Calls for Wales to be removed from Six Nations grow as rival head coach piles in | Rugby | Sport

The scrutiny over Welsh rugby has intensified further with fresh calls to remove them from the Six Nations. On Saturday, the 68-14 defeat to Steve Borthwick’s side in Cardiff signified Wales’s second successive wooden spoon and 11th straight tournament defeat.

It’s now 17 Test losses in a row for the Dragons, the most for a tier-one nation in the professional era. To exacerbate matters further, the WRU are without a head coach with Matt Sherratt, who replaced Warren Gatland two games into this tournament, having finished his interim stint. Georgia coach Richard Cockerill has demanded that his team be given the opportunity to displace Wales in rugby’s most famous tournament.

Ironically, the last victory for Wales came against the ‘Borjgalosnebi’ at the 2023 World Cup. However, they lost to the same opposition later that year at the Principality Stadium, while Cockerill’s side have sealed an eighth successive second-tier Rugby Europe Championship title this year.

And now the former England hooker has reiterated calls for his team to be given a play-off against Wales for the right to play in the Six Nations. “If you are finishing bottom, why do you just get free rein to turn up next year and play?” he asked on BBC Radio Wales.

“We want the opportunity to prove that we can compete, so surely that’s logical we get the opportunity to have a play-off. It would be the richest game in world rugby – Georgia versus Wales to see who plays in the Six Nations for the next tournament. That’s jeopardy. That would be a game people would want to watch.”

The current world rankings back up Cockerill’s argument. Georgia have risen to 11th overall, a place above Wales, and their head coach has now argued his side needs to play tier-one teams regularly to move forward, citing Italy’s inclusion when the Five Nations became Six in 2000.

However, all six competing nations would need to agree to the introduction of a playoff, a notion that appears unlikely. Dropping out of the tournament would represent a seismic financial blow to any of the unions involved, with Wales in particular in a perilous position with the WRU struggling to fund four professional club sides.

Cockerill, 54, acknowledges it will be difficult to push his proposal through. “If you’re in the Six Nations you wouldn’t want to be voting for that type of play-off, would you?” he added.

“Because it might be you, and the ramifications of not being in the Six Nations, from a rugby point of view but also from a financial point of view, would be very difficult. You know it would be the richest game in world rugby.

“That would be a game people would want to watch and the money involved and the profile involved for Georgian rugby would catapult us into a completely different sphere if we were good enough to beat whoever finishes bottom. And if we lose, well we re-group, we keep developing and we fight for the opportunity to do that again. I don’t see that as an unreasonable request.”