Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i Rugby World

“End divergence around selecting players abroad” THE TUG-OF-WAR over Henry Arundell’s future was short lived in the end. Having galloped off to Racing 92 after the collapse of London Irish, the flier initially got special, but limited, dispensation to return for England duty. But ‘exceptional circumstance’ for him had a ticking clock. If he was to keep playing for England, he would have to move back to the Premiership next season. And then he signed a contract extension in Paris, ensuring that he can only return when his new deal is up, in 2026. There is so much divergence across the home nations on this subject. Wales still operate their system whereby those playing outside the country need at least 25 caps to their name if they are to continue…

WHAT’S THE funniest thing you’ve seen on the pitch? Last year against Perpignan, Brian Alainu’uese was trying to tackle big Posolo Tuilagi. He got fended off and Brian rolled three times. I’ve never seen him get up so fast and I just heard a “F***!” All our mates around him just laughed and the video came out straight after the game. We joked that he’d been thrown off by a 16-year-old! Do you have any phobias? I used to have a noodle phobia. My dad forced me to eat noodles one time and I spewed up really bad and got really sick, so I’ve never touched them again. If your house was on fire, what one item would you save? My dog. I’d take my dog and make sure she’s…

“To stop the game being turgid I would shot-clock everything!” BIG CHANGES? Let’s start with the common sense stuff. The more opportunities for emerging nations, the greater the interest you’ll get around the world. And getting more meaningful games sooner should help close the gap. We need more exposure between World Cups, if only just so lesser sides have more chance of attracting sponsors and interest. Next, let’s make things less samey. It was attractive when New Zealand came to Cardiff once every five years or more. Now I’m not saying it’s boring, but the same teams play each other all the time. There was a period when I played Australia a ridiculous number of times, like 16 times in 40 Tests. I’m all for traditions but – and you…

1 PASSING & KICKING Due to the differences in relative space between sevens and 15s, certain characteristics take on greater significance. Speed and open-field tackling become more important whereas kicking and breathtaking passing take a back seat. Dupont is one of the best kickers in rugby now. He has a superhuman ability to shift defences around and then find space with a smartly struck box-kick. He achieves the impossible, he makes it fun. But this isn’t something that is highly prized in sevens. Kicking is important but teams prefer to keep ball in hand and kicks don’t need to be of such high quality to find space. Where kicking is crucial is the kick-off. Dupont has dabbled at fly-half but there is nothing to suggest that high, hanging kick-offs are in…

WITHIN THE England camp, they call it Growing the Gap. Striving to be 1% better in everything they do, the stuff they’re good at and the stuff they’re not so good at. Because if every player in a successful team improves, how can they fail? For the Red Roses, WXV1 champions and beaten just three times in their last 60 matches, another hoped-for Six Nations Grand Slam would just be a stepping stone towards the 2025 Rugby World Cup being held in their country. “Everything is done with the World Cup as the end goal,” says fly-half Holly Aitchison. “We have smaller goals, narrowing it down to chunks of time. Mitch (John Mitchell, head coach) is driven by having the best 30 at a World Cup and that’s the biggest…

ACROSS 1 Animals popular with Kiwi coaches Warren Gatland and Chris Boyd, who have both owned them (6) 5 Gcobani - - -, former Springbok centre turned TV pundit (4) 8 Wallaby legend who advocates reducing the number of Australian Super Rugby teams (7,6) 9 …this modern Wallaby missed the World Cup after fracturing his shoulder blade (3,6) 10 Comedian - - - Cruttenden, a Saracens supporter, played for London Welsh in his childhood (3) 11 Club near Sydney formed in 1975 – not to be confused with a London borough (6) 13 Redirect UN mail for Asociación - - -, Argentine club near Buenos Aires (6) 16 - - - kick, scrum-half specialty often delivered near the edge of the pitch (3) 17 Nickname of the first fully representative New Zealand team to tour…

THROWING THE question up on social media drew some fun answers. We asked people: what’s the one technological advancement you’d like to see in rugby in the next five years? Back at us came an array of different views, with fans asking for the ref mic to be played across the stadium Tannoy when big decisions are being made, to strong visual aids for offside lines, and different camera angles to toggle through as teams attack the try-line. And that’s what this special issue is all about – what we would like to see in the near future. From punchy views on leadership in the pro ranks, to tech and research coming in, and how Antoine Dupont has broken the mould, it’s all about the changes within reach for our…

1 Ireland The British & Irish Lions will play in Ireland for the first time in the side’s history when they take on Argentina in Dublin ahead of the 2025 tour to Australia. The match will take place on Friday 20 June 2025. Tickets will be available from €40 in March 2024. They will be allocated from channels like the IRFU, ticketmaster.ie and the Lions Rugby Club. 2 USA Major League Rugby lost a second side in as many weeks in the build-up to this year’s competition, with former champions New York Ironworkers folding shortly after Toronto Arrows pulled out of MLR. “While this is unfortunate news, Major League Rugby remains strong and the owners across the league are committed to success heading into 2024 and beyond,” chief executive Nic…

