While New Zealand focus on skills training in their youth teams, too many others emphasise strength and conditioning to the detriment of players’ ability to thinkHow do you solve a problem like New Zealand? It has been a question that has been asked down the ages and as the All Blacks troop to Soldier Field in Chicago on Saturday looking for a 19th Test victory at Ireland’s expense, heads are being scratched harder than ever. And for Australia’s head coach, Michael Cheika, after his grumpy media conference following his side’s latest defeat to their rivals, irritation has become the sincerest form of flattery. Related: Jerome Kaino: ‘I do feel American, I like it when I see rugby growing in America’...
This week’s roundup also features an homage to Garth Crooks, an angry goalkeeper and a behind-the-scenes look at the Long Room1) After 137 caps and 71 goals for Germany, Miroslav Klose has retired from football at the age of 38. Who can forget that hat-trick in Germany’s 8-0 trouncing of Saudi Arabia in 2002? Spoiler alert: it features some pretty rank defending.2) It’s once more unto the breach then for Wales this Saturday … they’ve lost their past 11 matches against Australia, the last nine of which have been by less than 10 points, and in five of the last six they have been within a try. The exception is last year’s World Cup pool match when Warren Gatland’s side...
Is it any wonder that players from northern clubs are a rarity in the England team when the national side sticks to Twickenham?Welcome to the month of November when half the world’s planes seem to be stuffed with rugby players. Most have no choice if they wish to pursue their chosen trade. Ireland and New Zealand are in Chicago this week while Australia and South Africa are in London. Fiji are training in Toulouse, with England opting for a short warm-weather break in Portugal. There are almost as many gumshields passing through departure lounges as giant Toblerones.There is good reason for this hyperactivity. The game is increasingly global and spreading the gospel can be lucrative. The All Blacks are not...
The Australian Jason Ryles has been hired to ‘crank up intensity’ at the training camp where Jones must evaluate Courtney Lawes’ and Dylan Hartley’s fitnessThe last time England’s rugby players came out to Portugal to prepare for a big game against South Africa was in 2007 during the brief reign as head coach of Brian Ashton. It was an odd period with varying opinions on the best way forward, not least from within the dressing room. England, then as now, had injury concerns and ended up losing 36-0 to the Springboks in Paris.They did, admittedly, bounce back to face the same opponents in the World Cup final but Eddie Jones, as he made clear in the Algarve sunshine on Monday,...
Owen Williams struggled at outside-half for Leicester, Exeter have picked up Bath’s old habit of losing close games and the outlook is grim for Gavin Henson“Three weeks,” was Richard Cockerill’s reply when asked when Manu Tuilagi would be back from his latest injury. It has become a stock answer, but the England centre may actually be back on 20 November. Leicester need him as they try to inject consistency into a campaign of highs and lows and overcome the loss of the Australian midfielder Matt Toomua to a knee ligament injury. They played Jack Roberts and Peter Betham in the centre at Saracens with Owen Williams at outside-half, but there was little sense of direction and too many of Leicester’s...