Bledisloe Cup reduced from three to two Tests a year

Reports from New Zealand suggest that a significant change to the global Test calendar will see the number of matches between the All Blacks and Wallabies reduced from 2022.

According to Stuff, the Bledisloe Cup, which has been played as a three-Test series since 2006, will be reduced from three Tests each year to just two.

The series is one of the most famous on the rugby calendar, but it has been a one-sided contest since 2003, when the All Blacks regained the Cup.

They have not let it go since, and the appetite for a three-test series each year has declined, with the cutting of the third Bledisloe test seen as a way to reducing the quantity of tests the All Blacks play each year.

The reduction in the number of Bledisloe tests has been previously discussed, but New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia had been locked into a 10-year contract for three tests a year that was signed in 2011.

That contract ran out last year, when the All Blacks hosted back-to-back tests at Eden Park in a Covid-hit schedule.

Full story via Stuff