Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Rugby World

12th Steve Thompson’s documentary – Head On: Rugby, Dementia and Me – first aired in October but it’s still available on BBC iPlayer. If you have a spare hour this month, it’s well worth watching to get an insight into how life has changed for the former England hooker (below). 9th The Champions Cup gets underway this Friday night in Brentford as London Irish take on Montpellier. It could be a fascinating contest under the lights between the power of Montpellier and the free-running game of the Exiles. This year sees teams from the southern hemisphere join the European competition for the first time, with three South African franchises involved. Read Stephen Jones’s verdict on their addition on pages 60-63. 20th Big Game is back at Twickenham for its 14th…

THE RECENT Ireland-South Africa game in the Autumn Nations Series provided some big talking points. Not only was it the return of Rassie Erasmus after his long ban for criticising match officials, but top of the list for me was the ‘tackle’ by Cheslin Kolbe on Mack Hansen, the Irish winger. For some in Ireland, particularly Brian O’Driscoll, the images of this tackle may trigger déjà vu. However, for me there were some key differences. In this incident there is one clear main tackler (Kolbe), who lifts Hansen’s body beyond the horizontal. That sets the alarm bells ringing. Thankfully, he doesn’t drive Hansen into the ground. Kolbe is assisted by Pieter-Steph du Toit but PSDT merely holds Hansen around his hips and falls on top of him as part of…

ROB BAXTER Exeter Chiefs director of rugby “IT’S 11 now. If you want to even up the numbers, it’s ten and everything becomes a little more manageable. The one thing we’ve got to do is get bodies through the gate and people who want to come to those nine home games – they’ve got to become big occasions. “That’s something we have to work on, and it becomes easier when you know they’re nine big home games outside of international windows; everyone is available in a competition that starts to attract more support and coverage as we drive the quality of the games. “There’s never going to be an answer that suits everybody. I don’t think anybody thought going to 13 teams was a good solution to anything. I’d have…

LAURIAN Johannes-Haupt may be the first but she doesn’t want to be the last. When she took charge of South Africa’s U20 women’s team in 2019, she became the first woman to take charge of a national team in the country, but she says: “To me, it’s not about being the first, it’s about creating opportunities for the next and the next generation to come. I’m showing there are opportunities for the next person to come through.” Before we look at the opportunities that have come her way, let’s rewind to the start of her rugby career. She first became enamoured with the oval ball during the 1995 men’s World Cup and remembers watching the final with her parents, but she didn’t take up the sport until nearly a decade…

KAREN BUCHOLZ describes herself as “a sporting tragic”. If there is a major sporting event nearby, expect the Australian to be volunteering at it. Before donning a neon green jacket for this tournament, she had been involved in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, RWC 2003 and the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. She’s already earmarked the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane as another she would like to volunteer for. Getting the nod for this year’s event was not a simple process. As well as the application and interview she had to go through, the fact she is based in Brisbane threw up a few unknowns as to whether she would be able to come across given Covid regulations. In the end, it worked out well, with the trip across…

PORTIA WOODMAN has always been an incredible try-scorer. Take her sevens career. She’s dotted down 205 times on the World Series – 48 more than anyone else! In 15s, she was the top try-scorer at the 2017 World Cup in Ireland with 13, including eight against Hong Kong. Then at this year’s tournament on home soil she overtook Jonah Lomu to become New Zealand’s top World Cup try-scorer with a hat-trick against Australia and then eclipsed former England captain Sue Day’s mark of 19 RWC tries with a double against Wales in the quarter-final. That second try against the Welsh, where she brushed off or evaded a handful of defenders, was Woodman’s 20th in World Cups and puts her out in front in the record books at men’s and women’s…

FOR MANY players, a serious injury can spell an end to any international aspirations. For Evelyn Ashenbrucker, it was the opposite: she didn’t receive international recognition until after being told she’d never play again. In 2018, the second-row was having an operation to repair muscle damage from a dislocated elbow and a surgical error severed a nerve. She was told that, from the bicep down, her left arm would never be fully functional and she would need to relearn how to brush her teeth, hold a steering wheel, tie her shoelaces… A rugby return was not on the cards, it wasn’t even in the deck. “It took me a year to turn a doorknob,” the 32-year-old explains of the recovery process. “I had to focus full-time on being able to…

