Category: Rugby

Rugby News

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‘I was knocked for six’: Zander Fagerson on his Lions injury despair and Glasgow’s European quest

The Glasgow prop turns 30 on Monday and helping to raise four kids under seven he is feeling it, but has Saracens to deal with on Sunday first

It is a proper challenge. The screeching pressure, the hard graft, the energy-sapping demands. And all that before Zander Fagerson, father of four kids under seven including 14-month-old twins, heads out for his intense day job with Glasgow Warriors and Scotland. As the big man wryly puts it: “You definitely need a lot more patience with the kids. It’s different stresses. One’s more physical, one’s more mental. I love them both.”

Welcome to Fagerson’s insanely busy life. For him and his wife, Yasmine, “hectic” does not begin to cover it. But talk to him immediately after another full-on session on the training field – “The backs have coffees and do their hair, the forwards are out grafting” – and the British & Irish Lions prop is clearly full of beans. And why not? Glasgow remain unbeaten in their Champions Cup pool and will sit among the top seeds for the start of the knockout stage should they beat Saracens at Scotstoun on Sunday.

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Australia legend Lockyer hopes new Broncos can buck London’s rugby league resistance

Former playing great starts new season as an owner in sport’s second tier aiming to rebuild club who would give British game a major lift if they return to Super League

Darren Lockyer has faced some monumental challenges for club and country but this year his trickiest task may be finding the opponents of his new club on a map as he takes on rugby league’s mission impossible.

Throughout his illustrious career, Lockyer faced Melbourne Storm, Sydney Roosters and some of the world’s best international teams. This year, Lockyer’s interests will be centred on places like Goole, Swinton and Batley after taking ownership of London Broncos late last year and attempting to make them a rugby league powerhouse.

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Razor’s All Blacks lacked sharp edge but sacking Robertson does not guarantee revival | Robert Kitson

There is still time before 2027 World Cup to rescue the drooping silver fern but rebuilding an international team is hard and New Zealand’s aura has faded

As a keen surfer Scott Robertson is well aware how abruptly situations can change. One minute you are riding the perfect wave, the next you’re being dumped from a great height and having your world tipped upside down. Which is essentially how “Razor” will now be feeling after being ousted as All Blacks head coach barely two years into his tenure.

On the surface he was everything New Zealand rugby could have wished for. The serial domestic winner who had guided the Crusaders to seven successive Super Rugby titles, the empathetic everyman with the break-dancing skills to match. If anyone could connect with younger generations and encourage everyone to fall in love with the ABs again, surely he was da man?

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England seek new head coach for Rugby League World Cup after Shaun Wane quits

  • Wane: ‘I believe the time is right to step aside’

  • Successor likely to be part-time appointment

Shaun Wane has left his position as England head coach with immediate effect, leaving the national team on the hunt for a replacement for the Rugby League World Cup later this year.

“It has been the honour of my life to coach England Rugby League over the last six years, but after careful reflection I believe the time is right to step aside and allow the programme to move forward into its next chapter,” Wane said in an RFL statement.

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The joy of watching amateur clubs in the first round of the Challenge Cup

Community clubs were front and centre this weekend, with games from Bedford to Banbridge and beyond

By No Helmets Required

On a gloomy and bitingly cold January afternoon, it was a sight typical of many grassroots rugby league clubs. Midway between the M1 and the A1, a few hundred spectators bustled through the busy clubhouse to gather around the pitch. There was a bloke in a Wakefield away shirt, another in a Hull FC coat and someone wore a Castleford hat. The home coach was a Cas lad; the visitors’ delegation was led by a Warringtonian. There were folk sporting their allegiances to Salford, St Helens, Hull KR and Wigan too.

Muddy kids in rugby kit chatted excitedly. One boy asked his mate what all the fuss was about. “It’s the Challenge Cup. It’s like the FA Cup,” said his friend. I heard another explain the difference between union and league – “there’s no lineouts or mauls and they don’t have proper scrums” – which was a reminder we were in Bedford, not Bradford.

