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Chris Hewett
/ 10 months agoLet us permit No.8s freedom of expression
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The great and good of World Rugby are clearly intent on turning scrum-halves into the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 10 months agoThe best Six Nations? Here are my top three
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The turn of the century was as notable for the things that failed to happen...
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Chris Hewett
/ 10 months agoSix of the best who deserved a chance during the Six Nations
Thinking Allowed by Chris Hewett A great rugby coach is rarer than radium, as England have discovered in recent decades. Precious...
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Chris Hewett
/ 11 months agoCaptains don’t have to play the full 80
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed It seems your columnist’s hotline to the England head coach Steve Borthwick has turned positively...
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Chris Hewett
/ 11 months agoWe need to watch rugby in the raw
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed According to Inkoo Kang, a leading critic at The New Yorker magazine and, almost by definition,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 11 months agoA star-studded XV that would lead by example
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Like “business ethics” and “military intelligence”, the phrase “rugby leadership” is not an oxymoron. Almost,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 11 months agoLet’s hope Brizball can stay in fashion
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed This is not obviously the time to be talking balls – the Twickenham elite have...
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Chris Hewett
/ 12 months agoNo Franco Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Here's a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby sites on the worldwide web...
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Chris Hewett
/ 12 months agoNo Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 12 months agoNo Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of...
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Champions Cup
/ 12 months agoThe global travellers who light up game
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed There is nothing especially funny about short-term memory loss, but it may just have an...
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Chris Hewett
/ 12 months agoOh, for a one-stop TV shop for the lot
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Gogglebox: Bath taking on La Rochelle on Friday night PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a brain teaser: if...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 1 year agoScotland deserve fair share of British & Irish Lions
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed We may be exaggerating here, but not by much: since the wonderful Tom Smith made...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoKolbe’s majesty is a delight to behold
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CHESLIN Kolbe won the “man of the match” award for his two-try contribution to South Africa’s victory...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWe will all suffer in the land of the giants
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed It was the rugby version of Easy Street, the 1917 silent movie in which Charlie...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoPundits need that forward thinking
Ian Robertson put it most colourfully. “I work with backs,” said the celebrated BBC radio commentator on being asked to coach...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWhen value for money is not part of the deal
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED ENGLAND’S bench strategy against New Zealand – goodbye “bomb squad”, hello “squib squad” – has been investigated,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoShame that Georgia are kept out of sight
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The most significant contest of the November international series? Take your pick. Ireland-New Zealand in...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoBath’s ‘bomb squad’ needs to be defused
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CLOSE your eyes and imagine batting on a fiery Caribbean track in the 1980s, when West Indian...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoIt would be grand for Wasps to return
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Prize assets: Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and, inset from top, Tom Willis, Gabriel Oghre, Alfie Barbeary, Asher...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWorldwide Springboks still get it together
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Assuming those with their ears to the ground haven’t gone deaf, Handre Pollard, the Springbok...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWallace Sititi is following in father’s footsteps, but for how long?
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Cast your minds back, those of you who are sufficiently long in the tooth, to...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoFiji deserve to play with best in world
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Every underdog has its day, as Daniel Dubois reminded us in knocking an entire cathedral’s...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoToo much of a good thing can be overkill
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED "People might think it’s arrogant,” said Rian Oberholzer, the chief executive of the Springbok domain, just the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoEnergetic thinking urgently required
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CRITICAL supporters of Bristol in the late amateur era believed their team was being straitjacketed by a...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoRobertson needs to redress the balance
Chris Hewett Thinking allowed It was a cheap shot, admittedly, but only a pacifist or a fool would spurn the opportunity...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoAge of protectionism must come to an end
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Powered up: Argentina scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou celebrates victory over the All Blacks last weekend PICTURES: Getty Images...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoGlad to see clock ticking on scrum
CHRIS HEWETT THOSE of us who have spent our entire careers writing against deadline know all there is to know about...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWhat counts is how the money is spent
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED IT WAS a close-run thing but, after crunching the numbers harder than a caffeine-fuelled psephologist on election...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWhy SVNS makes sense for the future
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Rugby sevens – or SVNS, as a London-based team of funkily-dressed marketing executives have somehow succeeded in...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoDay when the Real McCoys stood up
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED THE governing bodies of the union game are not renowned for their speed off the mark –...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoA drop of magic is just what we need
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED STRANGE as it may sound to generations of rugby lovers raised on a fizzy-drink, dopamine-heavy diet of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoEuropean elite keen to exclude outsiders
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Whichever way you care to define the i-word, it was an interesting few hours for Canadian sport....
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoSlipper deserves place at top table
Wallaby props? How we used to snigger at them over here in England as Jason Leonard, Phil Vickery and Andrew Sheridan...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoTrio who tempt us to search for genius
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED What do we mean when we talk of genius? It is a question as old as Noah,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWhistler’s authority must be protected
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED In the middle: Sara Cox took charge of the Women’s Premiership final between Gloucester-Hartpury and Bristol last...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoCheika’s first job: to speak ‘Tiger’
As top-flight English clubs go, none are as English as Leicester, with their grizzled battalions of steadfast Midlands yeomanry – all...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoWhy less might not be more for stars
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED MARTIN Johnson spent a rugby eternity perfecting his survival skills in the engine room of the scrum...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoSorry, but Obano did not have to do that
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED The best definition of madness in rugby? There are several contenders: picking a fight with Eben Etzebeth...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoAnother lesson from the French
CHRIS HEWETT Now that Vannes have made it into the top tier of French rugby and the people running things across...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 year agoLet the ‘waterboys’ just get on with it
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED It's the burning question of the moment: what is Jacques Nienaber? Not “who is Jacques Nienaber”, or...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoThen and now: It’s tough to compare
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Whenever the incomparable Antoine Dupont does the kind of things he did in dragging Toulouse over the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoTalk of jeopardy is wide of the mark
THINKING ALLOWED It happened during the early stages of the 2003 World Cup in Australia, when two of the union game’s...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoTime for us to see some new thinking
Remember the elderly joke about the flight from Australia to New Zealand? “There’s a time difference between the two countries,” the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoToo many coaches taking liberties in selection
It should not be difficult to distinguish between a Premiership rugby match and a game of county cricket: one, full of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoMako reinvented job of loosehead
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Eddie Jones coached Mako Vunipola during a brief spell in charge of Saracens, and coached him again...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoRugby’s holy trinity prove the difference
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED SINCE time immemorial, rugby has been cloaked in its own cliches: Prince Obolensky was always “dashing”; Colin...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoMo’unga likely to be back in black
SO he hasn’t gone for good, after all. Not quite. If the All Blacks have their way, as they invariably do...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoThe boys down west who know how to win
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED The way they see it down Exeter way, only one team is flying the flag for the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 years agoThe day Sir John picked up the bill
Steve Diamond always had a way with words – some of his stories concerning Danny Cipriani during the wayward outside-half ’s...












