Head coach draws on Rumble in the Jungle tactics to ease England to long overdue victory against the Springboks and extend his winning run to 10 gamesThis being Remembrance weekend, the match began with a minute’s silence and England’s players wore red poppies as well as red roses. But this past week marked another, far more trivial, anniversary too, one that went unlamented. Saturday was a year and a day since Stuart Lancaster quit as England’s head coach after the debacle of the World Cup. In terms of personnel, this England XV was not all that different from some that Lancaster fielded during his four years in charge. The pack was pretty much exactly the same as the one he...
The Springboks came to bully England but the scars inflicted by All Blacks thrashing were brutally exposed by a moment of slapstick at TwickenhamSo, South Africa remained unbeaten against England for a week shy of 10 years, a run of 12 matches. It was an impressive record. It is something to cling to. And they will take anything just now.This was a dispiriting prick of the balloon – and balloon-thick is South Africa’s confidence at the moment. Now they must add the 37 points conceded here to the 57 they shipped last time out a month ago to the All Blacks – at home in Durban. Lob in a host of other indignities over the last couple of years –...
The threat of a crushing defeat to South Africa lurks on Saturday, so the England coach is forced to continuously find new ways of ensuring his players never stop improvingAside from the first pictures of Donald Trump inside the White House there was no disputing the week’s most terrifying image. Those cold-hearted racer snakes lying in wait for young marine iguanas on Sir David Attenborough’s wonderful new BBC natural history series also happened to be an ideal allegory for the treacherous landscape of professional sport. To elude crushing disappointment requires determination and, above all, resourcefulness when it matters.In many ways that is Eddie Jones’s key attribute; it takes more than a pack of biro-wielding snakes to deter the wily, fast-talking...
Win that ended the world champion’s run of 18 victories was a perfect tribute to the talismanic Irishman who died suddenly in OctoberIt was as if Anthony Foley was looking down on Ireland as the players formed a huddle before the start of last Saturday’s Test against New Zealand in Chicago. Ireland were hoping to prevent the All Blacks from extending their record of 18 Test match wins and shaped themselves into a figure of eight, the number worn by Foley, who died suddenly last month, for Shannon, Munster and Ireland. Related: Wounded New Zealand face race to regroup for Ireland rematch in Dublin | Brendan Fanning Continue reading...
The prop who is set to equal Jason Leonard’s 114 England caps against France on Wednesday is too busy being part of the revolution in the women’s game to think about retiringBeing compared with Jason Leonard is not necessarily every young girl’s dream. For Rochelle Clark, though, there is no bigger honour than to draw up alongside the legendary prop as the most capped England rugby player, male or female, of all time. “It’s great to have my name associated with the ‘Fun Bus’,” acknowledges the 35-year-old Clark before her record-equalling 114th cap against France on Wednesday.A few minutes with “Rocky” is an education. This is a woman who turned up 24kg lighter for her third cap than for her...