Exeter still on the up, Wasps feel the noise, Scarlets in nod to Super Rugby and Leigh Halfpenny provides good news for Lions and Richard CockerillThe Premiership semi-final victory over Saracens was another coaching triumph for Rob Baxter and his management team at Sandy Park. It was not so much revenge for last year’s defeat in the final at Twickenham as confirmation that the Chiefs have improved since then, learning from each new experience in their remarkable rise this decade. Saracens have become the most proficient team in Europe at attacking from set pieces, able to create space out wide and score tries, a quality that helped them defeat Munster and Clermont Auvergne in the latter stages of the European...
Dylan Hartley’s greatest opponent is himself, Jamie George and Owen Farrell can both replace him and it was a good weekend for the Irish If Dylan Hartley had not been sent off we would all be talking about Leinster’s excellence. Perhaps we still should be; even when they were down to their third-choice fly-half the Irish side looked revitalised, for which credit must go both to the players and, in particular, their reshuffled coaching panel. The contrast with Northampton’s flat-footed start was particularly glaring, as the home skipper Tom Wood made abundantly clear after his side’s 37-10 home drubbing. Ultimately though, Hartley’s 58th-minute red card for a forearm smash to the back of Sean O’Brien’s head was the kind of...
Maro Itoje has a perfect mentor at Saracens, home truths for Exeter and New Zealand-born Joey Carbery shows he has a bright future at LeinsterYou can read Robert Kitson’s tribute to Anthony Foley, the Munster head coach who died aged 42 before his side’s scheduled match against Racing 92 in Paris on Sunday, here.Sometimes it is less the number of games a sportsman plays than the heart and soul he pours into the jersey he wears. Anthony Foley had the rare stamina and inner passion to satisfy both criteria, which is why the desperately sad news of his death at the age of 42 cast such a depressing shadow over European rugby. Foley was not just any old retired player;...