No10s end a 35-international match gap since Wales last scored with a drop goal and help win a game in which they were outscored by three tries to twoWales used to be the masters of the drop goal. A method of scoring that has become an endangered species accounted for more than one-quarter of Barry John’s points tally for his country. In one club match for Cardiff, when two of Llanelli’s back-row forwards were his brothers who had threatened all sorts if they got hold of him, the game’s greatest fly-half barely made a break or passed all match, but his four drop kicks delivered a 12-9 victory.Before Sunday’s effective group decider against Australia, it had been 35 internationals since...
Physicality has become imperative in international rugby and few young sensations possess enough of it in those early daysWith only 11 Super Rugby appearances under his belt, 19-year-old Jordan Petaia is in the Australia squad. In a group that has more caps than any previous World Cup squad, an average of 45 per man, he’s a bolter. Yet to get on the field and gain a cap – that will probably occur in the games against Georgia and Uruguay – he has been on everyone’s radar since his Brisbane State high school days. It is great to see and fills us with excitement that we may be witnessing the birth of a new rugby star. It also got me thinking....
The Australia wing caught Fiji’s Peceli Yato in the head with a shoulder and didn’t use his arms, World Rugby’s tackle directives could not be clearer – yet no action was takenFor 15 minutes the Sapporo Dome sounded as loud as any other ground in the game. And then the rugby started. The volume was ear-splitting in the minutes before kick-off, while the stadium PA was pumping out music, but it fell almost entirely silent in the very second the New Zealander Ben O’Keeffe blew his whistle.It was so quiet in the first half that you could clearly hear the players shouting to each other over the murmurs of the 40,000-odd people in the ground. It made it all feel...
Whatever the outcome of the Folau hearing, Michael Cheika is leaving Australia in six months, and the Tigers are in need of revitalisationIsrael Folau’s future in rugby union will be determined by a tribunal sitting in Sydney this weekend. The three-strong panel, which is made up of two experienced lawyers and a senior sports administrator, will decide whether a social media post by the Waratahs and Wallabies full-back contravened the code of conduct that forms part of his contract with Rugby Australia.Folau’s employer – who had previously warned the devout Christian about posts that, in demonstrating his faith, called on “sinners”, including homosexuals, to repent or face the consequences – served notice on him last month with three years remaining...
If it comes down to a decision between religion or career he will surely go for the former, but it should not have to be that wayIt has been a week since Israel Folaus latest comments on social media saying hell awaits drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists, idolators, and I havent been surprised at all by the reaction. Ive struggled really with it all because while Im definitely not going to defend what he said, my faith has also taken a bit of battering over the past seven days.Easter weekend is the most important in Christianity so it seems like a good time to try to provide a more level-headed view on this situation. On the one hand,...