Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i Rugby World

“The Six Nations should be protected on free-to-air TV” THE SIX Nations post-World Cup is always interesting. Because certain sides begin a new four- to eight-year cycle. You look at Wales and Ireland, they have had big retirements. England have a few too. Ireland and France come in after the disappointment of the World Cup – they were favourites for that, and you could say they underachieved. Now they must dust themselves off, bounce back and see where they’re at. England have tweaked their coaching team but everywhere else it’s largely the same. Italy have a new head coach in Gonzalo Quesada, so it’s a start from scratch for them. They have some good players and their two URC teams are going quite well. With Scotland, you’d say they’re the…

[Goes in Rugby World] WALES HAD a Six Nations match in Scotland (2005), writes TV director/producer Sion Thomas. There was two minutes until our show went on air and Ray Gravell was on the touchline. I looked at the bank of monitors and could see a scuffle going on on one of the cameras. ‘Blimey, what’s going on down there?’ The next thing Grav’s voice came through. “Sioni, Sioni! Come to me live, come to me live now.” I said to him, “Grav, we are about to go on air. Radio silence.” But he said, “Sioni, come to me now!” I looked closer and saw that Grav had someone in a headlock. ‘What the hell is going on?’ We went to the ‘titles’. Gareth Roberts said, ‘Welcome to Murrayfield, we’re…

“I first played rugby aged seven at Wimborne RFC. I’d go to Taekwondo or gymnastics but rugby nights were the ones I’d wait all week to come back along.” “I’m from a small village, Winterborne Stickland in Dorset. Some of my favourite times are walking in the woods with our spaniels Maggie and Margo. Ms run in our family: my mum is Michelle and my sister is Martha. It’s become a bit silly really!” “I think Luke Littler, who reached the world darts final, is brilliant. It’s such an intense few seconds, then he’s relaxing and eating a kebab! Maybe if I could take a little of that pressure off myself I’d be a bit better.” “I love cars. I’d really like a Mazda MX-5. Or a Jeep Wrangler. That…

“I’M STILL based in Bath but work for The Preston Associates, an executive coaching company whose offices are in Knightsbridge, so I commute to London a couple of times a week. I retired in 2013, the year after Matt Stevens and I had sold our coffee shops. They proved to be an expensive mini-MBA but a brilliant grounding in business. “I got in touch with David Scotland, the old chairman of Allied Domecq. He’s an executive coach who coaches people leaving the City into what they do next. So I joined The Preston Associates in 2014. It was an experiment for me and them, and 18 months later I was a partner. “In sport I was about 4ft and playing in a rugby team; I realised I wasn’t the star…

IRELAND’S SIX NATIONS FIXTURES Fri 2 Feb France 8pm, Stade Vélodrome Sun 11 Feb Italy 3pm, Aviva Stadium Sat 24 Feb Wales 2.15pm, Aviva Stadium Sat 9 Mar England 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 16 Mar Scotland 4.45pm, Aviva Stadium VITAL STATISTIC Ireland conceded the fewest penalties in last year’s Six Nations, at less than nine a game, and were the only side not to receive a card of any colour ■ SIX NATIONS HIGH Ireland’s fourth Grand Slam, achieved last year against England, felt almost a formality given that the visitors came to Dublin on the back of a 43-point rout by France. So it’s the 2018 Slam, sealed at Twickenham on Patrick’s Day, that represents Ireland’s zenith. England had won 14 on the bounce but were dismantled by tries by…

WALES’ SIX NATIONS FIXTURES Sat 3 Feb Scotland 4.45pm, Principality Stadium Sat 10 Feb England 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 24 Feb Ireland 2.15pm, Aviva Stadium Sun 10 Mar France 3pm, Principality Stadium Sat 16 Mar Italy 2.15pm, Principality Stadium VITAL STATISTIC Wales regained possession from kicks 21 times in last year’s 6N – more than any other team. Many of those were down to Dan Biggar, now absent ■ SIX NATIONS HIGH There’s a raft of famous days against England to pick from but how about the incredible 2010 win over Scotland when Wales trailed 24-14 with three minutes to play? It seemed impossible but late yellow cards for Scott Lawson and Phil Godman sent the Scots aflutter. Leigh Halfpenny got a try, then Wales opted to tie the scores from…

