Innholdsfortegnelse for May-2018 i Rugby World

“Rugby needs a common sense approach to referees” IN THE space of four days last month, rugby was twice caught in a refereeing controversy. They were amateurish cases at the so-called ‘elite level’ and all of it could have been avoided with a little common sense. A quick recap. First, World Rugby replaced Marius van der Westhuizen with Nigel Owens as assistant referee for England v Ireland after the South African officiated at England training before the Test. Then a trio of Romanian officials took charge of the Belgium v Spain match in the Rugby Europe Championship. A win for Spain would put them through to RWC 2019; a defeat would see Romania qualify. Spain lost 18-10, with Belgium’s Vincent Hart kicking six penalties. The ugly scenes at the end,…

FRI 30 MAR Champions Cup Quarter-final Scarlets v La Rochelle (5.30pm) TV Live on BT Sport Challenge Cup Quarter-finals Newcastle v Brive (8pm) TV Live on Sky Sports Pau v Stade Français (8pm) TV Live on BT Sport Super Rugby Chiefs v Highlanders (7.35am) Rebels v Hurricanes (9.45am) TV Both live on Sky Sports Tyrrells Premier 15s Bristol v Saracens British & Irish Cup Quarter-finals Jersey v Doncaster Leinster A v Munster A Greene King IPA Championship Richmond v Nottingham Principality Premiership Aberavon v Bedwas Bargoed v Cardiff Carmarthen Quins v Ebbw Vale Llandovery v Newport Neath v Merthyr RGC 1404 v Cross Keys Swansea v Pontypridd SAT 31 MAR Champions Cup Quarter-final Munster v Toulon (3.15pm) TV Live on Sky Sports Challenge Cup Quarter-finals Connacht v Gloucester (1pm) TV…

1 New Zealand Dr Deb Robinson, the former All Blacks team doctor, is New Zealand Rugby’s first female representative on the World Rugby Council. Robinson (below right) is currently the Black Ferns doctor and says: “Player welfare is at the forefront of a lot of what World Rugby is doing. I can offer expertise in that area.” In other news, last year’s Lions series helped New Zealand Rugby to deliver a record profit of NZ$33.4m (£17.5m) while Crusaders and All Blacks prop Wyatt Crockett will retire at the end of this year. 2 Colombia Colombia Women (above) were the surprise qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics and now the country’s U18 girls’ team have made history by earning a spot at this October’s Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. They beat…

 IT’S FANTASTIC that Ireland have won the Six Nations. To have two of the toughest possible away fixtures, in France and England, and come through to win a Grand Slam is huge. It’s only our third one ever, which puts them in the history books. “You have to beat New Zealand if you’re going to win a World Cup” Post World Cup 2015, we knew that Ireland had to build strength in depth. It meant capping boys on summer tours, during autumn Internationals, adding depth at the provinces. And it’s now showing up in the team. Dan Leavy has come through really well, as has Jack Conan. We have CJ Stander at No 8, another part of that destructive young back row. That nine-ten axis is so important, as is…

NICK EVANS’S first impression of Marcus Smith actually came second-hand. He was away the week the teenager from Brighton College came in to train with Harlequins last season but when he came back there was “a lot of buzz” around the squad. “The first internal feedback I heard was that he got straight in there as a young kid and was bossing the senior guys around,” recalls former All Blacks fly-half Evans, who is now part of the Quins coaching team having retired at the end of last season. “I’d never met him but thought straightaway that it was good he was comfortable coming in and being authoritative so young.” This is Smith’s first season full-time at Quins but he hasn’t had the luxury of staying under the radar. First,…

For several years the 19-year-old Glasgow back-row, and younger brother of Scotland prop Zander, has been mentioned as one of the country’s hottest emerging talents. With increasing game time under Dave Rennie (below), he’s dreaming big in his debut season as a pro… How’s life as a full-time player? Loving it. Dave is great for young players. We all feel comfortable. He is very one-on-one and will always tell you exactly what he wants. What’s it like having Zander as a team-mate? He’s been a massive inspiration. There’s only three years between us but he’s done a lot already. Watching him going into the pro environment so young really spurred me on and gave me the belief that it was achievable. I teach him a few things about how to…

