Wallabies captain picked up record eighth yellow card of his Test career and had a try disallowed as tourists endured miserable day at the office against EnglandLast week’s abiding rugby image was of a smiling Kurtley Beale, clad only in his budgie smugglers, standing next to Prince William. Seven days on, it was a story of canary yellow and pursed lips. Australia and Beale had their moments, but the loss of two key players to the sin-bin and some desperately tight refereeing calls ultimately denied the visitors another victory party.Had they kept 15 men on the field throughout, who knows? While England looked far more lively, particularly after Maro Itoje’s introduction, they were up against opponents who, on a drier...
Eddie Jones will delight in the way England rode their luck to scramble a win against Australia from the chaos at their intimidating, unforgiving homeThe RFU is spending £50m rebuilding the eastern half of Twickenham. It is putting up a new rooftop rose garden, restaurant and music stage to make the old cabbage patch more welcoming. England, and Eddie Jones, of course, want to do the very opposite thing. The harder their visitors find it here, the happier they’ll be. And since the East Stand is a mess at the moment, all scaffolding, plyboard and piles of breezeblocks, Jones’s work is a lot further along than the builders’. England have not lost here since he took charge, their last defeat...
Australia’s unassailable 8-4 lead in the multi-format Women’s Ashes has left an inconsolable England wondering how it all went so wrongBeth Mooney laced a drive through cover, embraced her stand-in captain, Rachel Haynes, and the home dugout emptied on to the outfield at North Sydney Oval. As Australia celebrated a win in the opening Twenty20 that secured an unassailable 8-4 lead in the multiformat Women’s Ashes, England were inconsolable. With two matches left in this final leg, Heather Knight’s women can salvage the T20 series. But that does not count for much right now.Lord’s feels long ago: 117 days and 10,000 miles to be precise. The summer’s World Cup triumph, unforgettable as it is, provides a thin balm to the...
He may have the No15 jersey on his back but Kurtley Beale will move in tighter because he is an important distributor for Australia, and Eddie Jones will be wary of his influence on Saturday’s game at TwickenhamMichael Cheika put his money on Kurtley Beale and now we are really seeing it paying off for Australia. He lost Matt Giteau, he lost Matt Toomua – two players who can really influence a game – so Cheika identified Beale as his go-to man and he will be the key factor in Australia’s attacking structure on Saturday.Off the field, it looks as if he has really turned himself around – it would be interesting to know how much of a role Cheika...
The older Overton twin is a tall, accurate fast bowler likely to play in the first Ashes Test but there must be no repeat of an ugly incident against Sussex in 2015Amid the hurly-burly and hot air that inevitably accompanies the weeks before the Brisbane Test England have encountered some genuine problems. Ben Stokes is still in the northern hemisphere and likely to remain there; Steven Finn became the late replacement who departed early with a knee problem; Jake Ball twisted an ankle in Adelaide; young fast bowlers like Tom Curran and George Garton have been summoned from afar. But there may be a beneficiary from all these setbacks and that is Somerset’s Craig Overton.Overton was selected in the original...