FOR MANY parents, the best thing about having teenagers is that they don’t stay adolescents forever. Adult life gets us all eventually. But for Jonathan Pendlebury and Mark Mapletoft, the England men’s U18 and U20 coaches, there’s a constant cycle of talented teenagers coming through under their watchful eye. Within these pages we often focus on the cut and thrust of elite rugby. The day-to-day results grind. Jobs are on the line for players and staff and we need no reminder of the harsh reality of the current state of the professional game in England after losing four clubs. However, the results Pendlebury and Mapletoft can often be best judged upon may not be available for years. For example, one of Pendlebury’s proudest case studies is hooker Jack Walker, an…

“She is dripping with leadership skills left, right and centre” SARACENS BACK-ROW Sophie de Goede is a triple threat. The Canada captain kicks from the tee, is a beast in defence and sidesteps her way to the try-line. Her skills haven’t gone unnoticed by her team-mates. “Sophie is one of the only eights in the world that can kick, pass and run,” says fellow Saracens back-row and England international Poppy Cleall. “I don’t think anyone else can do that. You either have the eights that run or the eights that connect with the backs. She’s a unique talent in that she has all of that.” De Goede, 24, has returned to Saracens this season after previously playing for the London club in the 2020-21 campaign and she came back with…

“The relentless optimist in me thinks things will get better” THERE ISN’T any one model for the professional game, that’s obvious by now. Do you measure success by performances or the sustainability of your business model? You could look at four-time men’s World Cup champions South Africa, who have a big weight of numbers and a passion for the game. Their model is quite traditional really. Then you’ve got Ireland, who are very focused on the business model and it’s held up as one of the best. They became world No 1 with such little playing resource. There’s the sleeping giant of France and that example gets used a lot – used and abused actually, because while so much has changed, they have the underlying picture of significant passion, being…

HOVERBOARDS WERE meant to be here by now guys, if Back To the Future II was to be believed. There’d be giant artificial lifeforms amongst us, Blade Runner had it, and you don’t wanna know what Total Recall suggested we’ll have by 2084. Hey, fiction needs dreamers. Perhaps sport needs those visionaries even more. Rugby certainly does. And what’s worth noting is that some new thinking and wondrous technologies aren’t that far away. So while this issue of Rugby World looks at what would, could and perhaps should be in our sport, let’s take a look at the advancements that might begin lacing through our game in the very near future… WATCHING THE GAME What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘augmented reality’? For some, the next…

BEING CHALLENGED can land on some people like a dropped Steinway. Others smile as they stride on. So when Finn Russell began chatting to Ollie Lawrence after arriving at Bath, the reaction of the England centre and reigning Premiership Player of the Season was as positive as you’ll get. “It’s easy to tell you my work-on at the moment is to ‘just keep getting better’, but I’ve just got to keep getting better and make each performance better than the last,” he begins about striving for more improvements after a stellar first season with Bath last time out. “And that’s the challenge really. Because when you start playing well, it’s very easy to just be happy with that. “I remember when I first came into Bath this season, Finn said to…

CONNACHT CENTRES posting super stats has traditionally been the domain of one Bundee Aki, but there’s a new kid on the block. Local lad Cathal, pronounced Caw-hal, Forde grew up just ten minutes from the Sportsground in Galway and has made quite an impression out west since making his debut at the start of 2022. With Aki away on international duty, Forde got the nod ahead of David Hawkshaw and Tom Daly in the 12 jersey and he has grasped the opportunity with both hands. After three rounds of the URC, data from Oval highlighted by analyst Sam Larner showed Forde at the top of the tree for the combined tally of carries, tackles made and rucks hit with 154. Traditionally forwards dominate these statistics. For context, at the same stage…

AUCKLAND WERE up and down like a yoyo during the NPC season, but the Blue and Whites look to have found the man to drive them around the park for the next few seasons. Zarn Sullivan showed enough breadth to his game, especially in standout displays against North Harbour (a 23-point haul), Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Canterbury, to suggest he is the man for now and the future. And he gained his blazer for 14 games. Previously it was Harry Plummer, who guided Auckland to the 2018 NPC Premiership title from pivot. Since the Grant Fox and Carlos Spencer days, Simon Hickey and Gareth Anscombe have proven good value but took their talents abroad. Plummer is now cast as a second-five, which has allowed Sullivan, who was a 20-year-old full-back in…

THERE IS a good chance you’ve never watched a single game played in the ‘best league in the land’. That is the slogan used by BUCS Super Rugby, the highest level of the men’s university game in the UK. And while you can debate the veracity of that claim, one thing you can’t dispute is the transformational impact that BSR has had since it was created in 2016. “There’s been a seismic shift in what has happened with university rugby,” explains Danny Milton, Cardiff Met’s head of men’s performance. “There was quite often lots of blowout victories, the resources across the universities were very different. So the quality of games wasn’t what it is now. The platform it has given the uni game has been huge.” Creating a national top-tier…

