Innehållsförteckning för February 2023 från Rugby World

23rd The official Six Nations launch will be held in London, with captains and coaches present. Look out for the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast special, which will preview the championship and bring you the big interviews from the day. 27th The men’s and women’s HSBC Sevens World Series reaches Sydney from 27-29 January as the reigning champions in both competitions, Australia, hit home. If you can’t make it Down Under, you can stream matches from the official website’s Match Centre. 20th The story of adventurer Damian Browne (left), the former Connacht, Saints and Leinster lock who rowed from New York to Galway, will now be a live show. 112 Days: The Story of Two Men’s Extraordinary Attempt to Row The Atlantic premieres at the Galmont Hotel in Galway this…

ONCE UPON a Saturday many moons ago, there was a clamour to pull on the hand-me-down battered cotton jerseys that our club’s third XV wore on match days, writes Bobby Bridge. Those not required for the first and second teams were served a slice of social rugby in its purest form. It was at those early afternoon clubhouse meets when names would be called out and the walk to cars afforded time for handshakes and introductions. On one such occasion, three gentlemen who had just met that morning piled into one car along with an enthusiastic child, all set for a day out watching the rugby. A 20-minute journey ensued and conversation was light, touching on rugby and plans for that evening. Upon arrival at the away ground, the trio…

COUPLE COUP All Black No 8 Pita Gus Sowakula and his wife, Toka Natua, will join Clermont next season. DEADEYE DAN Dan Sheehan’s 22 successful lineout throws against Racing is a new Opta record. DODDIE’S SERVICE A memorial service for Doddie Weir (right) was held in Melrose on 19 December, with sound relayed at The Greenyards. WELSH SHOWCASE Tickets are on sale for the 2023 Wheelchair Rugby European Championship from 3-7 May in Cardiff. ETERNAL CITY International Gay Rugby’s Bingham Cup is next in Rome, 2024. UNION RACE Five candidates to be the next Rugby Players Association chief – Mike Brown, Christian Day, Matt Garvey, Mark Lambert and Jamie Roberts – find out who wins on 16 January. FUNDING SEARCH The IRFU are seeking €1.4m investment in their women’s project.…

Position Hooker Age 27 France caps 24 THERE’S A guy entrusted with leading an army of young and exciting talents out there in Toulouse. An uncompromising sort who might not like fanfare all that much but cannot help being in the thick of things. Julien Marchand is an undeniable force from No 2. He’s the guy who leads Antoine Dupont most club weekends. He is a must-pick in a unit that France forwards coach William Servat recently told a crowd at a Midi Olympique event was, in his eyes, still “the best scrum of the moment”. Indeed, after the recent victory over Japan, Midol proclaimed that March and was rightly considered the best hooker on the planet. Last Six Nations too, he was on one. Awarded the Player of the…

Position Second-row Age 30 Ireland caps 36 IF ALL Blacks fans were not familiar with Tadhg Beirne before Ireland’s summer tour to New Zealand, then after its conclusion they were lucky if he was not giving them nightmares. Beirne’s brilliance helped Irish rugby to its proudest moment, a series win in New Zealand, a sporting nirvana that a tearful Peter O’Mahony later revealed he had never even dared to dream of. Second-row Beirne became a turnover titan in Wellington in the deciding third Test. The Munster man’s ferocious work at the breakdown was the perfect foil to the glorious attacking play that sliced the All Blacks apart in the first 40, handing the hosts a first home series defeat since France prevailed in the amateur era. “It’s just a part…

MOMENTS IN 2022 WALES U20 v SCOTLAND Hawkins cut a fantastic hard line to crash over v Scotland (above). From 13-7 down, he inspired Wales to a 26-13 win, their only one of the 2022 Six Nations WALES U20 v ITALY The centre showed all his nerve to down the Summer Series hosts in Treviso. With five minutes left and the scores locked at 20-20, he slotted the winning penalty from 45m out WALES v AUSTRALIA Given his senior bow at 20, Hawkins put in an assured display at inside-centre, never looking out of place and winning plenty of plaudits…

IT’S ONE thing to have the ability to kick the ball an incredible distance. And those who watch the United Rugby Championship will notice Lions fly-half Jordan Hendrikse firing them over from well inside his own half. But motivation for when and why kickers take that on can be fascinating. And fun. “For me it’s all about technique at the end of the day, keep your head down and follow through,” Hendrikse tells Rugby World. “But it could also be like a technique to, you know, play mind games with the opposition. Maybe taking a kick from further than expected to let them know, ‘oh, I can’t give penalties away in that area of the field’. “But for me it’s about feeling confident, reaching back and striking the ball sweetly.…

