England wing admits ‘there have been some dark days’ but his club form has the outlook looking bright for the Six NationsNot long ago international rugby players had time-consuming day jobs. England’s grand-slam winning side of the early 90s contained an RAF pilot, Rory Underwood, on the wing and a surgeon, Jonathan Webb, operating, so to speak, at full-back. In the professional era, as the England wing Jack Nowell is honest enough to admit, it is a slightly different story.In common with many modern pros, Nowell has to endure his share of lengthy injury layoffs and ended up filling his idle days last autumn constructing elaborate Lego models. Among his favourites are a VW camper van with working lights, a...
When Les Bleus face England at Twickenham, imagine a pack with terrifying power and a clever set of midfield backs, running instinctively brilliant linesHere are some names to conjure with: Serge Blanco, Denis Charvet, Philippe Sella, Didier Codorniou, Jean-Baptiste Lafond. Here are some more: Jean-Pierre Rives, Walter Spanghero, Gérard Cholley, Robert Paparemborde, Jean-Pierre Bastiat. All retired players from a distant era, perhaps, but simply writing them down is enough to make you want to rise instantly from your desk, sing La Marseillaise at full volume and launch a hunt for a live cockerel.For those of us from the opposite side of the Channel there was never any doubt about the most breathless fixture in the old Five Nations. True, whenever...
The trip to New Zealand, despite the schedule, can restore faith and the Six Nations is shaping up nicely but with the professional era now more than 20 years old, the sport’s administrators must show conviction in the next 12 monthsThe most pertinent rugby quote of 2016, inevitably, came from Eddie Jones. “There’s only pressure when you don’t know what you’re doing,” murmured England’s head coach shortly before guiding his adopted country to their 13th Test victory of a perfect calendar year. As a short, sharp Twitter-friendly summation of how and why the Australian guru has turned English fortunes around, it was inch-perfect.What would England’s national cricket and football teams do for a milligram of Jones’s self-assurance right now? Maybe...
Leicester City’s unlikely Premier League title is likely to make them favourites, but they will have strong competition from Team GB, Wales’s footballers and England’s rugby union sideIf the most important factor for the judges is which team’s achievement was the most unlikely, they should look no further than Leicester City. Money doesn’t just talk in the Premier League, it stands an inch from your ear and shouts into it with a megaphone, and no one, probably not even Claudio Ranieri’s mother, had Leicester down as title contenders. Promoted from the Championship in 2014, they had escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth and many tipped them to go down after they sacked Nigel Pearson to bring in Ranieri....
The hooker can have no complaint at his six-week ban given his poor disciplinary record and the fact that rugby is cracking down on tackles to the headRugby has always been a game of sliding doors. What if Dylan Hartley had started for Northampton in the Champions’ Cup game against Leinster last Friday night, rather than steaming in off the bench with a point to prove? Would he have administered a swinging arm to the head of Sean O’Brien in a Test-match arena, where his recent disciplinary record is good? Would there have been as much fuss if he was not the current England captain and a potential contender for Lions captain?Questions, questions. What we do know is that Hartley...