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premiership Rugby, has echoed the stance of his Rugby Football Union counterpart, Ian Ritchie.
They’ve both insisted that the tours must be shortened as part of the new global season that comes into effect in 2020.
“We have been fairly outspoken. At the start of the season we said we were unhappy about the intensity of the schedule that had been signed up several years ago and it needs to change.
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“To go through this kind of programme in the future is not feasible. To be playing 10 matches in a five-week period is too much and our views on that have not changed.
The influential rugby boss continued: “Hopefully come 2021 some of those changes will come into place and they have largely been agreed.
This is a great article on the subject
Jumped-up English clubs have taken control of world rugby and it has to stop https://t.co/DWLcBj4Gk4
— WalesOnline Rugby (@WalesRugby) April 26, 2017
“The duration of the tour is scheduled to come down by a week so that will mean a decrease in games.
“Ultimately it is up to the Lions how many games they put into the time frame, but we have a big interest in how players are managed through that.”