Chris Hewett

This is where you will find all of The Rugby Paper’s Chris Hewett news, views, opinion and other content.

Oscar Jegou shows the All Blacks how it’s done

16 March 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed All the talk down New Zealand way is of “Succession”. No, they haven’t made a unilateral declaration of insubordination […]

Howzat! Azzurri are left stumped

9 March 2025 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Box office: England’s Elliot Daly scores against Italy in last year’s Six Nations match PICTURE: Alamy AS the BBC’s top brass […]

Lytchett Minster 2s? Now they were decent…

9 March 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Anyone seeking to capture the essence of rugby’s transformation over recent decades need not wrestle with the demise of […]

A win’s a win for England? Up to a point, my lord…

2 March 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed If England intend to make a habit of winning games on their backsides, they should make a block booking […]

The time’s ripe for a summit of the egos

23 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Summits are all the rage right now, “rage” being the operative word, and as the union game has finished […]

Scrums in danger of falling off the stage

23 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett We do not yet know whether the Sabercats or the Seawolves will emerge the stronger, or whether the Sharks will eat the […]

Goggleboxers must not lose sight of reality

16 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed There was an overpowering whiff of something significant in the air as the 1984 John Player Cup final – […]

Let us permit No.8s freedom of expression

9 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed The great and good of World Rugby are clearly intent on turning scrum-halves into the union equivalent of goalkeepers, […]

The best Six Nations? Here are my top three

2 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed The turn of the century was as notable for the things that failed to happen as it was for […]

Six of the best who deserved a chance during the Six Nations

26 January 2025 0 comments

Thinking Allowed by Chris Hewett A great rugby coach is rarer than radium, as England have discovered in recent decades. Precious few people are blessed […]

Captains don’t have to play the full 80

19 January 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed It seems your columnist’s hotline to the England head coach Steve Borthwick has turned positively polar. “Don’t take the […]

We need to watch rugby in the raw

12 January 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed According to Inkoo Kang, a leading critic at The New Yorker magazine and, almost by definition, a writer whose words […]

A star-studded XV that would lead by example

5 January 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Like “business ethics” and “military intelligence”, the phrase “rugby leadership” is not an oxymoron. Almost, but not quite. Even […]

Let’s hope Brizball can stay in fashion

29 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed This is not obviously the time to be talking balls – the Twickenham elite have cornered that particular market […]

No Franco Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake

22 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Here’s a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby sites on the worldwide web super information highway thingy […]

No Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake

22 December 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby […]

No Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake

22 December 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby […]

The global travellers who light up game

15 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed There is nothing especially funny about short-term memory loss, but it may just have an upside when it comes […]

Oh, for a one-stop TV shop for the lot

8 December 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Gogglebox: Bath taking on La Rochelle on Friday night PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a brain teaser: if you happen to be […]

Scotland deserve fair share of British & Irish Lions

1 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed We may be exaggerating here, but not by much: since the wonderful Tom Smith made the last of his […]

Kolbe’s majesty is a delight to behold

24 November 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CHESLIN Kolbe won the “man of the match” award for his two-try contribution to South Africa’s victory over England, thereby proving […]

We will all suffer in the land of the giants

17 November 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed It was the rugby version of Easy Street, the 1917 silent movie in which Charlie Chaplin, playing a policeman, […]

Pundits need that forward thinking

17 November 2024 0 comments

Ian Robertson put it most colourfully. “I work with backs,” said the celebrated BBC radio commentator on being asked to coach the Cambridge students into […]

When value for money is not part of the deal

10 November 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED ENGLAND’S bench strategy against New Zealand – goodbye “bomb squad”, hello “squib squad” – has been investigated, psychoanalysed, convicted on all […]

Shame that Georgia are kept out of sight

3 November 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed The most significant contest of the November international series? Take your pick. Ireland-New Zealand in Dublin on Friday night? […]

Bath’s ‘bomb squad’ needs to be defused

27 October 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CLOSE your eyes and imagine batting on a fiery Caribbean track in the 1980s, when West Indian fast bowlers ruled the […]

It would be grand for Wasps to return

20 October 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Prize assets: Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and, inset from top, Tom Willis, Gabriel Oghre, Alfie Barbeary, Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Greg Fisilau and […]

Worldwide Springboks still get it together

13 October 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Assuming those with their ears to the ground haven’t gone deaf, Handre Pollard, the Springbok with the Midas toecap, […]

Wallace Sititi is following in father’s footsteps, but for how long?