Rugby’s most outspoken and influential journalist IT IS almost Euro time again, with action beginning in the Heineken Champions Cup and the Challenge Cup on the weekend of 9-11 December. So off we go, still clattering around looking for some precision and sanity in the season structure and European format – this year, it’s new, part exciting, part disturbing. The fixture list, with 24 teams in the Champions Cup and 18 in the Challenge Cup, hints at great rugby but also causes concern that some of the games may not be all they are cracked up to be. And the new format? To make it successful, less of a colossal gamble, it needs marketeers to get seriously stuck in, and let’s pray they do. The average marketing operation selling rugby…

THEO McFARLAND has scored some scintillating tries for Saracens but it’s his all-round skill-set that sets him apart. There are clearly transferable skills from basketball – which he played for Samoa – and the way in which he uses those skills on the rugby field often leaves the viewer in awe. With the Champions Cup back, fans in Europe are in for a treat. McFarland’s ability to handle the ball is incredible, both one-handed and with two. In the lineout, he combines this ability with a comfortable orientation in the air that is reminiscent of a slam dunk or a tip-off contest in basketball. At 6ft 6in and 115kg, his power makes him a dangerous ball-carrier in close quarters. Throw in his explosive speed and footwork and the 27-year-old can…

Email your letters to rugbyworldletters@futurenet.com or write to our editorial address WIN SOME CASH! The Star Letter winner will receive £20 – let us know your views on the game to be in the running STAR LETTER Where’s the love for the tight five? There was a lot of surprise that Ardie Savea wasn’t nominated for World Rugby Men’s 15s Player of the Year, but what about the complete absence of tight-five forwards? And that’s from both the men’s and women’s shortlists. Lock Eben Etzebeth was surely more deserving of a nod than Lukhanyo Am from a South Africa perspective. After all, the centre played in only half the Springboks’ Tests due to injury. The lack of tight-five representation was even more glaring on the women’s shortlist. What has been…

“The South African presence will strengthen our competitions” AS WE ready for a brand-new EPCR campaign, many astute observers believe that the next few years will be transformative for the professional game – perhaps as much as the seismic events of 1995. From the perspective of the Heineken Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup, I’m confident change will be for the better. This will be a landmark season with the integration of five leading South African clubs into EPCR’s tournaments. This innovative merging of the hemispheres will add a new layer of interest to competitions which have been forged in the main by the elite clubs from England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. As Stormers, Bulls, Sharks, Lions and Cheetahs prepare to go head-to-head for the first time on…

WORLD CUPS are a treasure trove of stories–an you can stumble across them in the most unexpected of places, like a ferry from Devonport to Auckland CBD during the most recent tournament, writes outgoing RW editor Sarah Mockford. Enjoying the sunshine on the top deck, we got into conversation with an American woman. Forgive the scarcity of details – it was a brief chat as the ferry docked – but the essence of the story is here. She had taken up rugby while at university in Maryland in the late 1970s, playing at lock, and after graduating embarked on a trip to Europe. While in London, she found herself in the same hotel as a Scottish school team and, eager to converse with fellow lovers of the game, she tracked…

“The best place I’ve visited? Dubai is completely different to what I’m used to. I also love Japan – that’s a place I want to live one day.” “The key to captaincy for me is leading by example through my actions, being the best player I can be for my team. It’s knowing who all the players are, the endless talent everyone has and brings.” “Cyclist Sarah Ulmer was my childhood hero. She won a gold medal at the Olympics and I always wanted a Sarah Ulmer bike. She’s one of the big reasons why I wanted to be an Olympic athlete.” “I like anything Japanese and also a home-cooked roast. And the roast has to be from my family farm, not from a shop. My mum did amazing lamb…

“I HAD been at the Pilgrim Hotel in Herefordshire from 2002 until March, when I sold it and moved over to France. My wife, Jacqueline, and I bought a small farm and B&B half an hour south of Bergerac. We are hoping to get the B&B open next year. “I needed to retire. Before the hotel I had been in banking and finance until I was 50. Firstly, with the Lloyds Bank Group, then in their finance company, Lloyds and Scottish. “When I finished playing, in 1985, my career took off as I wasn’t leaving early for training twice a week. Lloyds did pay my wages on the 1983 Lions tour, which was handy because we got £4 a day and phoned home from journalists’ rooms. “I have two Birmingham…

SOOFTEN the words ‘All Blacks’ have reverberated around Eden Park, yet this time it was ‘Black Ferns’ being chanted. Until this year’s World Cup, no one had ever paid to watch women’s rugby in New Zealand. Now 42,579 fans had packed out the famous stadium in Auckland to witness them beating England in the final. This truly was a landmark occasion. Wayne Smith later described it as “the most phenomenal rugby moment of my life, hearing the ground chanting the names of these girls”. He’s had a fair few decent moments, too, having helped the All Blacks to World Cup glory in 2011 and 2015. His most recent accomplishment, of guiding the women’s team to a sixth world title, which seemed almost unthinkable 12 months previously, could have the most…

