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Continue reading...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?
Continue reading...All Blacks begin search for new coach after ‘gutted’ Scott Robertson departs
Robertson leaves role two years into four-year contract
Decision to part ways comes after internal NZR review
Scott Robertson has stepped down as New Zealand coach following an internal review of the All Blacks’ performance.
Speculation over Robertson’s future has mounted since December amid reports of friction between senior players and All Blacks staff.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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
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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Better late than never: fans relive watching their teams end a long wait for a trophy
Several teams got their hands on silverware at last in 2025. Here supporters talk about the pain and pleasure of finally winning
16 March 2025: Won Carabao Cup, beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley, their first trophy in 56 years
Continue reading...Sale squad’s ‘honest’ meeting with owners has reset ambitions, says Sanderson
Sharks seventh in Prem heading into Harlequins match
Director of rugby Sanderson: ‘It wasn’t a crisis meeting’
Alex Sanderson has said an “honest” meeting of Sale’s owners, players and coaches this week has set their intention for the Boxing Day encounter with Harlequins and beyond.
The Sharks are seventh in the Prem table, with two wins from seven, and were soundly beaten by Northampton at Franklin’s Gardens last Saturday. Their most recent Prem victory came against Newcastle on 10 October, and the director of rugby knows they need to start winning to have any chance of reaching the playoffs for a fourth straight season.
Continue reading...The life of a rugby league referee: fit, fanatical and fuelled by self-belief
A new documentary film shows elite referees are dedicated, passionate and desperate to get decisions right
Fifteen teams are currently grinding their way through pre-season training before the new Super League season. No, the Rugby Football League has not suddenly decided to promote London to the big time. The people who will make the decisions on the pitch without touching the ball are also preparing for the season by hitting the treadmills, pushing weights and running laps at their base in the Etihad Campus in Manchester.
You can get a good idea what that looks like in a new documentary called Beyond the Whistle, which follows the highest-profile British referees through the 2024 season. The 40-minute film focuses on the battle between Liam Moore and Chris Kendall to be the league’s top referee, how the group copes when new rules are foisted upon them, and the work done by head of match officials, Phil Bentham.
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