DUTCH COURAGE Henley Hawks’ Archie van Dijk made an unexpected debut for the Netherlands U20 team in their 42-10 defeat by Portugal in Lisbon. The full-back’s selection followed a chance chat with a spectator from the Netherlands after he played for Major Stanley’s XV against Oxford University. “It was a bit random,” explained Van Dijk. “I had a beer with the guy and he suggested I get in touch with the national team. So I sent some footage over and they were impressed.” STEPPING BACK Long-serving Michael Harrison, Wharfedale’s chairman of rugby, is stepping down at the end of the season after being in charge of rugby matters at the Two North club for 35 years, either as head coach, DoR or rugby chairman. He will be replaced by player…

ROSS PURPOSE Herefordshire side Ross-on-Wye are making their mark under coach Lee Osborne, a Gloucester centre in the 1990s. Ross are one of two North Midlands clubs – Bredon Star the other – who opted to play in the region to reduce travel. They’re in Gloucester Two but look promotion certainties after taking 14 try bonus points from 16 straight wins and averaging 47 points a match. It included a 90-0 victory over Cheltenham Civil Service. STRONG TRAVELLERS Exmouth have been ‘nilled’ only twice in 78 away games since the start of the 2012-13 season. That period spans three spells in South-West Premier, in which they currently play, and two years in National Two South. The second scoreless instance was when they conceded 28 points to Brixham this winter, three…

“I got a digital guitar from the Eighties. I used it twice, then never touched it again” What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen on the pitch? Against Edinburgh last season I got my shorts and boxers pulled down in a tackle. Luckily I kept the front up but my bum was on show for a good ten seconds on BBC2, so I wasn’t too happy about that. One of my housemates had it as his profile pic on Facebook for a bit! Who are the team jokers? In the Ulster squad it’s Craig Gilroy. He likes to do practical jokes. They’re pretty standard, like jumping out and scaring boys, but he does it pretty regularly. In the Ireland squad, John Ryan is good craic. He’s a funny guy. What are…

YOU SCORE a hat-trick of tries on your 18th birthday when playing at prop in a schools game televised live across New Zealand. Surely you’d be on top of the world. Yet for Taniela Tupou that high quickly became an all-encompassing low. The footage of his performance for Sacred Heart College against Kelston Boys’ High School in Auckland in May 2014 quickly went viral. ‘Tongan Thor’ was an internet sensation – but then came the backlash. It’s probably worth providing some background before we get to that. Tupou, born in Vaini on Tonga’s main island of Tongatapu in 1996, is the youngest of 11 siblings – he has three brothers and seven sisters! In 2010 he was part of a Tongan U14 team that toured New Zealand and played various…

“He doesn’t have a 75% button. Even in training it’s 100%” ROB HARLEY is not your average rugby player. That became obvious when he did an interview a few years back and revealed that, inspired by the work of the Portuguese novelist José Saramago, he was writing a piece of fiction about a leftist revolution. Harley is a bright boy. “I brought him to Glasgow as a young man and he’d do things like read a history of Russian written in French,” says Sean Lineen, the man who preceded Gregor Townsend as coach. In the affectionate words of his ex-Glasgow team-mate Jon Welsh, Harley is “one of the weirdest guys I’ve ever played with”. His advice to Harley? “Don’t change for anybody. Stay weird.” When Harley broke Graeme Morrison’s Glasgow…

“It’ll be a cracker of a Commonwealth Games – but a cut-throat one too” PRIOR TO the 2010 Commonwealth Games, I hadn’t ever coached a team as machine gunners and snipers manned the clubhouse roof to cover each corner of the pitch, but I ticked that box in Delhi. It was a surreal experience, from being in the bowels of the stadium for hours in ridiculous heat waiting to march out at the opening ceremony, to the cheering local crowds, their excitement peaking when the ball was kicked to touch. It was incredibly hot during the tournament, too. The run of the England team I was coaching ended in the semi-finals as we lost to a New Zealand team that included All Blacks Ben Smith, Hosea Gear and Liam Messam.…

