The dominance of Leinster, Munster, Glasgow and Ulster in the Champions Cup was a result of performances as eye-catching as their resultsSo let’s just examine the old scoreboard. Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Glasgow played Northampton, Leicester, Clermont Auvergne and Racing Métro in the European Rugby Champions Cup last weekend and the supposed English and French heavyweights, as they say on television sports-news bulletins, may want to look away now. Adding the four results together makes for distinctly one-sided reading.So here are those stats in full: Pro12 4 Premiership/Top14 0. Tries scored 16, tries conceded 7. Points for 137, points against 56. A star-studded Wasps did beat Connacht at home on Sunday but even that was less than straightforward. How different...
Dylan Hartley’s greatest opponent is himself, Jamie George and Owen Farrell can both replace him and it was a good weekend for the Irish If Dylan Hartley had not been sent off we would all be talking about Leinster’s excellence. Perhaps we still should be; even when they were down to their third-choice fly-half the Irish side looked revitalised, for which credit must go both to the players and, in particular, their reshuffled coaching panel. The contrast with Northampton’s flat-footed start was particularly glaring, as the home skipper Tom Wood made abundantly clear after his side’s 37-10 home drubbing. Ultimately though, Hartley’s 58th-minute red card for a forearm smash to the back of Sean O’Brien’s head was the kind of...
This week the 131-year-old club accepted voluntary liquidation, but heart can be taken from their wonderful history and the example of their neighbours RichmondThe red dragon was still fluttering above the clubhouse at Old Deer Park this week as the veterans of Richmond Lawn Tennis Club, suitably swaddled against the chill, played gentle mixed doubles on their new all‑weather courts. In the shadow of the tall pagoda, a benign sentinel on the other side of the wall separating the playing fields from the botanical wonderland of Kew Gardens, a lone groundsman steered his tractor back and forth, the rotating tines of his aerator cutting into the firm going. In the mid-morning gloom, a couple of cricketers were practising in the...
Lions coach named Andy Farrell, Steve Borthwick and Rob Howley in his backroom team but also has a few fascinating elements in place for the New Zealand tourThe beauty of every British & Irish Lions tour is the delicious uncertainty, despite the rather limited shock factor created by the announcement of Warren Gatland’s three assistant coaches.Gatland continues to believe the odds can be overturned in New Zealand and, together with his lieutenants Andy Farrell, Rob Howley and Steve Borthwick, has been busy incorporating some fascinating elements into his plan for next summer. Related: Warren Gatland names Steve Borthwick and Andy Farrell in Lions coaching team Continue reading...
Against Leicester the Northampton wing hit his head hard, went limp, and lay motionless – so why was he allowed to play on in the match?George North never much liked to talk about concussion. In 2015 he was ordered to take a four-week lay-off because he had taken four bad blows to the head in five months. In the end it was nine weeks before North could say he felt OK and almost six months before he was able to play. In one of the few in-depth interviews he did give on this topic, to Rugby World, North explained that he considered quitting for good. “I thought: ‘I don’t deserve this, I don’t need this hassle in my life.’” At...