Category: Rugby

Rugby News

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Is Prem rugby union turning into basketball? Nailbiters supply case for defence

Record try-glut in round one suggested all-out attack is en vogue, but maybe you can defend well and still concede tries in the modern game?

After one weekend of the Prem season the feeling was we had crossed the Rubicon. A remarkable 52 tries, eclipsing the previous record for round one despite the fact that fewer matches were played added further weight to the argument – a criticism and a compliment – that the English club game is creeping closer towards a form of basketball.

Then came round two and 41 tries. A sizeable number, certainly compared with seasons of yesteryear, but equally giving a sense that defences had their day in some cases. Sale’s gritty victory over Saracens was a dogfight, Leicester’s win over Newcastle wasn’t pretty and while Bristol ran in six tries against Northampton, their success owed everything to defensive steel.

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London Broncos graded below Barrow but still set for Super League place

  • Championship winners only 16th in new IMG gradings

  • NRL money contingent on London Super League side

Runaway Championship winners London Broncos have been graded below even Barrow Raiders for next season – but they are still set to become the 15th team in an expanded Super League next season, the Guardian can reveal.

The Broncos have swept aside the second tier in 2026, winning all three domestic trophies on offer after assembling a squad filled with NRL talent. Under the ownership of Kangaroos great, Darren Lockyer, London’s goal was two-fold this year: to dominate on the pitch as well as making a push for the top 14 in the Rugby Football League’s gradings system.

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Wallabies back Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii on wing for first Bledisloe Cup Test against All Blacks

  • Australia coach Les Kiss calls up Isaac Henry to start at Eden Park

  • New Zealand hit hard by injury before home rugby international

Australia coach Les Kiss called up rookie Isaac Henry and retained star back Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii on the wing in a settled team named Thursday to face New Zealand.

Four-Test Queensland Reds midfielder Henry will start at outside centre in the first Bledisloe Cup Test at Eden Park on Saturday, two months after making his debut against Japan in Osaka.

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Saracens’ Brendan Venter takes aim at ‘autocratic’ Prem over media duties

Technical director held court at club’s training base, comparing rugby to winemaking and claiming interviews ‘steal my joy’

Brendan Venter began his long-awaited public appearance with head bowed, uttering one-word answers and a general demeanour he would rather be anywhere else. By the end he had compared Prem Rugby to an “autocracy”, mentioned Ukraine and Gaza, and detailed an inspirational talk he recently gave at a school. Of course there was wine to talk, too.

An audience with Saracens’ technical director and head of culture is rarely boring and the latest was worth the wait.

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England hit by slump in Twickenham ticket sales for Nations Championship finals

  • Demand for Springboks and All Blacks outstrips hosts

  • England lost 42-21 to Ireland in last Twickenham game

England have been outstripped by South Africa and New Zealand in demand for tickets for the Nations Championship finals weekend at their own stadium in an embarrassing snub for Steve Borthwick’s side.

Six rankings matches will all take place at Twickenham next month – two on Friday, two on Saturday and two on Sunday – in a culmination of the competition’s first edition. The grand finale on Sunday pits the top nation in the Northern Hemisphere pool against their southern counterparts. Second plays second, third plays third and so on.

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Will London have a Super League team next season? We still don’t know

The Broncos demolished the second tier, winning 26 of their 27 games, but promotion is not only decided on the pitch

By No Helmets Required

Two years ago this week, London Broncos were relegated from Super League, their ground had flooded and their owner had walked away after spending £24m of his private fortune. The club were soon asking supporters to save them. They did – and fans wearing last year’s away jersey listing those saviours’ names (including mine) across their chests were among the proudest people in the ground on Sunday when London thrashed Doncaster 78-6 in the Championship Grand Final.

London Broncos have completed a second-tier treble this season but their fans cannot celebrate promotion to Super League yet. Instead they will spend this week waiting to see if they have made the grade – promotion being decided not only by gradings based on both on-field and off-field criteria but also the key decision on whether to expand to 15 teams.

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Jake Connor is shock omission from England squad for Rugby League World Cup

  • McDermott wants those who ‘can best stick to gameplan’

  • Hull KR’s Lewis in but no Wakefield players included

Brian McDermott, the England head coach, has justified his surprise decision to omit Jake Connor from England’s Rugby League World Cup squad by insisting the players selected are better suited to his plans to defeat the world’s best.