OTHER CLUBS may recognise the cycle: you get stuck in a losing rut, players lose heart, some give up altogether. That was certainly the mood at Eccleshall, who won only one match last season and sank to Midlands Four West (North). And now? The Staffordshire club are flying. Take February: first, a 47-20 romp at Aston Old Edwardians after a delayed start caused by prop Josh ‘Punchbag’ Denning forgetting the kit. Next, a 22-17 win at Essington by a scratch team. Eccleshall had trailed 17-0 in that one and they needed all their powers of recovery a fortnight later to edge out Wednesbury 24-17 in a county cup semi, having had a player sent off early on. In between, they put Bloxwich to the sword 81-26, a match that saw…

JESS BREACH could hardly have announced herself on the world stage with more aplomb. With 11 tries in her first two appearances for England against Canada last November, a new star in the women’s game was born. So there was some surprise when Breach decided not to continue her starring role on the England wing and switch her allegiance to sevens, where she is already up and running and scoring tries on the World Series. “It was a new opportunity in a very exciting time for sevens and I felt it was right to look at something different,” says Breach, who won the European Sevens Championship with England U18 in 2004 and 2005. “I played some representative sevens when I was younger and I had a student contract, so I…

RUN HALTED Dudley Kingswinford’s 14-match unbeaten run in One West ended with a 24-20 defeat at Stoke. DK were depleted by injuries but DoR Neil Shillingford believes the setback will motivate his squad. He said: “It will be just another learning curve for us. We’ll keep chasing those bonus-point wins.” WHEAT FREE A novel farmers’ day at Market Rasen & Louth is set to raise more than £1,000 to be split between the club and the Lincolnshire & Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance. It was the brainchild of club member Matt Neesham, who approached local farmers, of which he is one, to donate a bucket of wheat each that was sold on the day Rasen played Huntingdon & District in One East. Their ground was also the start point for a fund-raising…

FOREIGN AID Northwich, who play in One West, have received an unexpected but worthy request from Gaz Davies, their former captain, who is involved with Vorarlberg RFC in Austria. He said: “Since moving here I’ve been playing for the club that was established four years ago. But they barely have a full squad, no clubhouse, no pitch on which to train, and also need equipment. “They’ve found a football club that will allow them to use their facilities but at a price. So they’ve started a crowdfunding campaign to raise the cash. Contributors can donate as little as ten euros and will receive a thank-you gift from Vorarlberg rugby. We’ve had a good start to the project and got Exeter Chiefs involved.” GARDEN PROJECT Yorkshire Two club Yarnbury are creating…

Players are taken off for no other reason than that they are tired HOW WOULD the watching public have reacted if Alistair Brownlee had signalled to the officials overseeing the last changeover zone of London’s Olympic triathlon final that he was simply too tired to carry on after his swim and cycle, and would it be okay if his equally talented brother, Jonny, did the run on his behalf? People would have felt robbed of becoming emotionally involved in seeing if Alistair could ignore an oxygen debt roughly the size of the US trade deficit and win gold. It’s why people are in awe of elite sportsmen and women, and it’s why we care enough to keep watching. A rugby match lasts 80 minutes because whatever level you play that’s…

ROMANIA WILL open the 2019 World Cup against hosts Japan at the Tokyo Stadium, having squeaked through the European qualification process in March. The Oaks, who thus maintain their record of playing in every World Cup, were assured of their place after results went their way on the final day of the Rugby Europe Championship. Despite losing to Grand Slam-winning Georgia 25-16, Romania secured a spot in Japan courtesy of Spain’s 18-10 defeat in Belgium – you can read about the controversy surrounding the Spanish result on page three. Traditionally, Romania are a powerhouse in Eastern Europe and Championship winners Georgia had already booked their spot at the World Cup thanks to their showing in 2015. Yet automatic qualification for the Romanians had seemed unlikely after their poor showings this…

