Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i Rugby World

“World Cups can’t keep coming back to the same countries” WE ALREADY know England will host the women’s World Cup in 2025, before Australia stage the men’s World Cup in 2027 and the women’s in 2029. Then everything moves to the US in 2031 and 2033. However, in recent weeks, the Japanese union has laid out plans to bring the World Cup back to their shores in time for 2035. The Italians, in slightly less detail, have made noises about 2035 and 2037 as well. Japan 2019 was a booming success. According to financial analysts Ernst and Young, the JRFU made £259m in ticket revenues. They also estimated that around 242,000 tourists visited Japan. All told, EY reported that nearly £4.3bn was generated in economic output during the 2019 Rugby…

SATURDAY 29 APRIL Women’s Six Nations England v France (1pm, Twickenham) Italy v Wales (3.30pm, Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi) TV Both Live on BBC & RTÈ Scotland v Ireland (7.30pm, DAM Health Stadium) TV Live on BBC & Virgin Media Champions Cup semi-final Leinster v Toulouse (3pm, Aviva Stadium) TV Live on ITV, BT Sport & RTÈ Challenge Cup semi-final Scarlets v Glasgow (5.30pm) TV Live on BT Sport & S4C Super Rugby Pacific Drua v Blues (3.05am) Moana v Rebels (5.35am) Chiefs v Crusaders (8.05am) Reds v Force (10.35am) Rugby Europe Conf 1 North Latvia v Czechia (noon) Rugby Europe Conf 1 South Bulgaria v Slovenia Israel v Malta Rugby Europe Conf 2 North Andorra v Norway Rugby Europe Conf 2 South Bosnia & Herzegovina v Serbia FOSROC Super Sprint Series Boroughmuir v Heriot’s…

BEING A TMO (Television Match Official) is easy, right? Just watch a replay of an incident and tell the referee what happened. Wrong! A chat with the RFU’s Rowan Kitt, one of the best TMOs in the business, sheds a whole new light on the role of the match official who gets no credit when things go well and a heap of blame when things go askew. “You’re basically the lowest of the low,” says Kitt. We’re not sure if he’s joking. So, what can a TMO intervene for? “Virtually anything. But it’s about the quantity and quality of information,” says Kitt, who has handled more than 300 pro games, including 50 Tier One Tests. “So foul play that hasn’t been seen, I might say ‘neck roll by six black’…

SOME CAMPS can be brutal. Repetition. Being confronted with how you should do things. The barked commands. But then when the hard yakka bears fruit, oh boy, can you appreciate the results. Right there on a rainy Hale street, you see the evidence. Toby doesn’t hesitate to come to heel. His treat is well earned. The black and caramel dachshund is out for a walk with owner Tom Curry, a first day back at home after weeks of grinding at doggy bootcamp. And you can tell the Sale, England and Lions bruiser is chuffed with the result. With a call of “close”, Toby comes by Curry’s side. The analysis, the training, has paid off. And then with a shout of “Finish!” he is off again, on the hunt for another…

BORN IN Wigan and with a successful rugby league career behind him, it’s no wonder Wales fans were drawing comparisons with Shaun Edwards when Mike Forshaw was appointed as Warren Gatland’s defence coach ahead of this year’s Six Nations. But Wales are a long way away from the glory days that Edwards and Gatland presided over. Having left Sale Sharks after a decade, Forshaw is certainly up to the challenge that lies in wait ahead of this year’s World Cup. We asked the 53-year-old about the Six Nations, his defensive philosophy, the influx of league coaches and his friendship with Ireland’s Andy Farrell… You’ve just had your first Six Nations, so how did you find it? It was a bit different for me. I went in pretty hot from coaching…

ACROSS 1 Kebble’s a broken man playing for Gloucester (3,5) 7 - - - Ionians, National League Two club from East Yorkshire (4) 8 Ireland getting closer to achieving - - -, says Brian O’Driscoll – 2022 Irish Mirror headline (3,5) 9 Member of Folkstone’s vets team – what a fuddy-duddy! (6) 10 - - - McMillan, Saracens and Scotland lock who studied law at Glasgow (6) 11 - - - Synman, Zimbabwean second-row at Leicester Tigers (3) 12 The knockout - - - of this year’s Rugby World Cup starts on 14 October (5) 14 - - - Moore, Saracens and Ireland back-row (5) 16 Club in rural Kent that’s hosting a barn dance this month and a 25th anniversary ball in July (3) 18 Overturn throne at Weston-super-Mare club (6) 20 Nickname acquired…