For the second consecutive year, Leeds Rhinos half-back Connor is the major talking point in a squad that has no players from the new Super League champions, Wakefield. He was left out by Shaun Wane for last autumn’s Ashes despite winning Super League’s Man of Steel award. England lost that series 3-0 after a string of limited attacking displays.

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Sam Walker tops off NRL glory with Kangaroos call-up for Rugby League World Cup

  • Roosters’ halfback among six debutants in Walters’ Australia squad

  • Jillaroos veteran Ali Brigginshaw left out of women’s team

Isaah Yeo will delay pectoral surgery to captain Australia’s men’s Rugby League World Cup campaign, after coach Kevin Walters revealed his 23-player squad that includes Sydney Roosters halfback Sam Walker.

One of six debutants in the squad, Walker will be locked in a four-way battle with Cameron Munster, Tom Dearden and Mitchell Moses for a spot in the Kangaroos’ halves.

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Wakefield’s wondrous Super League fairytale a victory for loyalty and logic | Aaron Bower

Owner has put in £10m but seven victorious players at Old Trafford were in the Championship two years ago and stayed at Trinity

It may seem quite obvious to suggest there is plenty Super League can learn from its newest champions but as Wakefield Trinity’s dreams came true at Old Trafford on Saturday evening, it was easy to ponder just how transformational a moment this is for not only them, but so many others, too.

This fairytale has captured the national attention and punctured the mainstream unlike few other Super League stories in recent times. A second-tier club just two years ago, Wakefield are now champions of England and have a possible showdown with the NRL champions, Sydney Roosters, to contemplate early next year in the World Club Challenge.

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NRL grand final 2026: Sydney Roosters 19-18 Newcastle Knights – as it happened

The first wave of Knights successes came against a backdrop of uncertainty about what a post-industrial future might mean for the steel city. Two decades on, for better or worse, working-class Newcastle is now safer, more confident and outward-looking; also more expensive and exclusive.

DCE has spoken to Channel 9 about the enormity of the occasion.

To be honest, just because of the occasion of the grand final, it’s been really easy to put it to the side. I feel like the moment I’ve made it all about myself at any time of my career, it’s never really worked out too well. So real team focus today.

Yeah, really good. The longer turnaround I feel really helped us. We were able to get extra recovery in and then build our week really nicely. So I feel like it was a great week of preparation. And now it’s just trusting that to go out and play… it’s not about any storyline for us tonight. It’s just about getting the job done.

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Super League Grand Final: Warrington Wolves 10-23 Wakefield Trinity – as it happened

Trinity ended fifty-eight years of hurt with a thumping win at Old Trafford

4 mins. A strong carry from Scott takes Wakefield near to the Wire 20m line, but a mix up late in the set leads to an offside off a poor kick. Williams clears the Warrington lines from the penalty.

The next attack from the Wire has Walmsley claiming a towering kick close to the Trinity line, but he can’t do much when he lands and the ball is turned over.

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Bath go top with Finn Russell to the fore in thrilling derby victory against Exeter

  • Prem Rugby: Bath 40-34 Exeter

  • Hosts made to fight all the way in 11-try thriller

Bath went to the top of the Prem after beating Exeter Chiefs in a pulsating West Country derby at the Rec but they were made to fight all the way in an 11-try thriller.

Exeter trailed 26-10 at the interval but rallied to lead 33-31 midway through the second half before a yellow card for scrum-half Stephen Varney eventually proved decisive.

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Wakey-Wakey: Trinity’s rapid rise and Grand Final run shocks fans from long slumber

Club was a ‘shambles’ before takeover by boyhood Wakefield fan Matt Ellis – and on Saturday they face Warrington for the title

Last one out of Wakefield on Saturday, turn off the lights. Some 965 days ago, this story began on a field in Siddal on the outskirts of Halifax with just a few hundred people there to see it: this weekend, one of rugby league’s grand old clubs will be the headline attraction in front of more than 70,000 supporters when Trinity face Warrington in their maiden Super League Grand Final.

It is a rise so rapid it almost defies belief but to understand it you must appreciate where this club were in the food chain even just a few short years ago. It was late 2023 when boyhood Wakefield Trinity fan Matt Ellis completed a takeover of the club; £10m worth of investment later, the results are clear to see on and off the field.

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