“These players prove there is lots to be excited about – but we must also protect future generations” THE LIKES of Jacob Stockdale, the first player to score seven tries in a single Six Nations, Matteo Minozzi, who is adding a new dimension to Italy’s back play, and England Women’s teenage dynamo Ellie Kildunne all came to the forefront of the game during the Six Nations, writes RW editor Sarah Mockford. With the arrival on the Test stage of these rising stars, Rugby World decided to scour the globe to reveal the 50 best young players in the world right now. Some names will be familiar, others not so, but all are destined for big futures. THIS LIST highlights the sheer amount of quality and potential coming through in rugby…

COULD WALES have a future 100-capper on their hands? Leon Brown has 97 to go after last autumn’s Test baptism. Injuries have since impeded his progress, but at 21 the tighthead’s best years lie ahead of him. Here’s his story… I’m an only child. It’s just me and Mum (Sally). My nan and granddad live close and my uncle, Anthony, and three cousins live round the corner. My dad left when I was three or four, probably earlier. I’m the first in the family to play rugby. I was seven or eight when a mate asked if I wanted to go along to St Joseph’s rugby club in Newport. We didn’t have enough for a team so trained for about a year. I played there until I was 16. I…

“Teams target tens – you have to shut up shop” CRICKET MAY have been Dan Jones’s passion when he was younger but he’s now trying to bowl over opponents with his all-round game for the Scarlets. He enjoys playing the odd game at the crease for Carmarthen Wanderers in the off-season, but rugby is now his sole focus, with the Scarlets’ bid to defend their league title coming into view. Jones admits he’s played far more in this campaign than he expected, having been sent away by Wayne Pivac to improve his defence at the start of the season. Injuries and Rhys Patchell’s Wales call-up have seen Jones start a dozen games at fly-half this season. “Wayne told me to go and work on the defensive side of my game,”…

“The game is changing. Boys are bigger, more powerful” NOTHING COMPARES to the honest delight of a young player discovering new things. So when Scotland’s Darcy Graham says the World Sevens Series is “class”, you wish you were on the same voyage. Graham has impressed on the circuit this season. He could easily have been in awe of so much of it, though. He tells Rugby World: “I’ve never really travelled, so all of this is awesome. There are six of us in the family and my dad is self-employed. We never really had the money to go on holidays. So I’ve loved the sevens – I get to see the world. “My first big trip was to France for the FIRA U18 competition. My first legs of the sevens…

EARLY EXIT Lowestoft & Yarmouth’s days in London Three Eastern Counties ended with a 106-0 defeat at Thetford. It prompted the club to withdraw from the league and accept ‘early relegation’ to Eastern Counties One without penalty. They had lost all their 16 games and chairman Russ Wilkinson said: “While I realise this is a significant step, it’s the only sensible option to allow the club to rebuild and protect its players.” A lack of front-rows strengthened their decision and they exited the league in arrears after a five-point deduction. GOING ONE BETTER Trojans No 8 Alex Williams got a hat-trick in the Hampshire Bowl final but was still outdone. Opposite number Anthony Fooks grabbed all four tries as Portsmouth beat the holders 29-22 in a thrilling final played in…

LIKE MOST youngsters, when I arrived on the pro scene in my early 20s I had already spent a good few years feeling like I was Billy Big Balls. There is something about the hyper-macho nature of rugby which taps straight into the inchoate ego of a teenager, with often unpleasant results. The young rugger lad, assured of his physical dominance, has a smug swagger which proficiency in the bassoon or World of Warcraft can never hope to recreate. Plus, there is a certain type of school/parent/adolescent girl which for some reason attach particular merit to success on the rugby field, and all that constant affirmation can bring out the worst in a confused, hormonal young chap. I was by no means the worst example of a puffed-up young baller.…