Sportblog | The Guardian — Jonah Lomu RSS

Sep 23, 2022

Cap the Haka? Research and rugby face off on All Blacks' iconic war dance | Daniel Gallan

Research finds players who perform war dances reach elevated heart rates before their rivals. Is it an unsporting advantage?Should the Haka be scrapped from rugby? Let’s ask a different, less inflammatory question. If the New Zealand Haka and equivalents like the Fijian Cibi and the Tonga Sipi Tau provides an unfair advantage to those teams that perform it before kick off, should there be a limit on when and where those teams can do so?Research conducted this year at the University of Queensland’s School of Human Movement found that players who performed these war dances reached elevated heart rate levels moments before the start of the match. Those squats and lunges are the equivalent of undergoing a warm-up while the...

Apr 04, 2021

Like a push-start taxi, my career covering rugby has gone from one breakdown to another | Paul Rees

For his final Observer report, our stalwart writer offers his reflections on decades covering a sport rich in drama and spectacle but that now stands at a crossroadsThe car was a cross between a Lada and a Trabant, a cut-and-shut probably. It was parked in a taxi rank outside the one hotel in Bucharest that had any swank or alcohol. It was 1994 and the following day Wales were playing Romania as punishment for making an early exit from the World Cup three years before. The International Rugby Board had held a media conference about nothing very much and it was time to retire to a modest establishment on the outskirts of the city to serve up the match preview.Behind...