NICK RIGGALL Creator and co-founder of The Rugby DAO “DAOs (DECENTRALISED autonomous organisations) use accelerator, innovation mechanics to bring technology into the broader game. It’s a way to give players and fans more of a say and a way to support the game properly. We recognise, like everyone does, that there are points of failure in the game and we believe community and players as people can help grow the game on top of what has existed for 200 years. “The whole idea is you could be a fan of Bath but we can test something in another country, validate it and bring it to more mature markets. “It’s a way of preparing fans and players for the future of rugby. We are a community-driven organisation which has got members…

JUST AS Alexander the Great won many of his battles before a single spear had been thrown, through planning and tactical nous, increasingly the sport we love is being dominated off the field by coaches with an innovational epiphany or by analysts with ingenious insight. Blood and thunder on the pitch is still significant but, like it or not, statistics are a driving force behind success in rugby and it is time attitudes of broadcasters and supporters alike reflected this trend. In a game that is becoming more complex and harder to understand, especially for new consumers, stats can offer clarity on how the game is played. For example, the expected goals (xG) advanced statistic has revolutionised how fans watch football, meaning you can freeze when a shot is taken…

EDDIE JONES was confirmed as Japan’s new head coach just 42 days after resigning as Wallabies boss – having presided over Australia’s first-ever pool-stage exit at the Rugby World Cup. During the tournament in France, the Sydney Morning Herald broke a story that Jones had been interviewed for the Japan role while still employed by Rugby Australia. He consistently denied the links and said he was focused on the Wallabies, before quitting a day after the World Cup final, saying sometimes “you have to eat s*** for others to eat caviar further down the track”. His departure came just ten months after Jones signed a five-year contract that was due to take in the 2025 British & Irish Lions tour as well as a home World Cup in 2027. He…

IN THE deepest depths of France’s down period, Bernard Laporte claimed that any current French player could walk up and down the Champs-Élysées with no risk of being recognised. That was in 2016, with les Bleus in the midst of what turned out to be a 12-year title drought in the Six Nations. Laporte’s fortunes have fluctuated dramatically in the years since he said that, but he will take comfort from the fact the statement is emphatically no longer true. For much of 2023, posters of Antoine Dupont were everywhere, including Paris’ most famous avenue. Not since Sébastien Chabal has a French rugby player captured the imagination like Dupont. And what is all the more impressive is he’s done it almost entirely through performances on the pitch. Dupont does not…

ANIELLE ‘NOLLI’ Waterman is CEO of the Women’s Rugby Association (WRA), a trade union that she co-founded in 2021. The organisation represents more than half of the Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) playing community and recently announced its first elected Players’ Board. Now living in Rome, Waterman tells us about the work of the WRA and the shape of things to come… Why is the WRA needed? “There wasn’t anything for domestic women’s players in terms of support services. We have a fantastic legal partner, Morgan Sports Law, who have provided pro bono support. Ben Cisneros and Emma Lax, one of our founders, looked at what we could learn from sports across the globe. We want to build our own path. The exec team, which is myself, Emma and Polly Barnes, guide…

AS WE’RE doing a stock take of Scottish rugby, it’s probably best to kick off with the good, for fear of turning everybody off by beginning with the stuff that’s bad and deeply troubling, not just in the eyes of observers of the scene but also to the people occupying the highest office at Murrayfield. So, the positivity. Scotland’s men had a good Six Nations, defeating England in a thriller at Twickenham, hammering Wales by a record score, playing excellently in defeat against France in Paris and rounding it off with an exciting win over Italy, featuring a hat-trick for Blair Kinghorn, now with Toulouse, the biggest club on the planet. They don’t hold the position any longer but Scotland got to world number five during 2023 – as high…

THERE’S CERTAINLY been far tougher sells when it comes to being forced to relocate abroad for work purposes. But Uruguay flanker Manuel Ardao was keen to double check his girlfriend Maite would be on board before leaving his country’s Super Rugby Americas franchise Peñarol and heading north for Miami Sharks in Major League Rugby. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of having outstanding Florida beaches, a vibrant nightlife and booming food scene on your doorstep was quite appealing. “My girlfriend is more excited than me! But I think it’s a good city and we will have a lot of fun,” Ardao tells Rugby World. “It works for both of us.” Maite is one of our own. A journalist who finished her degree in July and worked at Uruguayan paper El País. Luckily for…

RUGBY SHOULD be doing all it can to push, promote and empower positive running play. And we should always consider the effect on the players. And on that, check out this weird example. When the 50:22 law change came in, fans loved it, but actually a lot of players hate it. Why should a team get rewarded for kicking the ball away and it finding your 22? It’s funny because while you punish one side for not sorting their backfield coverage or being able to organise their transition, rugby is still encouraging more kicking. Think about it from the modern forward’s point of view: can you imagine what it feels like losing 70 metres because of a kick? And you’re still under all the pressure? It’s something discussed a lot…