THE PLAYMAKER AS BEATRICE RIGONI sits down in the foyer of Italy’s central Auckland hotel, she shows off a new tattoo on her ankle. It’s a Maori design representing the different members of her family and is the latest in her ink collection. She also has a group of elephants on her back, ‘Mo Cuishle’ on her left arm from the film Million Dollar Baby and an Italian cartoon character on her leg. Yet it’s the ‘12’ on the side of her right wrist that has the most significance to her rugby career. It’s a tribute to Paola Zangirolami, a former team-mate at club (Valsugana) and country who played the same position as Rigoni and was a guiding influence. “Without Paola I wouldn’t be the person I am now,” says…

MUTTON BUSTING: An event held at rodeos similar to bull riding, in which children ride or race sheep. According to Wikipedia. It’s quite a niche topic to bring up in a rugby interview but we’ve been tipped off that Emma Orr used to do something similar on the family farm, although not at a competitive level. “When I was really, really young, I’d be stuck on the back of a sheep and go up the hill,” she says. “It was many hours of fun. Then one day I fell off, hit my knee on a stone and it ended in tears!” Sheep crop up again when we talk about her defence, which was so impressive at the World Cup. For someone who played her first match at outside-centre – arguably…

WALLIS AND FUTUNA in the South Pacific has a population of less than 12,000 as of the last census. Yet three players hailing from the tiny islands have played for France this year. While Yoram Moefana and Sipili Falatea have run out for the men’s side, Manaé Feleu was part of the women’s World Cup squad – a decade or so on from playing sevens together. “Twice a year we played a big tournament called Le Petit Motu,” explains Feleu. “Once we won this tournament when I was playing nine and Yoram was ten. That was a pretty unexpected pair!” Both her parents were sporty – her dad, Nisie, was a decathlete and her mum, Valérie, a pentathlete – but it was RWC 2007 that engaged Nisie in rugby and…

THE REFEREE REFEREES ARE a competitive bunch. Joy Neville jests that Hollie Davidson didn’t speak to her for an hour after being beaten in a quiz. They are friends again now, the camaraderie in the officials’ camp strong. It needs to be, with the rise of social media also leading to an increase in criticism of officials. Neville is concerned that such abuse could put off those considering a refereeing career. She says: “We put a lot more pressure on ourselves as a group; we know we’re there to create a platform for teams to play, so it’s important for us to be physically and mentally in the best shape. So pressure comes internally and externally. You have to have mental strength, to filter negative stuff. “I don’t like social…

1 MOVE THE GAME of rugby can be a tough sport, writes elite nutritionist James Morehen. Multiple training days, strength training in the gym, physical collisions and high-speed running, all resulting in exercise- and impact-induced muscle damage and soreness. Research shows how this is sustained all season long and players never really feel “fresh” during the week, instead just cracking on. Acute fatigue associated with training and games is normal and we’d expect this to settle with appropriate recovery after 48 to 72 hours. When training and recovery are balanced, optimal training adaptation and performance can be achieved. Good recovery is built upon several factors, but the bottom of the pyramid is often nutrition, rest and sleep. Get this right and you will be in a great place. However, many players…

SPORT TECH MUSIC KNOWLEDGE SUBSCRIBE NOW • Give the gift that keeps on delivering • Over 80 magazines to choose from • Free delivery straight to your door www.magazinesdirect.com/XM22 Terms and conditions: Offer closes 16thJanuary2023. Offer open to news subscribers only. Direct Debit offer is available to UK subscribers only. We will notify you in advance of any price changes All gift subscriptions will start with the first avaliable issue on sale after December 2022.If you would like your gift subscribtion to start with an earlier issue, you can choose an earlier issue when ordering or you can contact customer services. Orders purchased for yourself will start with the next available issue - please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery (up to 8 weeks overseas). Payment is non-refundable after…

1 HARRY GLYNN Age 21 (22 Aug 2001) Born Tulle, France Position Fly-half Club La Rochelle Country England So you grew up in France? I lived my first ten years in France, then we left to go to England. My parents are English but have a business in Corrèze. It’s an activity centre and they bring UK groups over to do things like kayaking and rock climbing. Where did you start playing rugby? In France, when I was four or five. I started in England at ten for Market Harborough, then for my schools – Leicester GS for GCSEs, Oakham for A levels.  What positions have you played? In France you don’t have positions, you just play when you’re young. Then when I came to Market Harborough the coaches asked…

