Reaching the coveted milestone of 50 Tests in Paris just over a week ago, George North underlined a trend of modern rugby. Barring the odd anomaly such as Keven Mealamu…
South Africa
The February letter from South Africa
SA player drain continues South Africa coach Heyneke Meyer’s penchant for picking players based in Europe and Japan appears to have hastened the rush of promising players to lucrative foreign…
Rugby statistics: Can we predict the 2015 Super Rugby winner?
The 20th season of Super Rugby begins in February and with the tournament expanding to 18 teams in 2016, this will be the fifth and final time that the 15…
The latest rugby letter from South Africa
FEELING THE HEAT South Africa’s Super Rugby players sucked in their bellies after a short holiday break and returned to the most feared part of the year, pre-season in brutal…
A letter from South Africa: Things go from bad to worse for Springboks
The Springboks’ autumn tour to Britain, Ireland and Italy went from bad to worse, bookended by two unexpected losses to Ireland and Wales, with the latter compounded by a potentially…
Nathan Sharpe: Rugby’s best locks
At the Dubai Sevens we caught up with Wallaby great Nathan Sharpe. In a stellar 14-year career former Queensland Red and Western Force lock Sharpe won 116 caps, played in three World Cups…
Autumn Tests 2014: End of series awards
The ‘In the black’ Award – New Zealand The marketeers at Adidas have their work cut out rebranding a black shirt, and this year they came up ‘the Blackest Shirt…
Wales v South Africa: Five things we learned
Wales get the win they deserve Wales beat South Africa 12- 6 and finally got the much referenced monkey off their back. But let’s face it, this wasn’t your common-or-garden…
Saints and Sinners: The weekend’s talking points
The Saints Biggar the better He didn’t create any tries with breath-taking passes or scything runs, he didn’t kick any points as he had Leigh Halfpenny to do that job,…
Autumn Internationals: Week four report
IN A NUTSHELL England 26-17 Australia Swing Low reverberated around Twickenham as England ended their autumn with a win over Australia. It wasn’t a convincing performance, but a try in…