Rugby Union News
Head coach may also consider playing Ben Earl at centre
Marcus Smith left out of matchday 23 to face Australia
Steve Borthwick is considering playing his fast-rising back-row Henry Pollock on the wing at some stage this autumn as he seeks fresh impetus in all areas before the looming November Tests.
The England head coach says he wants his side to hit the ground running against Australia on Saturday and may also start Ben Earl at centre this season.
Continue reading...After successful Lions tour, head coach returns to a side under pressure to prove their best days are not behind them
One minute we’re winding the clocks back an hour, the next we’re hurtling forwards into rugby union’s maddest month. Welcome to the whistle-stop world of the Autumn Nations Series, which, this year, has arrived as abruptly as a cat burglar in the Louvre. Sides that take time to settle into familiar old routines are about to experience a short, sharp shock.
Of course there is the flip side: the main southern hemisphere powers have been smashing away at each other for weeks and certain individuals must be slightly weary. In terms of cohesion and collective readiness to pick up where they left off last time out, however, there is barely a comparison.
Continue reading...Sale No 10’s tactical nous may earn him start on Saturday
Tommy Freeman in contention for outside-centre spot
George Ford is likely to start at fly-half when England begin their autumn internationals campaign against Australia at Twickenham on Saturday.
The Sale Sharks No 10 enjoyed an outstanding summer tour with Steve Borthwick’s side, helping to orchestrate two victories against Argentina and one against the USA, and appears to have stated a strong case for selection.
Continue reading...19-year-old wing scored five tries on first Prem start
Borthwick has picked 36-player squad for four matches
Noah Caluori, the 19-year-old Saracens wing, has been named in England’s autumn internationals squad by Steve Borthwick.
Caluori burst on to the Prem scene by scoring five tries against Sale on 18 October and, as England gear up for a busy November featuring four Tests, Borthwick has called up the uncapped youngster after initially inviting him to a training camp last week. The 36-player squad, including 19 forwards and 17 backs, gathered at Pennyhill Park in Surrey on Sunday night.
Continue reading...Bath 40-15 Bristol
Bath keep up pressure on Saints at top
Bath do not lose often these days, never mind on successive league weekends. And with an injury-hit Bristol supposedly cast in the role of punchbags this fixture was widely viewed as a home banker. Sure enough the defending champions eventually pulled away but only at the final whistle could this feisty, incident-packed West Country derby be classed as wholly comfortable.
It was fractious and visceral enough at times to make next Saturday’s England game against Australia look like a quiet suburban church fete. The England management will be suitably relieved that Ellis Genge, Ollie Lawrence, Guy Pepper and others walked away largely intact but they will all report back to Bagshot feeling distinctly battered and bruised.
Continue reading...Wallabies defeat Cherry Bolossoms 19-15 in Tokyo
Australia hold in wet slog for victorious start to spring tour
Japan National Stadium, home of the 2020 Olympics, has absorbed plenty of moisture over the past 24 hours, and today’s match is likely to be played in persistent light rain. There is little wind to report.
As has been the case for what seems like two decades, it’s near impossible to appraise where the Wallabies are at.
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Continue reading...Prem’s top two meet on Friday night, with Northampton aiming to slow down the Saracens wing’s hype train
Brian Clough famously said that if God had intended football to be played in the sky, he’d have put grass up there. Tactical trends in rugby are moving in the opposite direction though, and with Noah Caluori set to make his second Prem start, Northampton’s high-stakes meeting with Saracens on Friday night promises to be a battle in the skies.
Phil Dowson’s table-topping Saints, champions in 2023-24, are the only unbeaten team remaining after three wins and a draw. Second-placed Saracens are two points back, having scored a league-leading 168 points to Northampton’s second-best 138. Nine players involved in England’s training camp this week will start at Franklin’s Gardens.
