League: Kiwis tour to England confirmed

New Zealand Rugby League CEO Phil Holden. Photo / Getty Images

The Kiwis' 2015 schedule is set to be finalised with dates for a three-test end-of-year tour to England confirmed, while discussions are continuing with Australia about hosting the annual Anzac test at Eden Park.

The Kiwis will take on England on three consecutive weekends and although venues are yet to be confirmed, the first test has been scheduled for Friday, October 30, with the second and third games to follow on November 7 and November 14.

"The English Rugby League are looking at the logistics of where but the dates have been confirmed," said NZRL chief executive Phil Holden.

Warm-up matches were yet to be finalised but Holden was confident at least one match would be added to the itinerary.

"We're working through that and there are a couple of options there. I'm pretty confident that we'll have something either on the way up there [to the UK] or over there."

A meeting between the Rugby League International Federation members in Brisbane last week involved talks about increasing the amount of international fixtures and improving the competitiveness and commercial viability of the game.

The Four Nations tournament is set to be scrapped with the international calendar set for an overhaul following the 2017 World Cup.

As part of the proposed revamp, the introduction of a new mini-tournament in the middle year between World Cups might replace the Four Nations, and a return to old-style tours is also on the cards.

Reports from Australia have suggested a Nines tournament could replace the Four Nations model while Holden said a Confederations Cup format might be in place by 2019.

"One of the big topics was the Four Nations as a structure and as a tournament. We're going to review that. Is it time to change, can we do something different, and what does that look like," Holden explained.

"In the short term, [we were] looking at the 2018 to 2021 period. There could be more of a mini-tournament between the World Cup, potentially 2019, of some description, a Confederations Cup, so we've got agreement on what that might look like. Potentially the tour model might come back on to the agenda for 2020 and 2021 would be the World Cup.

"There's a lot of work to be done but that was broadly where we've ended up. Everybody was thinking that might actually be a model that could be explored."

Stand-alone tests against Australia are set to continue at the discretion of both nations and Holden is intent on growing the national game by increasing the amount of international football the Kiwis play.

"We don't have a big professional competition like England and Australia so our needs are quite simple, we want to play more regularly and we need to make it more commercially viable."

The RLIF are also due to confirm both the qualifying structure for the 2017 World Cup and the appointment of a new CEO, amid rumours that an offer has been made to a candidate from a rugby union background.

"There's been an offer made to an individual. The only people who know who that is are the Appointments Panel and there's only three of them. I don't know who that person is so I can't comment," Holden said.

The schedule
2015 Kiwis tour of England
First test: Friday, October 30
Second test: Saturday, November 7
Third test: Saturday, November 14
Venues: TBC