From heroes of Ireland’s historic success in New Zealand to developing nations’ talent, the shining six from recent weeksIreland’s historic first series win in New Zealand was a huge collective effort but Beirne’s blue headguard was everywhere. As recently as 2015 the versatile forward was delivering pizzas and being overlooked for a senior contract at Leinster. A thigh injury in the Six Nations also hampered him but in the last two Tests in New Zealand he was superb, snaffling turnover and lineouts and also making crucial yards. Inspirational. Continue reading...
Lack of clarity about what will happen at the end of the season is unfair to clubs, players and spectatorsAnyone who watched the Premiership game between London Irish and Leicester on Sunday would have been struck by a few things. The first was the venue: how good it is to see the Exiles in their brand new home in Brentford, playing with a renewed sense of purpose. Even their snazzy green kit felt like progress, in contrast to Leicester’s away strip, which has prompted fans to ask if it was designed by a child with a set of crayons.Equally uneasy on the eye was Leicester’s modus operandi. Even in the closing moments, with possession in their own 22 and the...
A one-sided encounter on a cold, wet afternoon illustrated just how much international rugby is missing fansThere is an old story about a rugby correspondent at a local paper who began his report of a particularly dull game by giving the score and mentioning there were a couple of hundred people at the match, then went on to list them all by name until he had filled the space on the page.Sadly, there were so few people here on Saturday that it would be a struggle to make it halfway down this particular page if we tried it again. Related: Jamie George makes history with hat-trick in England demolition of Georgia Related: England 40-0 Georgia: Autumn Nations Cup – as...
England, Ireland and Wales are among the throng pushing to challenge New Zealand as the World Cup enters crunch timeNormal service has been resumed. After the surreal scenes of the All Blacks not being No 1 (Wales were, then Ireland!) they enter the quarter‑finals back at the top of the rankings, rated by the bookies as twice as likely to win the tournament as the second favourites. Don’t be so sure. It goes without saying they remain the best when on form, but that cancelled game might well be more of a hindrance to them than anyone, given that their last meaningful fixture will have been four weeks before their quarter‑final against Ireland. At least Italy would have been semi-meaningful....
In Moscow in 1957 Llanelli players were in a match marred by ‘hideous violence’. They could not have known their more silky skills would leave a lasting legacyOf course rugby has an old law about what goes on tour. Which is why, 62 years later, we can’t be sure exactly what happened when Llanelli went off to play in Moscow at the height of the cold war. The Scarlets were “honoured guests of the Reds” one Welsh paper said, at the third International Friendly Youth Games. Only the competition seems to have been, at points, just a little less friendly than the name suggested. The Soviets did not have a national team themselves but, Llanelli’s then chairman Handel Rogers explained,...