Rugby World editor Owain Jones took a pew with England and Lions legend Phil Vickery to discuss the tour in New Zealand, the likely Test 23 to face the All…
Owain Jones
Phil Vickery on the Lions: Part 1
Phil Vickery was a fresh-faced Lions tourist in 2001 in Australia and a gnarled World Cup winning tighthead 2009 in South Africa so he knows all about the intensity of…
Why there’s still hope for the Lions…
So far, it’s all been entirely predicable. The Lions have been written off from Invercargill in the South, to Auckland in the North. They’ve been castigated by local media as…
Lions 16-22 Blues: The game’s key talking points
A tale of missed opportunities The Lions are becoming masters at not being able to get over the whitewash. Against the Provincial Barbarians, on four occasions, they rumbled, or spun…
Lions 2017: Five players with a point to prove
The 2017 Lions tour kicks off within hours after what has seemed an interminable wait. With the Provincial Barbarians expected to put up the least resistance to the Lions in…
Talking points: Domestic finals promise drama, elation and despair in equal measure
By tomorrow evening, just a shade after 8pm, the 2016-17 domestic season will be a footnote, and we’ll know which clubs have been engraved into the history books. At Twickenham,…
The 2017 Barbarians have the talent to trouble England at Twickenham
The Barbarians got down to business training in South West London earlier today, and with their final complement now announced, it appears they’ve coerced a fair amount of talent to…
The All Blacks face fitness concerns of their own
Full-back: Ben Smith The mercurial full-back who resembles Clark Kent off the pitch, but turns into Superman on it (albeit dressed in black) has sat out the last couple of…
Billy Vunipola ruled out of the Lions tour through injury
The British & Irish Lions have been rocked by the news that Saracens and England No 8 Billy Vunipola has been ruled out of the Series in New Zealand with…
Talking points from the European semi-finals
Saracens out-Munster, Munster Over the years, we’ve witnessed the irrepressible red wave overcome lesser teams, yet no matter how many big ball carriers they sent down Saracens’ channel, Munster could…