How can Ireland be thriving on broadly the same levels of union income and exactly the same number of pro teams?To a casual observer – and in rugby there are plenty of those – the situation is bewildering. Wales have won more grand slams in the Six Nations era than anyone bar France, who drew level with them on four last season. They boast one of the biggest and most charismatic stadiums in the world and – more of an intangible, but very real all the same – rugby runs more deeply through the nation’s culture than anywhere else in the northern hemisphere.Yet Welsh rugby’s facade has imploded this past fortnight. Sitting bottom of the Six Nations table after two...
The club has railed against the WRU’s ‘Project Reset’ and the courts could become involved in a fight for their identityWhen Mike James, for a few minutes longer the chairman of the Ospreys, sat down at lunchtime on Tuesday to talk to his Welsh Rugby Union counterpart, Gareth Davies, his mind could have drifted back 20 years, to when the two were allies against the governing body in one of the many bitter battles waged in the country in the professional era.James was then bankrolling Swansea while Davies was the chief executive of Cardiff, two clubs who that season rebelled against the WRU by arranging friendly matches against England’s leading clubs rather than take part in competitions organised by their...
Of the five Champions Cup groups, Pool 5 looks like going down to the final weekend – with one point separating the top three: Bath, Toulon and ScarletsTake nothing away from Wasps’ hugely impressive victory against La Rochelle but the absence of Victor Vito, Levani Botia, Pierre Aguillon and Jason Eaton from the starting XV must be taken into consideration. Wasps certainly learnt from their mistakes of seven days previous however, were far more physical in the collisions and had Danny Cipriani in fine fettle at fly-half. It is not so long ago that Wasps were in somewhat of a crisis, languishing down towards the foot of the Premiership table amid a terrible run of injuries. Elliot Daly may yet...