Continue reading...Nick Champion de Crespigny to captain Australia in Tokyo
No place for Carter Gordon after return to union from league
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has rested a host of stalwart campaigners and changed all but two of his starting side for Saturday’s Test against Eddie Jones’s Japan, which opens Australia’s end-of-season tour.
Schmidt has kept only halfbacks Tane Edmed and Jake Gordon from the starting team that lost to New Zealand at the end of the Rugby Championship with flanker Nick Champion de Crespigny captaining the new-look side in his third Test.
Continue reading...Tandy names winger in squad after 21-month absence
Rhys Carré also included after he requalifies for selection
Louis Rees-Zammit is in line for an international rugby comeback for Wales next month 21 months after abandoning the sport to try his luck in American football. Rees-Zammit, now 24, is among 39 players named in the first squad to be picked by the new national head coach, Steve Tandy.
The British and Irish Lions winger, who won the most recent of his 32 caps at the 2023 World Cup, made the switch to American football in January 2024 but ended up not featuring in a competitive NFL game. He returned to union in August when he joined the English Prem side Bristol.
Continue reading...Head coach faces delicate balancing act before opening November Test as Saracens’s new whiz-kid enters mix
The lobby of the Pennyhill Park hotel on a Monday evening provides a neat snapshot of English rugby’s fast-changing world. First to amble into view is Noah Caluori, Saracens’s new whiz-kid who has just announced himself with five tries on his first Prem start. He nods a polite greeting and looks every inch a sporting thoroughbred that any national coach would covet.
A couple of minutes later a more familiar face appears. It feels faintly bizarre to be bumping into Joe Marler when, on your television, he is sitting in a Scottish castle with Claudia Winkleman but, hey presto, that’s the magic of showbiz right there. One minute you’re propping for England, the next you’re attempting to out-think Stephen Fry.
Continue reading...England coach talks up 6ft 5in wing’s humility and desire
Door closed on Tom Willis but left ajar for Owen Farrell
England could fast-track the Saracens teenager Noah Caluori into the Test spotlight as soon as next month following the wing’s dramatic start to his top-level club career. The 19-year-old celebrated his first Prem start with five tries against Sale Sharks on Saturday and the national head coach, Steve Borthwick, says he is already in contention for a senior England debut.
It was impossible to miss Caluori’s aerial ability and eye for the try line at the weekend with the former Lions captain Sam Warburton describing the 6ft 5in player as “almost undefendable” and “an absolute diamond”. England have been aware of his potential for a while and it seems that some game time against Fiji a fortnight on Saturday is not impossible.
Continue reading...Saracens’ 19-year-old wing impressed in win over Sale
Jack Willis omitted from autumn internationals lineup
Noah Caluori, the 19-year-old Saracens wing, has been invited to train with England by the head coach, Steve Borthwick, after an incredible five-try barrage against Sale in his first start in the Prem on Saturday.
A 36-man training squad has been named to prepare for the upcoming autumn internationals, with Jack Willis the most notable omission by Borthwick after the No 8’s decision to return to play in France.
Continue reading...No 8 to leave Saracens at end of the season
Only Gallagher Prem players eligible for England
Tom Willis will leave Saracens at the end of the season after signing a contract with Bordeaux that will make him ineligible for Steve Borthwick’s England squad. In a major blow to the head coach, Willis has rejected a new deal from Saracens in order to return to the club where he spent a chunk of the 2022-23 campaign once Wasps had entered administration.
Since heading to north London in 2023, he has established himself as England’s first-choice No 8 and was awarded an enhanced contract by the Rugby Football Union in recognition of the impact he has made.
Continue reading...Fans of his old clubs have chance to show support for their former flanker after shock of his MND diagnosis
Emotions are bound to run high at Welford Road on Saturday, and not just because Bath are in town to renew one of the great rivalries in English rugby.
Not even because Leicester’s round-four date with the reigning champions is a repeat of last season’s final, a little over four months ago, when Johann van Graan’s side resisted a fierce Tigers fightback at Twickenham to claim their first league title in 29 years.
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