1 MOVE SOME FUNDAMENTAL lifts in the gym are less about packing on weight or looking ripped – it’s much more about strengthening muscles in order to make athletes as robust as possible. Injuries and niggles are a reality of the game, so build resilience. An element of this that can help is working on individual limbs, in isolation, or doing a range of exercises that work one side and then the other. Think of single-leg exercises like a single-leg squat/step-up/deadlift or even classic lunges, front, back, and in control. Put simply, training like this means building up each side in the same way so that you don’t overcompensate certain exercises with your stronger side or worsen inherent imbalances by going hard at it – we want to be acting…

The Six Nations is never a quiet affair, but in a Rugby World Cup year the volume gets turned up that little bit louder. So we’ve gone for a veritable symphony of stars – some well known, some less so. A couple of ‘vans’, a former volleyball player, a pair of brothers and we even have a World Rugby Player of the Year in the mix! Join us as we get familiar with these stars, their journeys to the elite end of the game and what they’ll bring to an important season. But first, is there anything we can learn, or improve upon, from the 2022 edition of this famous championship? Enjoy our special mini mag.…

JACK VAN Poortvliet was a teenager in possession of a shotgun when he first made an impression on the man whose place he was set to take in the Leicester Tigers squad. Long before exploding onto the international stage with England, the emerging scrum-half was turning heads and firing shots as part of a golden age of youngsters emerging through the club’s famous academy. Future Scotland star Ben White and fellow Norfolk native Harry Simmons were pushing to become Ben Youngs’s successor or to elbow the senior alternative Sam Harrison out of contention in a competitive field of nines. “The first thing I remember was Matt Smith, who had just retired and did a year coaching the academy, saying the name Jack van Poortvliet, as I’d never heard a name…

RECENT FIXTURES have been compelling. Yet as if draws, upsets and coach controversy wasn’t enough, there’s now talk of a countdown ‘shot clock’ timer being introduced for scrums, lineouts and kicks at goal. The premise is simple: make the game quicker and more exciting. This might sound reasonable. After all, who wants to see a sequence of reset scrums or drawn-out kicks at goal? But the reality is a lot more complicated. Take scrums. They are already hard enough to referee. Introducing a clock just puts one person under pressure – the referee. I can’t imagine why it would make either team scrummage quicker. Just to please the crowd? All that would follow would be a stream of free-kicks because refs would feel duty-bound to get the game moving quickly…

1 JOE JENKINS Age 19 (13 Oct 2003) Born Halifax, West Yorkshire Position Centre Club Bristol Country England When did you first play rugby? When I moved to Hereford from Yorkshire. My dad took me along to Hereford rugby club and I played there from U9s to U16s. I went to Monmouth School in Year Seven (age 11), so I was playing for them too. What positions have you played? I’ve predominantly played at 12 and 13, plus a bit at full-back. I’ve played 13 for most of age-grade rugby and at the Bears. When did the rep rugby start? In U15s I played for Newport Schools. At U16s I trialled for the Dragons but got cut at the later stages. I got picked up by the Bears; I went…

“Making the World Cup is a dream come true. We celebrated all together in Dubai but the best bit was during our arrival at Lisbon Airport. Hundreds of people were waiting for us there. That moment made us so proud of what we’d achieved.” “Qualifying for the Rugby World Cup is one of the proudest moments of my life. An amazing feeling. We worked so hard for so long.” “It was my older brother who got me into rugby. I remember him coming home from training. It wasn’t love at first sight for me as I also tried other sports like judo and indoor football, but it grew on me.” “The biggest challenge as captain is dealing with different personalities. But it’s not done alone. Having part of the team…

“I HAVE been in recruitment and HR since retiring in the 2003-04 season. I had a couple of shoulder injuries which coincided with me being out of contract, but Northampton gave me some work in the commercial department. “I had been a PE teacher at Culverhay School in Bath. It was an option to return but when you get exposed to top-flight rugby you meet a lot of business people and see how it works commercially. That gave me a foothold in the business world. “I got into HR and the people business and have been at the Curve Group since 2021. Teaching helps; it’s about people development and so is this. Rugby gives you a good grounding in speaking to people from different walks of life, playing with builders…