▸ Farewell Edinburgh are saying goodbye to 13 senior players at the end of the season. They include four internationals in Damien Hoyland, Jaco van der Walt, Henry Pyrgos and Nick Haining. ▸ Prolific hooker Ulster’s Tom Stewart (below) has the record for most tries scored in a URC season, after surpassing the previous best of 14 held by ex-Edinburgh wing Tim Visser and Cheetah Rabz Maxwan. Stewart moved to 16 with a hat-trick against the Dragons. ▸ Job swap Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber will leave his role after the World Cup and join Leinster. He will replace Stuart Lancaster, who is joining Racing. ▸ Crossing the bridge Scarlets have signed Welsh international Ioan Lloyd from Bristol Bears. The 22-year-old utility back won two caps under Wayne Pivac in…

WE’VE SEEN a few false dawns when it comes to a winner-takes-the-prize, one-day sevens event. But on 15 July, the New York City Sevens will take place at the 25,000-capacity Red Bull Arena with a prize pot of $1m (around £803k) up for grabs for some of the biggest names in the sport – like New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, France, Australia and the US. The hope is that this “Hong Kong Sevens-style party” can usher in vibrant times for a new World RFL competition – an elite sevens league. Nestled in a window where they could generate some serious buzz, with Test 15-a-side outfits preparing for the Rugby World Cup and no major club competitions to eat up their audience, there is more than a little intrigue about the…

There’s a sad twist to the story of Gloucester-based Cents being relegated from R1 South-West. DoR Martin Townsend said: “We received a draft copy of the 2022-23 set-up in March last year and were placed in a Midlands league. Two months later we were put back into the South-West. I had thought the days of four-hour coach journeys to Cornwall were over, recruited on that basis and retained players who’d intended to leave because of excess travelling. A lot have young families and work on Saturday mornings, so we were unable to select from a full squad. We lost five games by two points.” Cents began as an old boys club from Central Technology School in 1937. Led by fly-half Harry Preece, they have Rob Winchle, ex-Cinderford, as head player-coach.…

IT’S NOT quite a case of getting the embroiderer on speed dial and buying a whack of red baseball caps. Because while we’d love to ‘Make Europe Great Again’, there is no denying that semis and finals time is fun as hell. The same goes for the Premiership run-in, through May. As the sun is finally coaxed out from behind some clouds and we get to see some tense yet gripping winner-takes-all rugby, it’s hard to top these weekends. Seeing Sale Sharks roar through in the Premiership has been great and Tom Curry speaks well on their run (P32). But we’ve had weeks of amusement. Sarries. Glasgow. Chiefs in Europe’s quarters. Now is a good time to celebrate the best of what we’ve seen on the club scene. Because soon…

WHAT’S THE funniest thing you’ve seen or heard on the pitch? We were defending and one of my team-mates at Worcester, hooker Isaac Miller, was calling out one of the opposition and had a pretty horrendous voice break while he did it. He then got sat down horribly in the tackle which was quite funny. A pretty poor ten seconds. Any phobias? I don’t really like rats. What really annoys you? People who are quite judgemental seem to annoy me; judgy people get on my nerves. If your house was on fire, what one item would you save? It would probably be my phone, I’m pretty addicted to it unfortunately. I’ve been trying to learn how to play chess on it as well. I’ve figured out the rules and got…

JAMIE NOON The ex-England centre who’s an agent in France “THE 25-CAP rule is not a bad option. When we looked at the Welsh system it seemed logical for them to let players go away and still play for the national team. They are getting rid of their highest salaries and opening doors for younger guys to get more game time at clubs. These are Test players who are getting more experience and growing as people. I did it and it was better for me. At the age I went (31) I don’t think I became a better player, but it opened my horizons. I probably knew my time in an England shirt was drawing to end. “Salary caps offloading some of the financial burden of having a top-class player…

THERE IS a reason job sharing has never taken off. Only the most precise of circumstances lend themselves to two individuals balancing the same responsibility, and rugby is no different. Brilliant leadership brings clear and concise authority but having co-captains in a rugby side blurs the lines. Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a place for a club captain and an on-field captain. Jack Yeandle and Joe Simmonds dovetailed perfectly for Exeter in 2020, the latter picking up an MBE after steering the Chiefs to the double. The off-field responsibilities of representing the club go far beyond on-field captaincy and one individual may not be suited to the two roles. However, it is simply overkill to have two people supposedly in charge on the pitch. In fact, it is impossible.…

“To be able to use her body like she does now is amazing” THE BLOODLINES are strong. Father Sione won 29 caps for Tonga. Brother Kepu is making waves in the London Irish academy and with England U18. Cousin Carwyn is starting to break through at the Scarlets. Yet even in a family blessed with talent, the game-changing ability and barrier-breaking potential of Sisilia Tuipulotu manage to stand out. “I believe she can be one of the best props in the world,” Wales head coach Ioan Cunningham enthuses of his young front-row star. You cannot disagree. The prop might already be threatening that sort of tag. The first two weeks of the Women’s Six Nations brought three tries, a combined carrying tally of nearly 150 metres and consecutive Player of…