WHEN KIRANI James raced home to win Grenada’s first-ever Olympic medal with gold in the 400m at London 2012, an instant legacy was forged – that much was clear. What wasn’t so transparent at the time was that a new sport, a decade on, would take its first fledgling steps inside the stadium renamed after him. The second edition of the Grenada Rugby World 7s (GRW7s) – a name we can get on board with – took place in December last year. Tournament organisers Brian Stollmeyer, son of the late West Indian cricketer Jeffrey, and George Nicholson, who was appointed Rugby Americas North (RAN) president in 2021, brought the spectacle to the island for the first time in 2022. In its previous guise, it took place in Barbados, having started…

“The back of the lineout is a great place to attack from because it traps so many defensive forwards and gives you extra space for the backs to run in. There are two ways to stop the opposition from reaching the back. You can mirror their lineout by following their lifters and jumpers and ensuring that wherever they throw you’ll compete. Or you can block the back of the lineout but give them the front.” “If they’ve got the ball to the back that could simply be down to a good throw over our jumpers by their hooker. But it might be poor defence and if so it’s probably because the defenders at the tail have crept too far forward and allowed the ball to go over them. If the…

1 CAMERON MIELL Age 19 (9 May 2004) Born Plettenberg Bay, SA Position Prop Club Leicester Country England When did you first play rugby? My mum and dad took me down in Fish Hoek, Cape Town. I started in primary school, it was barefoot and freezing cold early mornings. I was a bit of a try-scorer then. If I scored X many tries, they would give me money or take me out for ice cream. What attracted you to rugby? I liked to be busy, I wasn’t sat inside on my Xbox. Did you play other sports? Yes, loads. Water polo, cricket, hockey and a bit of football as a goalkeeper. Then I did swimming and judo. I travelled around the country for judo and won three SA championships in…

“Never in our wildest dreams did we think this was a reality” I GREW UP idolising Lions chairman Ieuan Evans and he was chatting to me like I was his friend on the steering group. I thought it was a bit bizarre! It was a hugely rewarding 18-24 months and experience that helped me learn a huge amount about what it takes behind the scenes to put something like a new women’s British & Irish Lions tour together. We looked at lots of different options and discussed what was right and I think an inaugural tour to New Zealand was the best possible answer. It’s hugely exciting for any player or person involved in that. We did our due diligence in relation to the competition structure (a three-Test series) and…

ENGLAND’S SIX NATIONS FIXTURES Sat 3 Feb Italy 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sat 10 Feb Wales 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 24 Feb Scotland 4.45pm, Murrayfield Sat 9 Mar Ireland 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 16 Mar France 8pm, Parc OL, Lyon VITAL STATISTIC England had the best scrum (96%) and lineout (92%) percentages in last year’s Six Nations. But they’re now without the retired Courtney Lawes ■ SIX NATIONS HIGH You need a good memory to recall many England championship successes in recent years. The 2003 Grand Slam paved the way for RWC glory, but Eddie Jones’s 2016 clean sweep gave the nation reason to celebrate again after a disastrous home World Cup. It was clinched in Paris where tries by Danny Care, Dan Cole and Anthony Watson helped them home, 31-21. ■ SIX…

ITALY’S SIX NATIONS FIXTURES Sat 3 Feb England 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sun 11 Feb Ireland 3pm, Aviva Stadium Sun 25 Feb France 3pm, Stade Pierre Mauroy Sat 9 Mar Scotland 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sat 16 Mar Wales 2.15pm, Principality Stadium VITAL STATISTIC Italy have lost at home 25 times in a row in the Six Nations – their last home win came against Ireland back in 2013 ■ SIX NATIONS HIGH In 2007, Italy got their first away win (against Scotland) and won two games in a championship for the first time (beating Wales too). That’s their high watermark. They also got two wins in 2013, France one of their victims. But you have to celebrate those double-win seasons. Big time. Because victories are few and far between for the…