FOOLS, AREN’T we. We’ve tried to boil down all of the best in men’s rugby into one single XV. Rugby World canvassed some of our expert contributors around the globe and no two sides were the same. How could we miss out that guy, from that team? What were we thinking, eh? And yet we’re all interested to see the team. That’s the magic of rugby at the moment – the array of superb stars on display today is incredible. There were many names in contention. So many combinations we could try. Did we want the bludgeon or the scalpel?The piano shifter or the piano player? There’s an organ grinder or two, too… So as we ride the superhighway to a spectacular rugby year, let’s start 2023 off with a…

Position Inside-centre Age 30 France caps 18 STUART BARNES, our regular Rugby World sage, said of Jonathan Danty in The Times: “Danty is a rock in defence and a target in attack. There are more subtle backs in the French game but the importance of his qualities cannot be overlooked.” The argument Barnes makes is that at the blunt end of the game (forget ‘sharp’, top Tests are often about withstanding trauma), the guy who does the basics much better than the other blokes is king. Now we know how the French feel about royalty, and the 12 shirt in France was at one time possessed by Virimi Vakatawa, who was capable of some otherworldly things with a rugby ball. But Danty deserves his coronation. For a start, he is…

Position Flanker Age 31 South Africa caps 75 NUMBERS ON the back of the jersey can be a big talking point. And so while it gets a little confusing with Kolisi – who captains South Africa from six, but hails from a land where that position anywhere else but France would be the seven – you find yourself making room for him. In what we were told was a vulnerable time for the Boks, Kolisi stood up. Or should that be fired forward? He relished the physical challenge. And that’s what is funny too – for years there have been chats about how he’s more of a ball runner and link man than the traditional blood-and-guts six of Springbok fable. But in the last year he has happily tried to…

THE BEST for high ball stuff is actually the AFL in Australia,” says Freddie Steward. We’ve barely begun talking and already the gravity-snubbing star is off with a leap into the notion of cribbing from other sports like Aussie Rules. Later he tells us that he wants to be “the best in the world under the high ball” but his appetite for improvement there is already fully understood. We’ve grown accustomed to seeing the England and Leicester Tigers full-back throwing himself upwards at plummeting rugby balls, regardless of the human traffic around him. But then he lets us in on what he has been doing off the park on this aspect of his game. “There’s a ton of AFL clips on YouTube and Neil Craig (assistant coach to former England…

HERE’S A story about Ardie Savea which may seem insignificant but which is not. It is about a round of handshakes. It sums up a man who is one of the best players in the world at the moment and one who continues to give rugby a good name. There is only one Ardie. He has become a wonderful player; he is not a monster in the back row by modern standards but he has electric reactions, he is quick over the ground, ferociously competitive and also a ball player. He has become a standard bearer for his team and the whole nation. In the shortlist for the World Rugby Player of the Year, there was no Ardie at all. Lukhanyo Am (South Africa), Antoine Dupont (France) and Johnny Sexton…

Age 26 (17 Jun 1996) Born Western Cape, SA Position Outside back Franchise Bulls Height 5ft 9in Weight 12st Springbok caps Seven Instagram handle @the_kurtl33_ COMPARISONS OF Kurt-Lee Arendse and Cheslin Kolbe are inevitable. Both endured tough upbringings in underprivileged areas outside Cape Town, and both were told that they were too small for professional rugby. Kolbe drew inspiration from former Springbok wingers such as Breyton Paulse and Gio Aplon, who had blazed a trail for smaller players in the 2000s. Arendse also looked up to Aplon and eventually Kolbe. The latter famously beat three England defenders to score a title-clinching try in the 2019 World Cup final. Three years on at Twickenham, Arendse channelled the spirit of Kolbe when he wrong-footed England fly-half Marcus Smith en route to the…

WHEN FLORENCE Long heard that her mum’s breast cancer needed chemotherapy, the prop told her: “I’m going to shave my hair off with you.” Long’s mum, Bristol Bears safeguarding officer Clare Brophy, suggested they create a Crowdfunder for Macmillan Cancer Support to raise money while shaving their heads. The 22-year-old Worcester Warriors star created one before a training session, with £100 to £500 in mind as a target. After training, she checked and it was at almost £2,000. “I had to up it and nearly every day after that,” Long tells Rugby World. “I didn’t want to set my sights too high.” Long and her mum shaved their heads last March at Worcester’s Sixways stadium, where they were supported by her team-mates. They have now raised just shy of £10,000.…

