Eddie Jones maintains loss to France doesn’t mean anything for Rugby World Cup but noble defeat is becoming a habit for this teamThey lost again. They improved again. They fired some shots but often into their own feet. They dominated possession but didn’t convert it to points. They created lots of chances but squandered plenty of opportunities. They were mostly brave and occasionally stupid. Again.Australia’s 41-17 loss to France piles more pressure on a side already labouring under a 0-5 start to the season. But the coach maintains this latest pummelling doesn’t mean much in the grander scheme of the Wallabies’ World Cup campaign starting on 10 September. Defeat, Eddie Jones says, isn’t another nail in the coffin, it’s another...
None of the red cards, suspensions or social media raging is going to make any difference to a player’s future healthTo go by some of the more hysterical pronouncements during the Owen Farrell affair this past fortnight, the very concept of player welfare has been on the line. Ban him after his red card for a reckless tackle, so the argument goes, and rugby union has a future; let him off, and we will unleash a generation of delinquent psychopaths high-tackling each other into early graves.The ugliest side of rugby in the age of social media has been laid bare once again. The personal attacks on Farrell – and on his father when he had the temerity to call them...
If Eddie Jones’s young team can challenge the World Cup hosts, Australian rugby may just get the ‘historic reset’ it needsThe French invented the amuse-bouche and aperitif to prime the palate before a great feast. The Wallabies will be of similar service when they whet local appetites for the Rugby World Cup in the one-off warmup Test against host nation France on Monday.The Stade de France clash is the fruit of a deal hatched over lunch between the RA chair, Hamish McLennan, and former French rugby boss and World Rugby vice-chair Bernard Laporte in 2021. On the menu in Saint Germaine that day was hare-in-hare-blood-gravy. But the rabbit in the headlights this weekend is Eddie Jones who needs to improve...
Steve Borthwick’s side played with the weight of the world on their shoulders in their first defeat at the hands of FijiWe are running out of synonyms for crisis. Turmoil, disaster, catastrophe, disarray, calamity … put them all together and they barely do justice to England’s predicament. They had never failed to beat Fiji by double figures before this but as the clock ticked down in the final few minutes the Pacific Islanders could bask in the glory of their history-making feats. The blue Fijian flags fluttered in a sun-soaked corner of Twickenham, their supporters dancing with delight. England’s white flags had long since been waved.Fijian pitch invaders were embraced by their teammates, England supporters – those who turned up...
Young Springbok has not played on the outside in midfield since school but looked a devastating natural in his new roleCanan Moodie had never played at outside-centre in a professional game. At least, not until this super-charged Twickenham evening, as fierce a Rugby World Cup warm-up as you will see despite the one-sided scoreboard.In a match where the devastating power of the Springbok pack was again to the fore – when Jacques Nienaber selected a seven-one split in favour of forwards on the replacements’ bench – it may seem odd to focus on a back. But intelligently applied South African power is a given these days, and the 20-year-old Moodie clearly has something special. Continue reading...