STEPHEN JONES Rugby’s most outspoken and influential journalist RUGBY IS always changing, priorities differ from era to era, and what the sport demands of players changes in emphasis. But the real truths of the game are permanent. For me, now and always, the key position on the field is fly-half. Most likely, the Six Nations will be won by someone wearing ten and in the head, hands and feet of the wearer. Granted, the role of the scrum-half has changed hugely, the poor bloke or poor woman has so many decisions to make when the ball comes back – but you still feel everything revolves around the ten to add shape and focus. The discussion on fly-halves is particularly relevant this year because major changes are afoot. Johnny Sexton and…

UNFLAPPABLE. THAT’S the vibe you get off Sam Underhill, it’s suggested to us by one game insider. He just gives off a sense that the big occasions, well, he neither loves nor hates them, he just plays. So we asked the Bath back-row about that. He tells us: “It’s a question you get asked a lot, about anything: how did you feel about the game? How did you feel about X? How did you feel about Y? A lot of the work we do is to try to achieve consistency. We do a lot of work with psychologists, for example, to help us prepare for games, help us deal with training and injury and disappointment and success. “A big part of where I’ve tried to get to is that consistency.…

AMONGST THE questions about Ireland’s failings at the World Cup is one that has yet to be fully answered: who is Johnny Sexton’s long-term replacement? Enter Munster’s Jack Crowley. The man from County Cork featured at the World Cup and helped Munster win last season’s URC title. At 24, Crowley is the same age as Marcus Smith. Crowley has played nowhere near as much Test rugby (nine caps) as his English counterpart and this is the problem Ireland now face after their ‘all-in’ approach on Sexton. In recent times the back-up to Sexton has been Jack Carty, Ross Byrne, Billy Burns and Ben Healy, who found solace in Scotland. In Crowley, Ireland have a contender of real pedigree. Success at Ireland U20 and Emerging Ireland level has thrust him into…

★ STAR LETTER ★ A gift we all deserve I want to highlight the good work that Ystradgynlais, my local club, has done for my 82-year-old father and other retired players. Knowing how lonely some of our elderly ex-players are, they’ve set up a club each Friday for former team-mates aged 70-plus to meet up. They’ve fed them too. Many of these past players live alone or suffer illness and this gesture has made a world of difference. My father gets so excited to be with his team again, it’s given him belonging. We have gentlemen travelling from Neath and Gorseinon to be part of it and the eldest ex-player is 91, having made his debut for Ystradgynlais in 1951. The club has also started a walking club for retired…

1st The paperback version of Le Coq: A Journey to the Heart of French Rugby by Peter Bills is released this Thursday. With a foreword from New Zealand legend Dan Carter, the former Perpignan and Racing fly-half, the book brings to life nearly 150 years of the sport in France as Bills traverses the country far and wide. You can buy it for £10.99 at waterstones.com 4th Ahead of the new 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season, New Zealand’s Chiefs and Blues head over to Japan for pre-season fixtures against the top four sides in last year’s League One table. The Chiefs will close proceedings on the Sunday when they take on Panasonic Wild Knights in Saitama. 7th The Little Big Things, a musical theatre production based on former Sarries academy…

THE RECENT Champions Cup game between Exeter and Glasgow showed us how not to referee under pressure and gave us one of the most bemusing ends to a top contest by French ref Pierre Brousset. At the end of an exciting encounter, Exeter had a scrum seven metres from their goal-line. With the clock beyond 80 minutes and a slim two-point lead to protect, all the Chiefs needed to do was get the ball off the Sandy Park field. This is one of the most tense and stressful situations a referee can face, and maximal concentration is needed at all points. What happened next was, quite frankly, very poor officiating. It’s always been the case that referees should seek to make clear and obvious decisions and not give controversial penalties,…

PHIL DOWSON Northampton director of rugby “I DON’T think so. It’s a part of the game that has always carried that value of points (three) and that importance. If you’re going to reduce the number of points for scrums, you should reduce the number of points for everything else and get people quick-tapping or kicking for the corners or whatever you want to do. But I wouldn’t do it just for one facet of the game because then you undermine that element. “We’ve got to make sure that we don’t have a scrumathon. It cannot just be for the scrum because I think it’s a massive asset to the game and it’s valuable, people enjoy it and I think we’ve got to educate people around the scrum as well. “But…