6 October 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Cast your minds back, those of you who are sufficiently long in the tooth, to Melbourne in late October […]

Fiji deserve to play with best in world

29 September 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Every underdog has its day, as Daniel Dubois reminded us in knocking an entire cathedral’s worth of bells out […]

Too much of a good thing can be overkill

8 September 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED “People might think it’s arrogant,” said Rian Oberholzer, the chief executive of the Springbok domain, just the other day, “but we […]

Energetic thinking urgently required

1 September 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CRITICAL supporters of Bristol in the late amateur era believed their team was being straitjacketed by a rigidly traditional committee structure […]

Robertson needs to redress the balance

25 August 2024 0 comments

Chris Hewett Thinking allowed It was a cheap shot, admittedly, but only a pacifist or a fool would spurn the opportunity to kick the New […]

Age of protectionism must come to an end

18 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Powered up: Argentina scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou celebrates victory over the All Blacks last weekend PICTURES: Getty Images THE late Jack Rowell […]

Glad to see clock ticking on scrum

18 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THOSE of us who have spent our entire careers writing against deadline know all there is to know about the tyranny of the […]

What counts is how the money is spent

11 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED IT WAS a close-run thing but, after crunching the numbers harder than a caffeine-fuelled psephologist on election night, we can now […]

Why SVNS makes sense for the future

4 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Rugby sevens – or SVNS, as a London-based team of funkily-dressed marketing executives have somehow succeeded in rebranding it – used […]

Day when the Real McCoys stood up

28 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED THE governing bodies of the union game are not renowned for their speed off the mark – the average tectonic plate […]

A drop of magic is just what we need

21 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED STRANGE as it may sound to generations of rugby lovers raised on a fizzy-drink, dopamine-heavy diet of high-scoring matches, there was […]

European elite keen to exclude outsiders

14 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Whichever way you care to define the i-word, it was an interesting few hours for Canadian sport. On July 6 in […]

Slipper deserves place at top table

14 July 2024 0 comments

Wallaby props? How we used to snigger at them over here in England as Jason Leonard, Phil Vickery and Andrew Sheridan chucked their weight around […]

Trio who tempt us to search for genius

7 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED What do we mean when we talk of genius? It is a question as old as Noah, an early candidate for […]

Whistler’s authority must be protected

30 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED In the middle: Sara Cox took charge of the Women’s Premiership final between Gloucester-Hartpury and Bristol last weekend PICTURES: Getty Images […]

Cheika’s first job: to speak ‘Tiger’

30 June 2024 0 comments

As top-flight English clubs go, none are as English as Leicester, with their grizzled battalions of steadfast Midlands yeomanry – all those Johnsons and Garforths […]

Why less might not be more for stars

23 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED MARTIN Johnson spent a rugby eternity perfecting his survival skills in the engine room of the scrum – the nearest thing […]

Sorry, but Obano did not have to do that

16 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED The best definition of madness in rugby? There are several contenders: picking a fight with Eben Etzebeth springs immediately to mind, […]

Another lesson from the French

16 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Now that Vannes have made it into the top tier of French rugby and the people running things across the water are preparing […]

Let the ‘waterboys’ just get on with it

9 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED It’s the burning question of the moment: what is Jacques Nienaber? Not “who is Jacques Nienaber”, or “why is he here”, […]

Then and now: It’s tough to compare

2 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Whenever the incomparable Antoine Dupont does the kind of things he did in dragging Toulouse over the line in a Champions […]

Talk of jeopardy is wide of the mark

26 May 2024 0 comments

THINKING ALLOWED It happened during the early stages of the 2003 World Cup in Australia, when two of the union game’s leading administrators – Syd […]

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