WITH SO many outstanding individual performances in the past 12 months, it’s almost impossible to select a World XV. But one man who surely gets the nod in most people’s eyes is South Africa lock Eben Etzebeth. The Test centurion has been in particularly good form of late, scoring a vital try against England, being involved in some superb Boks attacking play and remaining one of the game’s major enforcers to rattle the opposition. Cue Maro Itoje scuffle… There’s a lot more to the 31-year-old’s game than his imposing 6ft 8in and 122kg frame suggests. There are subtle nuances that many don’t pick up on. His engine is something to behold as he marauds around the field covering ground that you wouldn’t expect. A second-row’s nuts and bolts are the scrum…

STAR LETTER Let’s celebrate our differences If you haven’t been able to go to any big matches lately or get down the clubhouse or meet your mates in the pub, you might have found yourself following the talking points on social media: sackings and agendas, the slating of pundits, referees and writers. When did it all get so divisive? If you look at rugby purely through the prism of social media, it’s ‘fans’ calling total strangers idiots and spouting conspiracy theories and distrusting everything. I think I’ve had about enough of this. I made a point of meeting some fellow fans recently and there was none of that. There was stuff we disagreed on but we talked about it like adults and, just like how you want the game to…

Stopping the rot Italy celebrate ending a record losing championship run of 36 defeats by beating Wales. Their previous win was 22-19 v Scotland at Murrayfield in 2015 Keeping the door shut Hugo Keenan stops Stuart Hogg at the Aviva. Ireland conceded the fewest tries all tournament, leaking just four Tower of strength Federico Ruzza rises high v Scotland. The Italian won a chart-topping 28 lineouts Metre eater Scotland’s Stuart Hogg made 653 metres – by far the top figure Piling up the points Marcus Smith top-scored on 71 points – 70% of England’s total. Jamie George (10) was the only other Englishman to reach double figures Try as they might There were joint top try-scorers as Damian Penaud (above), Gabin Villière and James Lowe tied on three apiece Assisting…

PEATO MAUVAKA holds a unique place in French rugby – he is the only player to have featured in every game of their record-breaking 13-match winning streak. Not bad for a kid from New Caledonia who dreamed of playing volleyball professionally and admits he knew barely anything about rugby when he came to mainland France a decade ago. Now he’s a fixture in France’s match-day squad and while he rarely starts, there are few players more trusted by Fabien Galthié and his staff. Mauvaka’s progress from volleyball spiking in the South Pacific to lineout throwing in Toulouse is in large part due to key parts played in his sporting life by two influential men. His father, Souane-Patita, was Mauvaka’s biggest rugby supporter. In fact, he was the only member of…

JOSH VAN der Flier’s daily school routine took him in the front door of Wesley College in Dublin and past the wall that honoured all the sporting internationals the school had produced; the Olympians, the hockey players, the sailors, the rugby players, of which there were only two since its formation in 1895 – Herbert Aston from 1908 and Eric Miller from 1997. He always wanted the family name up on that sporting honours board and he got his wish, but not in the way he imagined. In 2011, at the age of 14, his younger sister Julie played a one-day cricket International for Ireland against Pakistan. “For my last two years in school I walked past the board and saw Julie’s name up there and that was a huge…

IT PROBABLY wasn’t what Paolo and Alessandro Garbisi had pictured when they fantasised about playing together for Italy back in their shared childhood bedroom in Martellago, just north of Venice. During all those long nights spent on the training pitch at the Mogliano rugby club, they would have perhaps imagined a grander backdrop for their dreams coming to fruition than the Stadionul Arcul de Triumf in Bucharest. And yet the recently renovated Romanian national stadium will always have a special place in the Garbisi family’s heart, it being the place where the brothers not only first donned the Azzurri jersey on the same pitch but the site of their first-ever outing as team-mates. Italy’s 45-13 win over the Mighty Oaks on 1 July last year brought 20-year-old scrum-half Alessandro’s first…

