Waratahs coach Darren Coleman was given credit for navigating “three challenging seasons” but won’t get a fourth after the battling Super Rugby outfit confirmed he wouldn’t be offered a new contract.
Tony O’Reilly: the Lions cub who earned place in Irish sporting folklore
Before entering business, O’Reilly played rugby for Ireland and the Lions and could have been ‘one of the world’s greats’
Tony O’Reilly has died aged 88 and this week’s business pages will pay tribute to a titan of the corporate world who struck commercial gold with Kerrygold and built a hill of beans with Heinz. It is a sign of a life remarkably well lived, then, that his name will also always have a place in the pantheon of Irish sporting heroes and prompt a wry smile whenever rugby union’s classic old-school anecdotes are retold.
As a player good enough to have been selected as the youngest Lion in history when chosen to tour South Africa as a teenager in 1955, O’Reilly might have reached even loftier heights in the game had his burgeoning business career not intervened at the age of 26. There was to be one last impromptu hurrah, however, when he was famously recalled seven years later to face England at Twickenham.
Continue reading...Sports quiz of the week: Real Madrid, Tom Daley and Women’s FA Cup final
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Continue reading...Blair Kinghorn: ‘The mentality at Toulouse is that we win trophies’
The Scotland back couldn’t be happier after switch to French club who face Harlequins in a Champions Cup semi-final
It’s been five months since Blair Kinghorn decided to move from Edinburgh to Toulouse mid-season. He’s played 10 games and won every one of them. Toulouse are second in the Top 14, two points off Stade Français, and have a home semi-final against Harlequins in the Champions Cup on Sunday.
Kinghorn has scored six tries and eanred himself a spot in a freewheeling backline that includes Antoine Dupont, Romain Ntamack, and Thomas Ramos. He’s been playing in front of a 20,000 home crowd every other week. And he and his fiancee are settled into their new house, next door to his friend and teammate Jack Willis.
Continue reading...Sports quiz of the week: Issy Hobson, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Monty Panesar
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Continue reading...Spotted: Schuster sighting sparks possibility of shock Des reunion — NRL Transfer Whispers
Could the Gold Coast Titans be considering handing out-of-contract utility Josh Schuster an NRL lifeline?
England star tasered twice by police, convicted of assault in ‘unfortunate misunderstanding’
England and Saracens forward Billy Vunipola was convicted of assault and injuring a police officer in Mallorca, a Spanish court said Tuesday (AEST).
‘He’s got time’: Wallabies legend Drew Mitchell confident Michael Hooper can make Olympics squad
Former Wallabies star Drew Mitchell has backed Michael Hooper’s quest to represent Australia in rugby sevens at the Paris Olympics after the former skipper made an encouraging start to his career in Hong Kong.
‘Can’t believe it’: NSW Waratahs clinch ‘crazy’ golden point victory against Crusaders
Waratahs’ fans have always been a faithful and patient lot, able to cling to the slimmest glimmer of hope when everything else seems lost.
Former All Blacks assistant Mike Cron joins Wallabies coaching staff
Renowned scrum doctor Mike Cron has joined the Wallabies coaching staff.
Former Wallabies captain Michael Hooper to play first sevens game for Australia in Hong Kong
Wallabies legend Michael Hooper will take his first big steps towards the Paris Olympics when he makes his rugby sevens debut for Australia in Hong Kong next weekend.
Six Nations produces vintage year despite the usual winners and losers
Even with Ireland once again top, a middle England, and Italy and Wales battling at the bottom, the tournament still thrills
At first glance not an awful lot changed during the men’s Six Nations championship this year. Ireland and France occupied the table’s top two positions, as they did in 2023, with Wales and Italy in the bottom two and England and Scotland once again the meat in the club sandwich. Ireland, for the third year in a row, had the meanest defence and only the winless Welsh, strangely, managed to score more tries than last year.
Yet if this was not a vintage Six Nations in absolutely all respects, the old tournament is enjoying a refreshing renaissance. The competition is now so tight that 10 of the 15 matches were decided by four points or fewer, including all three of the final-round games. If Netflix cannot stitch together an award winning series from the stunning “Super Saturday” footage alone it should abandon its fly‑on‑the‑wall cameras and walk away.
Continue reading...Ireland ready themselves for South Africa as Scotland rue near misses
After a successful Six Nations Peter O’Mahony’s men will now face the sternest test of all against the world champions
It was not quite what the Irish were dreaming of after maximum points from the first three rounds, but back-to-back championships puts this Ireland team in a small elite of Six Nations champions. They become the sixth team to have managed the feat and, interestingly, only the third, after Wales in 2012-13 and England in 2016-2017, to follow up a grand slam with the title. It is as if teams really want to beat you when you are grand-slam champions.
Peter O’Mahony had the air of a satisfied man. Twelve years after his Ireland debut, this has been his first full campaign as captain. It was, perhaps harshly, pointed out to him that he had never won a thing in nigh on 15 years as a captain (of Munster and intermittently Ireland), and now he has won twice in 10 months (Munster won the United Rugby Championship in May).
Continue reading...‘I feel like a different player’: George Ford hails England’s new approach
Performance against France leads to new belief that Borthwick’s men have turned a corner with attacking tactics
For England the sense of deja vu was inescapable on Saturday night. As Thomas Ramos lined up the 80th-minute penalty to seal the narrowest of victories for France, minds spooled back to Paris and South Africa’s Handré Pollard doing precisely the same thing in the World Cup semi-final. If the fact that they emerged on the right side of a thrilling denouement just a week earlier demonstrates the fine margins of professional sport, England could be forgiven for getting that sinking feeling once again.
But this one will not hurt for as long or cut nearly as deep. Optimism abounds for Steve Borthwick’s side. The World Cup exit was greeted with a degree of respect that a limited team had scraped their way to the last four but, on the evidence of their valiant defeat in France and thrilling win against Ireland, England have rediscovered themselves. They have finally found an attacking edge that went missing in the second half of Eddie Jones’s reign and their supporters are swooning again.
Continue reading...France 33-31 England: Six Nations 2024 finale – as it happened
France needed a late Thomas Ramos penalty to win a nail-biter in Lyon
2 mins. England recycle the restart and boot it back to France who decide it’s the kind of night whereby they will go wide early, and have already had Fickou chucking the ball through his legs as an option. This move gets them outside the English blitz via a Depoortere run up the left touchline before England scramble and force him out.
At the second attempt (don’t ask), Thomas Ramos punts the ball deep to get us underway.
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