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Henry Pollock: ‘I don’t look at a challenge and think what could go wrong? I’m just excited’

Strip away the peroxide hair, the TikTok dancing and the trademark try celebrations and the Northampton and England flanker has a white-hot ambition to be the best

Next Wednesday will be Henry Pollock’s 21st birthday. You slightly feel for his family and friends: what do you buy a guy with the Midas touch? Two tries on debut for England in Cardiff, a British & Irish Lions tour of Australia and a world breakthrough player of the year nomination would be prized accolades for anyone, let alone a bleach-blond tyro with nine Prem starts.

A bottle of HP Sauce as an ironic gift, maybe? Sitting across the table in a snow-dusted Northampton is a young athlete who enjoys a bit of banter. But strip away the peripheral stuff – the hairstyle, the black headband, the TikTok dancing and the trademark try celebration – and most striking is his white-hot ambition. “I’m just a normal kid who has this amazing drive to want to be the best,” he says. “I’m never satisfied in anything I do.”

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Callum Chick revels in Northampton’s chase of lost causes after culture shock

With Saints riding high, back-rower explains how being recognised in the street makes it different from Newcastle

To see what Callum Chick brings to any side he plays in, watch the 55th minute of Northampton’s electrifying win at the Rec last Saturday. Henry Arundell is speeding down the Bath right, nearly into Saints’ 22, after a defensive error by Henry Pollock. A try for the champions looks a certainty before the flanker desperately dives at Arundell and dislodges the ball from his grasp.

A dextrous pick-up by George Hendy allows him to sprint downfield before setting up Pollock to dive over – 13 seconds after Arundell was threatening at the other end.

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Harry Randall and buoyant Bristol keen to carry form into new year

England scrum-half returned from injury to a side on the crest of a wave and will hope to catch Steve Borthwick’s eye

Harry Randall and Bristol enter the new year with high hopes. The scrum-half has returned to fitness ahead of schedule after hamstring surgery and marked his 150th Bears appearance in the win against Newcastle last Saturday.

Pat Lam’s side approach the Prem encounter with Sale at Ashton Gate on Friday after five straight victories, sitting fourth in the table, their attractive style having clicked. A fresh assault on the playoffs looks likely.

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Bullish Bristol believe Rees-Zammit’s NFL spell has improved his rugby

  • Wales back returned to UK without playing NFL game

  • Pat Lam: ‘It’s made him a more rounded player’

The Bristol director of rugby, Pat Lam, has said Louis Rees-Zammit’s recent NFL tilt made him a stronger and more dangerous player.

The Wales back joined the NFL’s international pathway programme in January 2024, and was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs before a spell at the Jacksonville Jaguars. He returned to rugby after 18 months without playing an NFL match, signing for Bristol in July. Lam said that since signing for the Bears, the 24-year-old has been working to reach match fitness, but that his increased power has made it harder for opponents to stop him.

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Travball emerges, athletics surges, Brisbane basks in success: Australia’s biggest sporting moments of 2025

An Ashes-defining intervention, an NRL showstopper, and new hope forced on the AFL are among our writers’ great moments in Australian sports this year

The highly anticipated Ashes was quickly torn apart by Travis Head’s cameo at the top of the order that has since turned into a much longer stay. The NRL grand final was another scene for an all-time breathtaking display, as the Broncos joined the AFL’s Lions in making Brisbane the epicentre of Australian sport. Here are our writers’ sporting highlights of 2025.

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Tom Jenkins’s best sport photographs of 2025

The Guardian sport photographer selects his favourite images he has taken this year and recalls the stories behind them

This is a selection of some of my favourite pictures taken at events I’ve covered this year, quite a few of which haven’t been published before. Several have been chosen for their news value, others purely for their aesthetic value, while some are here just because there’s a nice story behind them.

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Tommy Freeman hat-trick topples Bath and sends Northampton to Prem summit

  • Bath 21-41 Northampton

  • Visitors run in six tries at Rec to leapfrog rivals in table

The champions have been mugged at home by the team they deposed. Well, not quite the team. Northampton rung the changes for this match, but the understudies proved the stars of the show to terrorise their hosts. Six tries, a hat-trick for Tommy Freeman and the lead, no less, of the Prem for good measure.

The bookies gave Northampton a 20-point head start for this one. In the end it was Bath who needed it. Bath were at full strength, the Saints some way short of it, but this will surely prove one of the performances of the season.

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