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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher talks to Wallaby legend Michael Lynagh
Michael Patrick, Thomas Lynagh – yes there are some Irish antecedents there for sure – doesn’t really ‘do’ drama. As a...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature Time for Rugby World Cup to make another Quantum leap
Far be it from me to heap the pressure on the already overworked organisers but RWC2015 is probably the most important...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher – Watch out England, Leone Nakarawa has it all
Leone Nakarawa is the Fijian rugby player of everybody’s dreams and most opponents’ nightmares. Long legged, lean and mean he can...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s RWC absent friends XV
15 Israel Dagg (NZ) Arguably the star of the tournament four years ago, certainly a key player with five tries and...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s verdict: Yes Rob, the future is bright, but it’s all about the here and now…
That was an angry England team out there yesterday, especially in the first half, and I’m not surprised after their no-show...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher pays tribute to Bakkies Botha
It’s all a bit rock’n’roll for Bakkies Botha at present. Farewell gigs in Cape Town, Tokyo and, most recently, at the...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher recalls the biggest World Cup upsets in history
Shock results – upsets – are not a common occurrence at World Cups where generally thing go very much to form. Indeed...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Record-breaker Richie McCaw was on a different level from the start
It was a dirty Dublin night in November 2001 when our shambles of a taxi driver eventually located the Killiney Castle...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s Rugby World Cup bolters
Danny Barrett (USA): One of the great hopes surrounding the US Eagles Sevens programme is that some of the talent identified...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s column: Scandalous delay that haunts the World Cup
One of the biggest drawbacks of Rugby Union’s obsession with amateurism was that the Rugby World Cup was belatedly dragged kicking...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher previews the Bledisloe Cup
This year’s quick-fire Rugby Championship seems to be hurtling to a conclusion almost before it began but the organisers couldn’t have...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s column: Sometimes it’s better just to put your feet up
I don’t know if Wales‘ fitness guru Paul Stridgeon and Bristol coach Sean Holley are Jos Stone fans and I certainly...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s Rugby Championship preview
In a World Cup year a short sharp Rugby Championship – each of the four teams plays each other just the...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher meets up with Brad Barritt
By my count there are nine players in the current England long squad who could justifiably harbour hopes, albeit some much...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: A gentle boot-camp and warm-up for the Cup? Tell that to the Marines
The thing about World Cup camps is that the handbrakes come off and, especially among Tier One Nations, the notoriously tight-fisted...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher speaks to Firebrand Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu about preaching the message of alofa
As well as being a cracking Test centre and fly-half and a ‘have boots will travel’ professional for a decade or...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: The day South Africa was cleared for take-off
It’s 20 years ago today that President Nelson Mandela presented Francois Pienaar with the World Cup at Ellis Park to bring down...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Bionic Jacques Burger is on his last crusade
After the best part of ten months at the coal face on behalf of Premiership champions Saracens, Jacques Burger is taking...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 10 years agoBrendan Gallagher: The 69-match journey to the World Cup
Nations Cup The tenth year of this competition and the ninth to be held in Bucharest. Only the inaugural tournament, in...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: USA Eagles leave rugby’s old world order at Sixes and Sevens
Last Tuesday evening, when Madison Hughes and his American Sevens squad arrived back at the USA Olympic training centre in Chula...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s Premiership play-offs preview
Northampton (1) Story of the season The reigning champions may have wobbled badly in Europe with those big defeats against Racing...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: How the RAF revived spirit of Bader and Cooler King
Through adversity to the stars, as the RAF motto proclaims. Taking on the might of the Army and Navy has always...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Clear the air? No, Fartgate only left a very nasty smell!
It was 20 years ago today – the Sunday of the early May Bank Holiday – that one of the strangest...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s verdict on Toulon’s Champions Cup win: The old Sea Wolves are simply majestic
I ceased caring about how many millions Toulon allegedly spend on their squad a long time ago. In fact the more...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s Champions Cup team of the tournament
15 Nick Abendanon (above) – Clermont For some reason his stellar performances for Clermont seem to have attracted more attention than...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Never call Carl Hayman a mercenary… he’s been a galactico!
