Nations Championship: Fixtures, standings and Ireland’s chances

The inaugural Nations Championship tournament resumes on Friday when Ireland host Argentina at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 8.10pm).

The competition is at the halfway point of the group stages, with three rounds to be played over the coming weeks followed by a final weekend of playoffs at the end of the month.

The 12 participating nations have been divided into two geographical groups of six, with the countries that contest the Six Nations – Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy – making up the northern hemisphere group.

They face the six teams from the rest of the world – New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Fiji and Japan

At the end of the six rounds, each team is ranked from first to sixth in their respective group. In the playoffs, each team plays the side with their corresponding rank from the other group.

[ ‘We’ve got work to do’: Sexton says Nations Championship a test for Ireland’s World Cup ambitions ]

The bottom-ranked sixth-placed side from each group will meet to determine who finishes the tournament ranked 11th, with similar corresponding pairings determining the final positions all the way up to the inaugural champions, which will be the winner of the playoff between the two first-place group teams.

These six playoffs are to take place in Twickenham on the last weekend of November. The 11th and fifth-placed finals will take place on Friday, November 27th, followed by the ninth and 3rd-place playoff finals the following day and the seventh and first-place finals on the Sunday.

Ireland sit fourth in the northern hemisphere group standings on 10 points following their wins over the Wallabies and Japan and the loss to the All Blacks during the southern series in July.

France faced the same opponents over their opening three fixtures, similarly earning bonus-point wins over Australia and Japan. While they too lost to the All Blacks in Christchurch, Les Bleus picked up two bonus points in defeat, putting them top of their group on 12 points.

At home for the three upcoming northern series fixtures, Ireland and France again face the same opponents – Argentina, Fiji and South Africa. For Ireland to top the group in order to contest the Nations Championship final, it is likely Andy Farrell’s side will need to win all three games while also hoping France slip up.

Scotland are second in the group on 11 points, while England are also on 10 points, but above Ireland on scoring difference. Gregor Townsend’s and Steve Borthwick’s charges both took wins over Argentina away and Fiji and were defeated by South Africa in July. Fiji had to sacrifice home advantage, so played their southern series games in the UK.

Scotland and England will host New Zealand, Australia and Japan over the coming three weeks, further underlining the likely need for Ireland to pick up three wins to have a realistic chance of topping the group.

South Africa and New Zealand are the only unbeaten sides in the tournament, both with a maximum 15 points from their three games so far. The Springboks arguably have the tougher run-in, opening their northern series against Italy on Saturday before meeting France on Friday week and then taking on Ireland on November 21st.

Even so, the back-to-back world champions are now evens favourites to win the championship, with New Zealand 3/1, and France looking good value at 7/2. England are 17/2, Ireland 14/1, and Scotland 25/1.

It should be interesting.