Travel can broaden game but club trips to US and South Africa make little sense | Robert Kitson

This weekend’s Premiership match in Pennsylvania and Pro14 games in South Africa have more costs, fewer fans and a huge carbon bootprintBefore this week the most absurd away fixture in European club rugby history was probably Connacht’s 12,000-mile round trip to Siberia in November 2015. The Irish province did manage to beat their Challenge Cup opponents Enisei-STM in temperatures as low as -18C but a technical fault with a charter plane caused such travel chaos some players were stranded for days. “Energy levels at all time low … BO levels at an all-time high,” read the memorable tweet from t…