“My coaching philosophy is to create an environment of care” I LOVED THE camaraderie of the game as I turned professional, but also the teaching in the game. Wayne Smith effectively taught us the game at the Crusaders. We were last in Super Rugby in 1996, and he came in and talked to us about defence, the mindset that is required, structures, individual skill-sets. I just wanted to be involved with this as much as I could. So I had my little notebook and back in those days I’d walk around with it as I coached the Christ College U16 B team. That’s where it all started. I’d also seen a bit of the world, having gone across to play for Ards in Northern Ireland and I’d spent some time…

AT THE end of March, in a display that made locals in Limerick gawp in shock and possibly awe, Glasgow Warriors laid waste to Munster at Thomond Park in the United Rugby Championship. Scoring four tries in the first half and accelerating into a 28-0 lead, the stuff they produced was borderline cosmic. They ran with elan. They were thunderous, ambitious and lethal. That win came after Glasgow put 50 on Zebre and not long before they put 70 on the Dragons in the Challenge Cup. It was the continuation of an unbeaten run that was more thrilling than anything Glasgow had delivered since the halcyon days of 2015 when Gregor Townsend’s team stormed to a Pro12 title. Fraser Brown, the veteran Glasgow Warriors hooker, tells a story about his…

EVERYONE WANTS a piece of the next big thing. Yet few have gone to the same lengths as the photographers that crawled through the school bushes just to get a single snap of a teenage superstar named Joseph Sua’ali’i. Such was the esteem with which the Penrith-born prodigy was held that Sua’ali’i didn’t even have to be playing. His mere presence at the side of the pitch was enough to summon the press to a rugby union game at The King’s School, Parramatta amid the pandemic. “You’ve got to understand these kids don’t come around often,” explains Stuart Woodhouse, the director of rugby at Sua’ali’i’s alma mater. “There’s a lot of external pressure and I think the school handled it really well to give him a normal life. They were…

SWISS RUGBY is riding high, their national side at a best-ever ranking of 27 after winning the Rugby Europe Trophy. Playing their part in that success is Servette Rugby Club of Geneva, whose senior side contains Test wings Lucas Heinrich, Hadrien Bobillier and Gaëtan Moser, and blindside Antoine Salino. Servette’s origins go back to 1890 but football gained precedence and it took current president Alain Studer and a couple of friends, Marc Bouchet and Didier Fischer, to “reactivate” the rugby branch of the club in 2014. Since when they have been promoted every year. There are about 50 rugby clubs in Switzerland but only Servette play in the French leagues. “We thought it would be a greater challenge for the kids to play in the French competition,” says Studer, a…

FLORENCE WILLIAMS had conversations with Saracens head coach Alex Austerberry last summer about joining the Premier 15s champions, but she decided to stay at Wasps. She had played for the side since 2018 and was “pretty settled”. Then Wasps went into administration in October and a consortium bid was accepted that only included the men’s team and youth academy. With the uncertainty around the club and Williams wanting to focus on her rugby, she agreed to move to Saracens. The signing was announced in November. “It was a tough decision to go because a lot of those team-mates are good friends,” the fly-half says. “I discussed it with my team-mates more than with my coaches, so they could understand why it was and I wasn’t jumping ship. I’m 28. I…

“With money on the table, hopes and dreams quickly switch” ▶ I’VE NEVER liked the international qualification regulations that rugby uses. Three years to become a naturalised player was a joke. Now it’s five. And as a Test player, I probably missed out on caps because of a player or two who were brought over as the great white hope for my country. They went on to get four or five caps each and never produced anything of note. And then they all went home, back to their native country at the end of their careers. They just had a dabble at representing a country that I grew up dying to represent. I think it’s a joke and I’ve always thought so. There was a story in France recently about…

1 Ireland Players at the men’s and women’s Six Nations U18 festivals have taken a collective stance against doping in rugby. ‘Keep Rugby Clean’ T-shirts were on display in the warm-ups at Energia Park in Dublin at the men’s event (below, France’s Thibaut Motassi scores against England) and the day before at Wellington College, in Berkshire, during match-day two of the women’s festival. 2 Cuba Rugby Americas North have announced the inclusion of Federación Cubana De Rugby (FCR) as RAN’s newest Associate Member. RAN president George Nicholson said: “Cuba has always been one of the athletic powerhouses in the Caribbean, so they were an obvious target as we sought to grow the game in our region.” Rugby first took root in Cuba back in 1992 at Havana University and is now played…