Three giants of the game – metaphorically and physically – depart the European scene at Twickenham on Saturday as the clock...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s column: Clermont reap benefits from hunting cleverly
Money invariably encourages envy and bad-mouthing but money per se has never guaranteed success in any sport. Winning is much more...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Can Saracens exploit scars of 2014?
The two stand-out performances in European Cup history have both come within the last 12 months and on Saturday the two...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher looks back at five gems from the European Cup semi-finals
1999: Ulster 33 Stade Francais 27 The English clubs weren’t involved in the 1998-9 competition but frankly nobody really missed them...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher feature: 125 years of Barbarians
It was 2am on the morning of April 9 1890 that the Barbarians Football club officially came into existence which in...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature on Alan Hancock’s try against Scotland in 1965
Everybody is famously allowed 15 minutes of fame, but for Northampton wing Andy Hancock that was abbreviated to 15 seconds. That’s...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Paul O’Connell can bow out in style
It’s time to start making a fuss of Paul O’Connell which, of course, being the modest type the Ireland captain will...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Big Clive Norling back in charge after the long dark years of battle
Depression – proper full blown depression – can do strange things to the mind as Clive Norling discovered during the seven...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: Glint of gilded youth in Scotland v Italy
And so to the RBS Six Nations annual wooden spoon ‘decider’ between Scotland and Italy – the two nations between them...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: England must take heed of Irish warnings from history!
There is no disgrace losing in Dublin – New Zealand are the only team in the world to have avoided that...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher comment: Why Sergio Parisse will always be a winner in defeat
Sergio Parisse fascinates me. He comfortably makes the top five all-round rugby players I have reported on over the last ten...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s feature: When Scotland v Wales filled Murrayfield to the max
It’s always intrigued me, that six digit figure of 104,000 from a Five Nations match 40 years ago. What was that...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Mauro Bergamasco keeps on rolling!
Mauro Bergamasco was playing international rugby a year before Brian O’Driscoll pulled on an Ireland shirt and two years before Italy...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s verdict: No more Mr Nice Guy as Robbo’s men get ruthless
Chris Robshaw isn’t one of rugby’s great smilers but the megawatt beam on his face on Friday night at the Millennium...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: The demons of Cardiff that will forever haunt England
England have found the going tough in Cardiff over years both at the Arms Park and the Millennium Stadium. Indeed at...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Medicine gives Tom Rees a challenge he craves
He was, all the critics were agreed, going to be the England rugby captain for a very long time. That rare...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: The Test job? It’s a real loss but mavericks need not apply
Last November Jim Greenwood, who died in 2010, was voted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame and next week his...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Get ready for a crescendo…. just like the Olympics
Suddenly it’s World Cup year and the tournament is hurtling towards us as the pace quickens. No longer can we talk...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Michael Green gets right to the heart of Coarse rugby
According to my calculations only one layman – ie somebody who didn’t play or coach at the top level or wasn’t...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Enforcers help to keep the game trouble free!
I’ve always had a soft spot for rugby’s ‘enforcers’ and will rather miss Bakkies Botha, which is a sentiment I suspect...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Jacob takes well-trodden Rhodes to Twickenham
So little done, so much to do. They may or may not be the last words of Cecil Rhodes on his...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Those gallant Dragons who refused to be slain
It was the day that Bleddyn Williams led Wales to victory over the All Blacks and the afternoon Olympic sprinter Ken...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Trench Blacks charmed Paris during respite from carnage
The inspirational deeds of many Rugby players on the Western Front have been well documented in recent years in a number...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: The one cap wonders woefully short-changed
Mention of David Bishop last week and the subject of the best Welsh one cap wonders in the game has known...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: ‘Bish’ is an angel with a dirty face
Thirty years ago this month David Bishop fished a small bottle of water from his bag and found a quiet corner...












