Rugby News
Blues 46-6 Waratahs
NSW finals hopes crushed in seven-try drubbing
The NSW Waratahs’ season of promise has ended in despair with an ugly, record-breaking 46-6 Super Rugby Pacific loss to the Blues in Auckland.
The Waratahs needed to defeat the defending champions for the first time at Eden Park in 16 years to keep their finals hopes alive. Instead, Dan McKellar’s depleted side copped a seven-tries-to-nil drubbing at New Zealand rugby’s burial ground on Saturday.
Continue reading...Free-scoring Bears face Harlequins knowing a slip-up could open the door for local rivals Gloucester
There will be tries. That is hardly a revolutionary prediction in a sport that has long since rained down on us the 21st century’s manna of entertainment at all costs, but even by those standards this weekend’s last round of the Premiership promises bounty.
The science of prediction is at best hit and miss, but one blind alley all too many “experts” get lost down is consideration of tactics, gameplans and the like, when all that really matters is a team’s motivation. Purity of desire is a special ingredient in a side’s prospects for any individual match. This weekend we have five matches, and they all might be summarised as a team with something to play for versus a team with nothing.
Continue reading...Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt is open to the idea of NSW State of Origin star Nathan Cleary switching to rugby union but is focused on the ongoing development of the national team’s current fly-half options, including Queensland Reds No.10 Tom Lynagh.
London Broncos are penniless and on their way to the third tier but the man who ran Leeds Rhinos has a rescue plan
When the most successful rugby league administrator in the country takes over one of its biggest underachievers and promptly gets the backing of major players in the Australian sports market, it’s worth listening to his plans. Last week Gary Hetherington, who spent 29 years as chief executive of Leeds Rhinos, invited politicians, coaches, fans and players to the Australian High Commission to hear what he has in store for London Broncos. And he wants them all on board.
Continue reading...Maroons face uphill battle with series moving away from Queensland
Even so, it wouldn’t be Origin without some chicanery.
As Jack Snape reports, Origin has changed, but its modernisation is helping rugby league reach new heights.
State of Origin has changed in recent years as rugby league leans even further into sports science and professional preparation, and away from on-field violence and alcohol-fuelled bonding sessions…But last year’s series continued to draw millions on television. The three matches were all in the top five largest-drawing sport broadcasts of 2024, and the final match had the highest audience of the three. Indeed, the code appears in a healthy state as it prepares to go to market for a new broadcast deal beginning in 2028. Average audiences for Nine’s NRL games this year are up more than 5%.
Continue reading...Director of rugby said rumours ‘not worth answering’
Leicester prop Dan Cole to retire at end of season
The Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall, has declined to comment on reports that the former club captain and England fly-half Owen Farrell is considering a Premiership return.
Farrell left Saracens at the end of last season after a 16-year stint with the Premiership club. He moved to Paris-based Racing 92, but it has proved a testing campaign for him in terms of injuries and Stuart Lancaster left as head coach in January.
Continue reading...After a taste of the atmosphere during a post-university year travelling I was hooked and the memories will last a lifetime
June 2001. I’m on an overnight Greyhound bus from Cairns to Townsville. A typical post-university year travelling in Australia and New Zealand has taken an unwelcome turn after an equally typical relationship breakup.
Initially there had been no plans to follow that year’s British & Irish Lions tour, even though I had been enthralled by the classic encounter against the Springboks four years earlier. With my newfound freedom it seemed logical to head south, a couple of hundred miles down the coast, to see the legendary tourists in action.
Continue reading...Under Johann van Graan’s philosophy the West Country giants believe they are on the cusp of a return to the top
Trophies. They are like bloody buses. Or at least that is what Bath fans must be hoping. They wait 17 years for one, and along come …
We are about to find out how many. One has just been. The Premiership Cup pulled up in March to fairly inconsequential fanfare. But it looks as if another, the Challenge Cup, is waiting just a stop away, before we turn our attention to a third, the Premiership, timetabled for the middle of June – but you know what these bloody buses are like.
Continue reading...Steve Borthwick believes Henry Pollock can force his way into the British & Irish Lions Test team for the series against Australia this summer despite having just one England cap as a replacement to his name.
The 20-year-old was the headline inclusion in Andy Farrell’s Lions squad last month after a stunning breakthrough season in which he has helped Northampton into Saturday’s Champions Cup final against Bordeaux.
Continue reading...Immanuel Feyi-Waboso is on course to make his England comeback on the summer tour of Argentina and keep hopes of a late British & Irish Lions call-up alive. Steve Borthwick said the Exeter wing was straining at the leash during a mini training camp on Tuesday.
Feyi-Waboso has been sidelined since late December after finally undergoing shoulder surgery that was put off amid confusion as to whether he would go under the knife or not. The delay, which exposed faultlines in the new club and country agreement, was exacerbated because Feyi-Waboso also had a tooth infection but ultimately cost him the chance to stake his claim for a place in the Lions squad.
Continue reading...Northampton and Bath have a chance to restore English rugby to its pedestal, but French foes will have other ideas
It has not happened very often. Just once in the past 20 years, to be precise. Winning a single trophy is hard enough but English clubs hoisting aloft both the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup in the same season would be a proper rarity. Other than the Covid-afflicted year of 2020 when Exeter Chiefs and Bristol Bears prevailed in mostly empty stadiums, the last time there was a Premiership double was in May 2004.
Back then Wasps and Harlequins were the happy couple, beating Toulouse and Montferrand respectively. This week also features two Anglo-French finals with Northampton facing Bordeaux-Bègles in the main event and Bath tackling Lyon in Friday night’s amuse bouche. A measure of the challenge facing the English duo is that French clubs have hoovered up seven of the past eight available trophies, with South Africa collecting the other.
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Continue reading...Next year’s Six Nations will kick off on a Thursday night for the first time in the competition’s history, with the defending champions, France, hosting Ireland, and will take place across just six weeks after organisers removed one of fallow weeks for the championship.
It is understood the unprecedented move to begin the championship on Thursday 5 February next year has been made after input from broadcasters, with the 2026 Winter Olympics ceremony taking place in Milan the following day. It has also been made with the agreement of all six unions.
Continue reading...Incoming Wallabies coach Les Kiss will get an early taste of international rugby when he oversees the AUNZ Invitational XV against the British & Irish Lions in Adelaide.
Queensland Reds mentor Kiss will team up with former All Blacks coach Ian Foster, who was already announced as an assistant for the July fixture, the first time since 1989 that Australia and New Zealand have combined on the field.
Continue reading...Laurie Daley has delivered a selection shock with Max King to make his State of Origin debut as the NSW coach also sweats on a Payne Haas quad injury.
Daley confirmed his side for the series opener on Sunday, with Dylan Edwards retaining the fullback role and Mitch Moses to partner Nathan Cleary in the haves.
Continue reading...An American rugby sevens star is facing a mammoth ban for brutally stomping on the head of an Australian player in an act of “thuggery” on Saturday.