{"id":20727,"date":"2025-12-09T09:19:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T07:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/all-blacks-to-play-france-at-new-christchurch-stadium-in-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:31:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:31:59","slug":"all-blacks-to-play-france-at-new-christchurch-stadium-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/all-blacks-to-play-france-at-new-christchurch-stadium-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks to play France at new Christchurch stadium in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The All Blacks will open their 2026 test season against France at the new One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch, more than 15 years after a devastating earthquake hit the city, New Zealand Rugby announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The team have played only five times in Christchurch since the earthquake, which led to the demolition of Lancaster Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the All Blacks to play at the new One New Zealand stadium 15 years after the earthquakes will be a special moment for the team and a significant occasion for rugby at the start of a new era for the international game,\u201d New Zealand Rugby Chief Executive Officer Mark Robinson said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The season opener will start on July 4 in the new-look, 12-team Nations Championship followed by home matches against Italy at Wellington\u2019s Sky Stadium on July 11 and Ireland at Auckland\u2019s Eden Park on July 18.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHosting France, Italy and Ireland in consecutive weeks will be new for our players and it creates three unique match experiences for fans in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland as we kick off the Nations Championship era,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p>The All Blacks\u2019 unbeaten streak of 52 tests at Eden Park will face significant challenges in 2026, first against Ireland and then during the Bledisloe Cup test against Australia on October 10.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20728,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-20727","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The team have played only five times in Christchurch.","published_date":null,"news_description":"The team have played only five times in Christchurch.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24663,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20727\/revisions\/24663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=20727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}