Category: Rugby Union

Rugby Union News

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Wallabies star Jordan Petaia walks away from rugby union to chase NFL dream

  • Petaia joins international player pathway programme
  • 24-year-old heads to Florida in ‘once in a lifetime’ move

Former Wallabies player Jordan Petaia will pursue his long-held dream of playing in the NFL after being handed a prized spot on the league’s international player pathway (IPP) programme.

The 24-year-old was announced as the first athlete of the programme’s 2025 class on Tuesday. Petaia will head out to the US in January for an exclusive 10-week training camp in Florida before he gets a shot to impress club scouts and win a place on an NFL roster.

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Carreras runs the show as Gloucester end Northampton’s unbeaten home run

  • Northampton 17-25 Gloucester
  • Santi Carreras confounds Saints’ comeback hopes

We were denied the consummation of another comeback from the dead, but we were treated to the usual entertainment all the same. Northampton’s struggles continue, here surrendering a 17-match unbeaten run at home. Gloucester, though, after an exhilarating opening 40 minutes move ever closer to the playoff zone with a win high on charisma and grit.

Rory Hutchinson missed a late penalty for the Saints, which would have earned them a bonus point, but the champions could not recover from the boundless energy with which Gloucester ran them ragged in the first half. Both sides chucked the ball around with abandon, often to their own players, but quite often to the opposition. It just added to the breathlessness.

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Ireland 22-19 Australia: Autumn Nations Series rugby union – as it happned

A winning send off for Andy Farrell as Ireland come from behind to beat the Wallabies

8 mins. Valetini flies through the lineout to yoink the ball away before the tap down from Ryan can reach Gibson-Park; a magnificent bit of larceny from the Australian. This puts the visitors on the attack in the Irish half

6 mins. It takes a while to complete the Irish scrum just outside the Wallaby 22, which in the end results in a free kick to the home team. The ball is tapped quickly by Gibson-Park and a tidy pass from Prendergast finds Keenan on the gallop up to the line, but Kellaway rattles the ball out in the covering tackle to deny the fullback. Knock-on, and Australia clear from the scrum.

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Premiership returns amid fanfare but old problems lurk in background | Michael Aylwin

Despite likely record ticket sales over Christmas, financial and physical health of clubs and players still a concern

With the timing of George Furbank on to a Fin Smith cutout pass, or that of any of the myriad attacking talents in English club rugby, the Premiership’s PR team ushered in the return of domestic fare this weekend by releasing a load of positive numbers. They refrained from deploying a load of exclamation marks too, but a few of those would have been perfectly consistent with the general vibe. The Premiership is back! And it’s never been better!

First, boringly, to debunk some of the hyperbole, most of the stats relating to the uptick in viewing figures and attendances across the first six rounds of this season were positioned relative to last. Apparently, cumulative audiences on TNT Sports are up by 30% on this stage of the season last year; 21,000 more matchday tickets have been sold, an increase of 15%. But the start of last season coincided with the end of a World Cup, which tends to diminish figures for the domestic game.

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Suaalii wins fitness battle to start in Australia’s Dublin date with Ireland

  • Tane Edmed gets surprise selection in replacements
  • Farrell retains Prendergast at fly-half for the hosts

Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has won his battle to be fit for Australia’s final Test of their British Isles tour and will hope to bow out against Ireland in the spectacular fashion that he began on his debut against England.

Coach Joe Schmidt, hoping to down the team he once led to glory for six years, has also offered up one final surprise selection to finish the rugby year as he’s primed to make replacement fly-half Tane Edmed the Wallabies’ record-extending 19th debutant of 2024.

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Search for next head coach to lead Wales Women begins

The Welsh Rugby Union today began its search for the next head coach of its Wales Women’s senior side. This appointment will underline the WRU’s commitment to the women’s game and its new headline five-year strategy for Welsh rugby, launched in June. The new head coach for the national side will lead a 37-strong squad […]

The post Search for next head coach to lead Wales Women begins appeared first on Welsh Rugby Union | Wales & Regions.

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RFU’s annual report shows a worrying decline. Has it lost its purpose? | Gerard Meagher

Beneath headline figures of the chief executive’s bumper income, what does the RFU stand for and want to achieve?

There have been suggestions in recent years, little more than rumours – though plenty of them – that the Rugby Football Union’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, might have been preparing his exit strategy. That finding a replacement for Eddie Jones could be his parting gift, that negotiating the new eight-year agreement with the Premiership could be his intended legacy. Eventually the whispers grew loud enough that Sweeney publicly denied it and, after it emerged on Monday he was paid £1.1m thanks to the maturation of a bonus three years in the making, we appear to have a pretty good idea as to why.

The first thing to say about Sweeney’s eye-watering raise – a performance-based payment of £358,000 on top of a base salary of £742,000 – is that you can hardly blame him for taking it. Admittedly, he will have likely negotiated the details of the long-term incentive plan that has so lined his pockets but would you really expect him to turn it down? The blame lies with the RFU’s board and remuneration committee for signing off on a scheme that has made Sweeney the best-paid chief executive of a UK sports governing body – excluding payouts – at a time when 42 redundancies have just been made and a loss to reserves of £42m has just been announced.

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