IT WAS as close to a slam dunk as you get in terms of coaching selection: Ireland head coach Andy Farrell, an assistant coach on British & Irish Lions tours in 2013 and 2017, has been handed the reins to lead next year’s voyage to Australia. At his official unveiling, the rugby league legend and former England centre said of accepting the role: “This means the world to me. It is magical.” He was asked what he treasured most from the last Lions visit to Australia and his reply came back quickly: “Winning.” The 2013 outfit triumphed in the Test series 2-1. And he elaborated on what works on a busy Lions tour. “I love everything about the format. I love the build-up of the games, I love how tough…

STUART BARNES The former England and Lions fly-half turned analyst BEFORE THE World Cup, we singled out Maro Itoje as the player who needed to rediscover his finest form if England were to have any chance of success, however that be defined. After a few seasons as a shadow of himself, the Saracens lock eked his way back to something close to his best. The net result was a Springbok pack nullified to the extent that England came within two points of making the World Cup final. Even the great Eben Etzebeth was subdued. England were not a good side, they didn’t play much progressive rugby in their run through the soft part of the draw to the semi-finals and the rain was a major factor in dragging a South…

FRANCE’S SIX NATIONS FIXTURES Fri 2 Feb Ireland 8pm, Stade Vélodrome Sat 10 Feb Scotland 2.15pm, Murrayfield Sun 25 Feb Italy 3pm, Stade Pierre Mauroy Sun 10 Mar Wales 3pm, Principality Stadium Sat 16 Mar England 8pm, Parc OL, Lyon VITAL STATISTIC France made 34 line breaks in the 2023 Six Nations – only Ireland (39) made more. But les Bleus had an unmatched 50% conversion rate as every other break ended in a try ■ SIX NATIONS HIGH It’s probably a bit of recency bias but it’s hard to look past the 2022 Grand Slam that ended a 12-year wait for the title. Antoine Dupont was at his masterful best and rightly took the Player of the Championship crown after lifting the trophy. France only trailed for 13 minutes…

SCOTLAND’S SIX NATIONS FIXTURES Sat 3 Feb Wales 4.45pm, Principality Stadium Sat 10 Feb France 2.15pm, Murrayfield Sat 24 Feb England 4.45pm, Murrayfield Sat 9 Mar Italy 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sat 16 Mar Ireland 4.45pm, Aviva Stadium VITAL STATISTIC Scotland’s 28-point win v Wales in last year’s Six Nations was a record margin for them, the 35-7 victory the biggest since 1924 ■ SIX NATIONS HIGH There’s an argument to be made that it was last year. Hear us out. Scotland have never been in the top two of the Six Nations. But they’ve also never won back-to-back matches in the tournament – until 2023. They beat England away (the first time they have won back-to-back in trips to Twickenham), then hammered Wales by a record margin the next week.…

BACK IN the day, when Iain Henderson was still the uncapped tyro of Ravenhill, he shared a student house with a couple of other likely lads, a gang of boys who found their kicks in the strangest places. For fun, they blew up microwaves. At thirty quid a pop – a tenner a head – it was worth it to see what kind of things they could stuff in there to make it pop. “We went through three or four of them,” Henderson recalls. “For all the craic we had, it was worth the money.” A year later, he made his debut for Ireland against South Africa and everything started to change. “After that South Africa game I remember thinking back to a year before and still arsing about in…

1 Cut to the chase The instinct to scan the line and attack must be practised at high speed with conditions. Have a variety of kicks from an opposition kicker towards the backfield. Players can call to the catcher to “go in the air” or “stay on the floor” depending on the kick and opposition chase. For longer kicks, manufacture the chase so it’s light on the open-field side, encouraging a counter-attack to go ‘open’. It may require two long passes. Stagger the chase or leave holes to encourage the catcher to run back and find the holes. 2 Gain-line class Get your ten to run off a nine’s pass at three tackle tubes spaced three defenders apart. Now get your ten taking the catch and immediately coming off his outside foot…