WHEN DARCY Graham stuck out a paw and intercepted David Havili’s unwise pass in a frenetic opening 40 between Scotland and the All Blacks in November, thousands in the stadium rose to their feet. Maybe they’d have done it no matter who had snaffled Kiwi ball, but the fact that it was Graham got them out of their seats. The wing didn’t disappoint them. Scurrying away from Havili, eluding Caleb Clarke’s desperate attempt at a tap-tackle and stepping Beauden Barrett as if he was playing in a bounce match, Graham raced in to score. Dalton Papali’i, the All Black back-row, might have had a touch of déjà vu at that point. Five years earlier he played for New Zealand against Scotland at the U20 World Cup and Graham had scored…

CUT ANOTHER angle and you’ll see a different side to Christ Tshiunza. Start off with his university studies. At Exeter uni, he studies sports science – makes sense – and business. That one? “I see it like a hobby because I’ve always wanted to get into the business world,” he says. The adroit Exeter Chiefs back-five forward then catches the word ‘hobby’. For a start, he doesn’t quite know which aspect of the business world he’d wish to burst into, merely that he wants to make a big impact when he does decide. This is more like a driven young lad keeping his hand in on something that’s a little bit different. Look at the 20-year-old’s journey from war-afflicted Kinshasa to Cardiff, and from university rugby to the Test scene,…

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Position Wing Age 27 Argentina caps 50 ARE WE all just onlookers in the court of King Boff? The Puma has had an exceptional year, and in November his national boss Michael Cheika said of his time in Edinburgh: “He’s really flourished playing up here.” He later added: “I’m not going to give him too many raps because he’s getting lots of air time.” The kicking winger scored the winning points in the three-Test series against Scotland in Argentina last summer. Then it was 20 points to his name as Argentina beat the All Blacks on Kiwi soil for the first time. Against England he was peppering the scoreboard again, collecting 25 points in a victory at Twickenham to start the Argentine autumn with a bang. Of all of those,…

Position Loosehead Age 27 England caps 4 3 EDDIE JONES made a lot of boo-boos but he should be lauded for introducing Ellis Genge when England were riding high in 2016. Genge is a fiery character from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ and Jones says coaching him was akin to clinging to the reins whilst training a wild horse. Even now, the prop can struggle to control his emotions. Not that you would wish to tame him. There is almost a fury to his ball-carrying, which sees him skittle defenders even at Test level, and in the tackle he can hit with bone-juddering savagery. “He’s a monster, absolutely horrible to stop,” said Dave Flatman when Genge blasted through Japan’s defence to score. It was ever thus, says Alan Martinovic,…

Age 20 (11 June 2002) Born Swansea Position Centre Club Ospreys Height 6ft Weight 98kg Wales caps One Instagram handle @joehawkinsss JOE HAWKINS will forever cherish the day Wales blew a 21-point lead to lose to Australia and put the final nail in Wayne Pivac’s coffin. While the majority of the 67,401 watching at Principality Stadium will be eager to erase the final 22 minutes of Wales’ autumn from their memory, as a 34-13 cushion rapidly became a 39-34 loss, it will always be the occasion of the Ospreys centre’s first senior cap. Just 137 days after captaining Wales U20 in their Six Nations Summer Series final defeat to South Africa and having made just six starts for the Ospreys, Hawkins wore the No 12 against Dave Rennie’s Wallabies. A…

BAD JOKES have set-ups like this. An Irish rugby player and a Finnish and Mexican golfer walk into a warehouse and come out of it a little later with… A hoodie. Okay, it’s not entirely representative, but that jumble of words actually makes sense. Because Leinster and Ireland back-three flyer Jordan Larmour recently teamed up with two professional golfers, Kiira Riihijärvi of Finland and Ana Paula Valdes of Mexico, to think up Sigmoid Apparel. The idea is garments for athletes designed by, well, athletes. “It all started with Sigmoid Sports, this agency we’re all involved in,” Larmour begins. The concept behind that is – without stepping too much on the initial premise of Jerry Maguire – a smaller core of clients from a diversity of sports. “We chat a good…

1 Turn the heat up Help players become more robust at the front of the lineout by introducing pressure and even disrupting the jumps and lifts using tackle shields. Straight-line jumping involves an early thrust from the arms to get the take-off. Then the lifters really come into play and the jumper has to switch on their core strength, becoming quite rigid to be thrusted up straight. The pressure of a nudge with pads will help practise stability. 2 Learn from Moody Lewis Moody once did a session on charge-downs at Bristol, albeit on No 10s from a great distance. He put great emphasis on a target area of the kicker and used the shin as his focal point. He got players to be the correct distance away for timing and the…