Cross-code star Joseph Suaalii will partner Len Ikitau in midfield for Australia’s season-ending Test against Ireland in Dublin on Saturday.
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.
Continue reading...Josh Adams is back and raring to go!
Warren Gatland could get a post-Autumn Nations Series boost this weekend with the return to action of British & Irish Lions wing Josh Adams for Cardiff Rugby in their BKT United Rugby Championship derby clash with the Dragons at the Arms Park. Adams joined up with the Wales Squad for training during this month’s trio […]
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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 […]
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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.
Continue reading...Williams quits Japan and rejoins Saracens
Wales and British & Irish Lions full back Liam Williams has rejoined Saracens for the rest of the season. The 33-year-old has won 92 caps to date for his country and played in four tests for the Lions on two tours. He spent the last year playing for Kubota Spears in Japan. He made his […]
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The Breakdown | Modern Test margins can be wafer thin but winners and losers are clear
The Springboks are head and shoulders above the chasing pack and the Autumn Nations Series has raised the stakes
First among equals There is still the small matter of Ireland v Australia on Saturday but that is not going to alter this autumn’s unavoidable fact: South Africa remain the best team in the world. Or, to boil it down to its essence, the hardest to beat. They can bash teams up, slice them open out wide, kick them to death or simply outlast them: in short, they have every angle covered. The outstanding Pieter-Steph Du Toit was a deserving winner of this year’s men’s World Player of the Year award in Monaco on Sunday but, in truth, it could have been any one of several Springboks. Eben Etzebeth and Ox Nché were right on Du Toit’s tail and Cheslin Kolbe and Siya Kolisi, among others, finished the year in splendid form. France were the other unbeaten autumn side, beating the All Blacks, Argentina and Japan, but Ireland’s sub-par home defeat by New Zealand raised some uneasy questions with Andy Farrell about to switch his focus to the 2025 British & Irish Lions.
Winners and losers Modern Test margins can be wafer thin, as England can testify. But the two sides who have made unquestionable strides since the summer have been Scotland and Australia. The Scots have been building a decent squad for a while, without nailing down all the results they would have wanted. Sunday’s convincing victory over the Wallabies showcased the growing depth and composure of Gregor Townsend’s side; had it not been for a couple of belated Wallaby tries it could have been an even more emphatic statement. Australia, though, were good value for their thrilling win against England and, in the nick of time, have raised hopes of a highly competitive Lions series next year. The biggest losers? Look no further than Wales who have just completed their first winless calendar year since 1937. There is no shame in losing to a team as strong as South Africa but Saturday’s 45-12 home defeat in Cardiff starkly illustrated the issues now facing the Welsh game.
This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
Continue reading...‘Message of unity’: New Zealand divided over All Blacks’ haka detail in TJ Perenara’s final Test
All Blacks legend TJ Perenara has come clean on his decision to use his final haka for New Zealand to make a big statement on the nation’s controversial Treaty Principles Bill.
Borthwick’s new England are stuck in a time warp with few signs of change | Gerard Meagher
Morale-boosting win over Japan cannot conceal issues facing a coach who could be running out of time
As is standard practice, after one last night together, perhaps sharing a collective sigh of relief at ending their losing streak against Japan, England’s players have returned to their clubs. Less common is that the coaches do so too but Joe El-Abd’s Oyonnax are currently third bottom of the French second division and needs must.
That El-Abd will spend most of the next two months in the foothills of the Jura mountains as part of his job-share arrangement is, to borrow a favourite phrase of the Rugby Football Union, suboptimal. Not least because, after the nine-try win over Japan, the captain Jamie George acknowledged what has been obvious to most observers – that England’s defence, nicknamed “the Hammer”, is their biggest work-on. George reckons it is 80% of the way there, but there has been a significant step backwards since Felix Jones was consigned to video analysis purgatory, running hard drives of information across the Irish sea according to Steve Borthwick, as he sees out his notice.
Continue reading...Wales working hard on journey
James Botham is ready to work hard, improve and set new goals for the Welsh team as they prepare to head into the Guinness Six Nations in January after gaining more experience as a squad in the Autumn Nations Series. The Cardiff Rugby flanker put in a huge shift throughout the 80 minutes that also […]
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Autumn learnings will be taken into Six Nations
Warren Gatland is confident that his players will have learned lessons from their defeat to South Africa they will be able to take forward into the Guinness Six Nations in the New Year. Dewi Lake’s side had the final word in the 45-12 defeat in their final game of the 2024 Autumn Nations Series when […]
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McBryde steers RGC to SRC victory over Swansea
RGC made it four wins on the spin at Parc Eirias with a Billy McBryde inspired victory over bottom side Swansea in Super Rygbi Cymru. The former Wales U20 outside half pulled the strings for the Gogs as he ran in a try, kicked two conversions as well as landing five penalties for a 24-point […]
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Titcombe puts the boot into Bridgend to earn Quins a win
Carmarthen Quins director of rugby Steff Thomas was pleased to see his side break their win duck away from home ahead of a testing month. The Quins’ 35-29 bonus-point triumph at Bridgend Ravens was their fourth win in Super Rygbi Cymru this season – but their first away from Carmarthen Park. It was something they had […]
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WRU turnover increases despite ‘challenging year’ for ‘future-focussed’ new CEO
Group Chief Executive Abi Tierney has told the Welsh Rugby Union’s member clubs in the latest annual report ahead of the Annual General Meeting that turnover has increased to £102.7m (2023: £97.9m) during the last financial year and that investments into the game at large totalled £60.4m. The Group’s operating profit before distributions decreased slightly […]
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Grand Slam dream ends: Suaalii hurt as ravaged Wallabies downed by Scotland
Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu scored a try against the land of his birth in a 27-13 win over Australia at Murrayfield on Sunday that dashed the Wallabies’ dream of a Grand Slam.