I feel sorry for sports fans who are worried we’re going to lose the Rugby Championship hosting to Australia.

But, welcome the real world post-Covid.  This is what’s its like trying to convince the Labour-led government to grant border exemptions. 

The problem as we’ve discovered in the last 24 hours is this:  Given our success in eradicating Covid briefly, SANZAAR said New Zealand was the preferred host for the Rugby Championship. 

It would mean the Australian, Argentinian and South African rugby squads flying here for the entire six week tournament. They would still, though, have to quarantine. 

And this is the trouble. Our rules are a bit arbitrary: as it stands, players would have to quarantine for 3 days, get their day three test, and if they pass, then head out into training bubbles of 15 and finish the rest of their quarantine in training. 

Turns out though, Australia is a bit more common-sense with its rules.  It’s prepared to allow the players to go straight into training quarantine with their entire squad and use that entire two week period to train for the competition. 

On the strength of that, Australia is now looking like it could pip us to host the championship. 

That training, by the way, is really important when you consider for example the South African team, some of whom play in South Africa, many of whom play in Europe.  Those guys don’t play together regularly and really need as much training time as a complete squad as possible. 

Now the obvious thing to do, you’d think, is for the Labour-led government to bend the rules to match Australia.  There’s no real risk to the community if they’re in their training quarantine.  And bubbles of 15 seem arbitrary. 

And given that SANZAAR is only due to announce its decision later this evening there is hope that labour might yet change its mind.  I hope it does. 

But this is exactly the problem that we’ve been raising about the government’s border approach for months now: they’re not leveraging our recent Covid-free status to bring in people and money.

The government could’ve drawn in huge amounts in offshore investment from the world’s wealthy who want to put their money and their families in a safe place.  The government could’ve said yes to tertiary students.  Australia is already trialling letting them in.  the government could’ve said yes long ago to the visa holders who were grant exemptions yesterday.   

If you can do it safely, what’s the problem?  Why do you need arbitrary rules like bubbles of 15?  

So, if you’re finding the rugby situation frustrating, I don’t blame you.  Welcome to the club.