Confusion over rescheduling of Clermont Auvergne game adds embarrassment to injury on worst weekend for English clubs in Europe’s top tournamentThe pantomime season is upon us but farce is rugby union’s recurring speciality. How else to explain the sight of Clermont Auvergne thrashing a pallid Saracens in one of the year’s supposedly highest‑profile club fixtures in front of a paltry audience on a freezing Monday teatime in Mill Hill?To decree, as the European Professional Club Rugby did in a belatedly rescinded statement on Sunday night, that the rescheduled game would be held behind closed doors was ludicrous from everyone’s point of view – players, coaches, fans and sponsors. The natural disruption caused by a snowy weekend should not obscure the shambolic...
The Champions Cup holders have lost three consecutive Premiership matches for the first time since 2010 – Clermont should expect a reaction this weekendIn order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate. So wrote René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher Saracens players have become used to discussing in a group organised by the club’s psychologist, David Jones, as part of the club’s team-building ethos.There will be contemplation aplenty at Allianz Park after the defeat at Harlequins last Sunday meant the European Champions Cup holders had lost three consecutive Premiership matches for the first time since 2010, the season they made their breakthrough after years of inconsistency. Related: Richmond show part-time may be the way forward...
Brave new Europe sees ferocity on the field but ruthlessness away from it is putting game in danger, and not just for the Welsh, Scottish or ItaliansIf the loss of a team’s opening two games in Europe is enough to consign their hopes of progress to dust – and it almost always is – then this season’s champions will come from England, France or Ireland. “What’s new?” cynics might ask. “We’ve always known that.” And they would be right. But there is something to be said for hoping, at least, that a Welsh, Scottish or Italian side might make the quarter-finals.There is no such hope this time. When the Ospreys’ exhilarating attempt to storm fortress Barnet fell three points shy...
Nathan Hughes mars a fine display with a swinging arm, Morgan Parra’s injury causes head injury assessment concerns and Jonny May lifts Leicester to the topNathan Hughes was voted man of the match for Wasps and rightly so for a fine showing, full of aggressive running. Eddie Jones was in attendance to see his performance and the national No8 jersey is in effect his, considering Billy Vunipola’s long-term injury. Both – along with Joe Marler whose yellow card may well have been red – may have an uncomfortable wait for the citing commissioner’s report however, following a swinging arm to the head of Marcus Smith. It was an ugly moment and one that could mean Hughes faces further repercussions. It...
The mercurial fly-half is flourishing in perfect conditions at La Rochelle yet England’s refusal to select players moving abroad shows no sign of easingLeone Nakarawa has already made a formidable case to break the sequence judging by his performance against Leicester but it is a feather in the cap that the last five European players of the year are English. It will please the Rugby Football Union that among them are Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje – acclaimed for Saracens’ success in the last two seasons – but go back a little further and there is cause for embarrassment at Twickenham.The three previous winners were Jonny Wilkinson, Steffon Armitage and Nick Abendanon – the last for his exploits for Clermont,...