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Cape Town - The world's top rugby administrators will meet this week to discuss World Rugby's proposed Nations Championship.
When news broke last week of plans for the league-based tournament that would revolutionise Test rugby, it was met with strong criticism from current and former players as well as administrators from some of the game's smaller nations.
Since then, World Rugby has sought to end any confusion by saying it would be "flexible" and open to discussion before making any concrete decisions on the tournament.
According to the BBC website, discussions would take place in Dublin on Thursday for a "crunch meeting".
Representatives from all tier-one nations as well as Fiji and Japan will attend the meeting, which will also seek to deal with a statement released from numerous English and French clubs that voiced their dissatisfaction at being excluded from the talks.
According to Netwerk24, SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux would be representing South Africa in Dublin.
Originally planned to be a 12-team tournament that saw all countries play 11 Tests before moving onto semi-finals and a final, the Nations Championship might lose the playoffs entirely after these Dublin talks because those sides who go the distance in the competition would have to play five successive Test matches at the end of the year.
The tournament, if it gets off the ground, is expected to start in 2022.
