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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...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Why Brian O’Driscoll won’t be taking anyone to book unlike Kevin Pietersen
Rugby’s oldest maxim is probably “what goes on tour stays on tour” and, as an ‘old school’ player par excellence, Brian...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Those magnificent seven victories
England have beaten New Zealand seven times in 39 meetings, which sounds like a modest enough record until you appreciate that...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Why Eagles dare on this Field of dreams
The next time the New Zealand All Blacks lace their boots in earnest in a Test match will be a week...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher’s Team of the 2014 Rugby Championship
15 Joaquin Tuculet (Argentina) The exciting new Puma nudges it from Israel Folau who, although good, wasn’t quite the force of...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: With all these golden oldies, why is therea youth cult?
I have absolutely no idea who comes up with these ideas but today – October 5 – has been designated as...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Discovering the secrets of those great schools XVs
What makes a great schools rugby team? And which were the best ever school XVs? Two perennial questions that always enliven...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher and boot camps
It is difficult to be precise about these things but the first whiff of a training camp – or something out...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: One hundred years on…the Varsity heroes are honoured
It was a Cambridge man, and a half decent rugby player to boot, who famously mused that should he die there...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: When rugby passed its screen test
Gareth Thomas is launching his new updated biography Proud on Thursday – which is probably why that amiable old Hollywood slugger...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: We should never forget the ghosts at the feast
Relegation is a fact of life in any sport with leagues, or at least should if that league structure is to...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: These All Blacks are just fitter, not better
With the undoubted exception of England, circa 2001-2003, I’ve always thought New Zealand, year-in year-out, look at least ten per cent...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Lions must show their teeth in South Seas
Having been among those agitating for New Zealand finally to pay a debt of honour to the Samoan people and play...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher – So, is Maggie Alphonsi the retiring type?
All good things come to an end but you can sense Maggie Alphonsi’s reluctance to leave the international scene. England‘s openside...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 11 years agoBrendan Gallagher: They think the ball’s over … it isn’t now!
Today – August 17 – is exactly 20 years since a certain George Gregan made his Bledisloe Cup debut in Sydney...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: GB’s road to Rio at sixes and Sevens
The Commonwealth Games Sevens at Ibrox may have been a huge success on and off the field but it further confused...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: To Siberia with Keeef Woodie, Dolly, yoga and a hint of vodka
It was the strangest rugby trip of my life and also, in many ways, the most memorable despite chronic jet lag,...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Where are they now? The 2003 RWC-winning England squad
What did rugby and life have in store for England‘s triumphant World Cup-winning squad from 2003? Following the recent retirements of...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Vermeulen and Namibia, a tale of defiance and pure maths
If Namibia coach Danie Vermeulen could jump for joy he would have been in orbit last Sunday, instead he stayed very...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Agony of 2010 can spur us to title in WRWC
A hard core of determined World Cup veterans may lay at the heart of England’s World Cup squad but equally it...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Kenya national side hope to lift the nation
They could be dancing in the streets of Nairobi by sundown tonight, well more than normal. Nearly 1,500 miles away to...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Girls go full-time and and full-on for big prize
Without fanfare or fuss a minor revolution has been taking place in and around Surrey Sports Park in Guildford this summer...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Let’s lament passing of cricketing rugby stars
Whatever happened to the rugby playing cricketer or indeed the cricket loving rugby player? There was a time when the most...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: It’ll be a fight to the death for Saracens and Toulon
The seeding process for the inaugural European Champions Cup is just as unfathomable as its Heineken Cup predecessor but one thing...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Yes, it’s time for All Blacks to end their Pacific shame
Guys, it’s not the dark side of the moon. No fewer than four airlines, including the national carrier Air New Zealand,...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Gory story of Welsh failure in South Africa
South Africa. The graveyard of Welsh rugby. Nowhere in the world, over the last 50 years, have Wales been put away...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: We’ve had hell and miracles, so what next for England?
England rugby tours of New Zealand – with some just fleeting visits in these furious fast forward times – are always...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: You’ve been in overdrive, BT, but keep the brake on Austin Healey
It’s that time of the year when self-opinionated columnists dispense gongs, and the occasional brickbat, to those who deserve them and...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher charts the career of Jonny Wilkinson, the player who has transcended the game
Talk about synchronicity. When confirmation of Jonny Wilkinson’s much-touted retirement was filtering through this week I was actually rummaging around my...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: So, it’s farewell Heineken, you were already just champion!
Rather in the way journalism is often considered the first draft of history, the Heineken Cup was effectively European Rugby’s first...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Why I’ve learned to love the Premiership play-offs
How quickly time moves on and blazing rows of yesteryear recede. For many it was the blackest of days midway through...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: On the march with Trelawny’s Army, rugby’s great outsiders
So the European legislators, God bless, have finally caught up with the rugby world and officially recognised Cornwall as being very...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: Murder on the dancefloor as Harlequins try to get a grip
The Murderball challenge is on. Mike Brown, already proud ambassador for Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby, wants to celebrate Harlequins‘ coming on...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher and the Championship play-offs
The Championship play-offs have attracted more than their fair share of criticism over the last four years which I find astounding...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 12 years agoBrendan Gallagher: The day that Munster found vintage form in Bordeaux
Munster‘s love affair with the Heineken Cup has become the stuff of legend but in nearly two decades I recall no...