“I think the scrum is in a good place at the moment” YOU’VE GOT to love a scrum. I probably wouldn’t have a job if there weren’t scrums – and our game would be more like rugby league! But really, the scrum is the epitome of rugby’s mission statement: to be a game for all shapes and sizes. Well, you see all sorts in the set-piece and what an identity to have. Being in there, you are part of a highly technical, but also incredibly physical, unique part of sport. The beautiful thing is that someone could be the strongest in the gym, the biggest man, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to being able to scrummage. Because it has a technique base. Now obviously it helps if you’ve got big…

ONE BY one, the building blocks are being laid. Round eight of Super Rugby Pacific saw history made as Moana Pasifika played their first-ever match in Apia. The franchise lost 40-28 to the Reds to continue their winless run, but no one was seeing negatives on a day described by the great Michael Jones as a “very special moment… a dream to play on Samoan soil”. “Hopefully this is the first of many,” added Bryan Williams, another All Black legend of Samoan descent. Moana Pasifika represent players from Samoa, Tonga and other islands, along with New Zealand or Australia-born players of Pasifika heritage. They and Fijian Drua, Fiji’s domestic team, joined Super Rugby last year to help redress the balance after decades of exploitation of Pacific Islands talent by Tier One…

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TOASTING VICTORY “This is the best part of playing rugby, being able to share a beer with your mates after the game in the changing room. This is after the Champions Cup quarter-final win over Stormers and as you can see we are a really tight-knit squad. All the players not in the 23 come into the changing room, there’s the best part of 60-odd boys and management in total. “Rob (Baxter) wheeled out the wheelie bin of beers and I thought, as an older head, I’ll start chucking them out with Jack Yeandle. This is the bit that I’ll miss. I won’t miss the nine to five training or how my body feels, but I’ll miss game day and the special feeling of enjoying a victory.” DID YOU KNOW?…

SUFFERING LOSS is universal – it touches all of us eventually. Everyone feels it differently, though. And in a game forever tethered to the notion of being for all shapes and sizes, the vastness of grief is navigated in myriad ways. Nearly every single person interviewed for this special report used a variation of the idiom about there being no handbook, no manual, no playbook for handling loss. In a recent interview with BBC Breakfast, former Leicester Tigers and England hooker Tom Youngs talked of losing his wife Tiffany to Hodgkin Lymphoma. He said: “The loneliness really hits you. It wasn’t until the dark nights came in during the winter time. “It gets dark here at 4pm. And you start ringing people but it’s still not the same, it’s still not…

EMILIANO BOFFELLI and his pal Nacho sit in front of us, Boffelli as the Edinburgh and Argentina player, Nacho as the smiling translator who nods admiringly as his mate navigates the English language in an increasingly impressive manner. Boffelli’s determination to improve is a hugely endearing quality. Later he would ask for the audio of the interview, so he could pass it on to his English teacher to give him feedback on how he did. He starts by talking about home. He was born and raised in Rosario, birthplace to the revolutionary Che Guevara and the footballing deity Lionel Messi. “It’s a lovely city, a river running through it, a beautiful place with lots of things to do,” says Boffelli. “It’s a city that loves football. We have two teams,…

▸ Big day The Premier 15s final takes place on Saturday 24 June (kick-off 3.30pm) at Kingsholm and tickets are available to purchase via the England Rugby website. It will also be shown live on the BBC, BT Sport and Premier15s.com. ▸ Podium finish GB women earned their first podium finish of this season’s HSBC World Sevens Series, finishing with a bronze medal after defeating Fiji 22-19 in Hong Kong. Welsh flyer Jasmine Joyce scored two of the tries. ▸ Showdown in Ontario Ottawa will host Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the USA this July in the 2023 Pacific Four Series, a cross-regional international women’s tournament. ▸ On the rise Portugal leapt five places in the world rankings to 24 after beating Germany in the Rugby Europe Women’s Trophy.…

A new era beckons for this Derbyshire club near Alfreton. Founded in 1967, Amber Valley have played at Pye Bridge for 40 years but are on the move after selling their ground for housing to a builder, who’s providing equivalent facilities two miles away at Riddings. Club stalwart Tom Uniacke said: “We’ve close ties with Riddings Cricket Club. We play them at rugby and cricket.” Going back 25 years, Valley ran five men’s sides. Now they field two with the firsts, led by Jack Greasley, playing in C3 Midlands East (N) West. They also run a vets and a women’s XV. Up to 50 mini-juniors take the field on Sundays. All five coaches are former Valley players, headed by James Woodthorpe with Steve Grainger, Lee Chapman, Uniacke and Gareth Pilkington…