The Women’s and U20’s Six Nations Championships have been postponed and will take place at a time later in the year.

Six Nations Rugby confirmed what had been widely speculated on yesterday while at the same time confirming that, subject to monitoring of ongoing public health concerns, the men’s tournament would proceed as planned.

This at least secures the broadcast income which Unions would no doubt have been relying on with there clearly being very little prospect of fans being allowed into stadia.

This is the fourth and final year of the current contract in place between Six Nations and Virgin Media for broadcast coverage of the tournament here in Ireland.

The prospect of heavyweight investment from CVC makes it possible that this will also be the final year of all the games being shown live free to air but that is a debate for another day.

Despite the continued record number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the UK and Ireland, the men’s tournament will now get underway on the weekend of February 6th and 7th. France travel to Italy on Saturday 6th, with Ireland travelling to Cardiff and Scotland to Twickenham on Sunday 7th.

Elite athletes are exempt ‘for the purposes of training and sporting commitments’ from the strict isolation and restriction of movement placed on regular travellers but players and coaching staff will need to be mindful of being on best behaviour throughout the tournament.

The Women’s team are not professional and players like Linda Doujang are working in the HSE so providing the same level of restriction on movement would not be possible at this stage.

“We are fiercely committed to the promotion and development of rugby at all levels, particularly the women’s game where we see such exciting opportunity for growth,” said Six Nations CEO Ben Morel.

“This is not a decision that we rushed into and we are confident that in looking at a new later window, we will be in a far stronger position to deliver two fantastic tournaments, delivering exciting rugby for fans, and ensuring the safest possible environment in which to stage them for our players.”

The timing of the revised dates will be dependent on the rescheduling of the European Qualification tournament for this year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup in which Ireland, Scotland and Italy will all be fighting for a place.

We take a deeper look at the difference between the Men’s and Women’s tournament handling, across wider sports in our Women in Sport Weekly Column this morning.

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