BULLS ASSISTANT Chris Rossouw remembers going head-to-head against a 25-year-old Morné Steyn in the 2009 Currie Cup. Back then, Steyn was a national hero and – in Rossouw’s opinion – already a class apart from most tens on the scene. As a fly-half, Rossouw was no slouch. By 2009 he’d joined the Cheetahs and his career was winding down. Steyn’s was just taking off. Thanks to the latter’s nerveless kicking from hand and off the tee, the Springboks beat the British & Irish Lions 2-1 in the series staged in South Africa and downed the All Blacks three times en route to a Tri-Nations title. He also guided the Bulls to victory in Super Rugby and the Currie Cup. “What struck me back then was how well he did the…

SHARK DIVING, bungee jumping, parachuting… Zoe Harrison describes herself as a thrill-seeker, albeit that she can’t currently partake in the items on her to-do list because of the injury risk involved. So how does she get thrills on the pitch? “You never know what they’re going to throw at you,” the England fly-half says of opponents. “I like that mental side of the game.” For the most part, Harrison and the Red Roses dealt with all that was thrown at them at the World Cup, only coming unstuck in the final against New Zealand when they were reduced to 14 players for more than an hour. Bar a couple of wayward kicks at Eden Park, Harrison was one of England’s most consistent performers at the tournament and was the only…

THE POCKET DYNAMO THE FIRST time Megumi Abe caught Rugby World’s eye she was driving back a Canadian at a breakdown in Japan’s opening World Cup match. Of course, such counter-rucks are commonplace in a game, but it stood out purely for the size differential. Abe – at 4ft 9in and 8st 5lb – was the smallest player at this World Cup but she was getting the better of someone at least a foot taller and significantly heavier. How does that phrase go again? It’s not the size of the dog in the fight… Her national coach, Lesley McKenzie, uses the words “aggressive in contact” to describe her first-choice scrum-half while Abe laughs when asked if she enjoys the physicality of the sport. “Yes, I do,” she responds, with a…

THE PARENTS AKICK TO win it! The scores were level at 15-15, there were 85 minutes on the clock and Wales had been awarded a penalty after putting together 24 phases in the closing stages of their opener against Scotland. Keira Bevan stepped up to the tee. All Welsh fans would have been nervous but what about her parents watching in the stands at Northland Events Centre? “My nerves were in shreds, I couldn’t even look,” says mum Liz. Dad Richard adds: “The wind was all over the place so I was thinking, ‘Take it now’ because the wind had dropped. It’s all about the connection, hitting it right, and I was confident it was going over.” As the ball sailed between the posts and Bevan was engulfed by team-mates,…

THE STALWART TYSON BEUKEBOOM is recalling how rugby was first explained to her. “My cousin was saying, ‘You pass the ball backwards and run forwards, and people hit you and you can hit them’. I was like, ‘On purpose? Amazing!’” She had been playing ice hockey but with body-checks banned in the female game, her sporting aggression usually led to penalties rather than high-fives. Rugby gave her an opportunity to embrace physicality and she has done that throughout a career that saw her become Canada’s second most-capped female player during the World Cup. Her sporting success shouldn’t be a surprise given her family background – her dad and uncle played pro hockey, she has cousins who have represented Canada in rugby and others who have competed in water polo at…

RUGBY IS a little different in the Netherlands, where you can play in mixed teams until the age of 18 – and for Sulita Waisega that proved a huge advantage. While there were opportunities to join girls’ teams, she opted to stay with boys. “I liked it, it helped me with rugby and the physical side to be playing with boys,” says Waisega, who followed her brothers into rugby and started playing at 11 at RC Delft before joining Haagsche Rugby Club. “I wanted more competition, so I stayed with the boys rather than going to another club.” So how did a teenager playing rugby in Holland end up in Fiji’s World Cup squad? When Waisega, who moved to the Netherlands aged three after her dad got a job in…

“Use the lineout set-up that gives you the best opportunity to maul from, so the right people in the right places. Have your best jumper with your best lifters, your strongest lifters, because that is what is going to form your base. Throwing to the middle or the back are the best options for mauls.” “Tightness is key. You need to be tight, not loose, so you don’t let anyone through the maul. Then going forward you’ve got to be together, with all the force going in the same direction. That’s where a call like ‘And now’ comes in to get that togetherness. It’s important to keep it as straight and square as possible because any rotation can compromise the maul, so it’s about everyone pushing in the same direction.”…