Melbourne: Australia and New Zealand will play a Bledisloe Cup test in Perth for the first time, as international rugby makes its debut at the new Burswood Stadium in 2019.
The August 10 match will be the second part of a double-header after the women’s Wallaroos team host New Zealand’s Black Ferns.
It follows on from the men’s and women’s double-header in Sydney in August.
Perth has staged international rugby before but has never hosted the All Blacks. Australia usually hosts the lucrative Bledisloe Cup matches on the eastern seaboard.
The 60,000-seat Perth Stadium in Burswood, however, has a large enough capacity to compete with the big venues in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
“I know many fans from across Australia and New Zealand will want to travel for this historic occasion, to experience outstanding rugby and everything that Western Australia has to offer,” Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle said in a statement on Thursday.
Australia and the All Blacks play the third Bledisloe Cup test in Tokyo next week, with New Zealand having already wrapped up the annual series 2-0 after wins in Sydney and Auckland.
The All Blacks have held the trans-Tasman trophy since 2003.
Meanwhile, twice World Cup winners Australia have thrown their weight behind a radical revamp of the international calendar which would have the world’s top 12 nations all playing each other once every year in a bid to improve revenues.
World Rugby CEO Brett Gosper told Sydney newspaper Daily Telegraph that the game’s global governing body was studying the feasibility of the proposal which was revealed by vice-chairman Agustin Pichot last month.
“Certainly the southern hemisphere are keen to make sure that we’re working more closely with our northern hemisphere colleagues and it’s not an us-and-them scenario, it’s actually how can we work together to make sure we maximise the opportunities for the game of rugby as a whole,” Rugby Australia chief Raelene Castle told local broadcaster Fox Sports.
“Yeah absolutely, Rugby Australia’s on board and we’re very open to the conversations that are happening at a World Rugby level.” In the proposal, the southern hemisphere’s Rugby Championship and the northern hemisphere’s Six Nations would be retained but would count as the first phase of matches in the global tournament.
The second phase would have northern and southern hemisphere teams meet in international windows in July and November. The four best-performing teams would play off to decide a champion.
“From what I’ve heard so far, it sounds very interesting,” Australia coach Michael Cheika said on Fox Sports.
“It’d be one hell of a mission to get all of the rugby playing countries from the north and south on the same page, that’s for sure.
“But I think the idea of more meaningful series, even though every test match is very important, but maybe from the fan’s perspective, that could be something interesting.”
—Agencies
