Chris Hewett

Next time, Dupont will take what is his

22 October 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED DID the spirit of rugby romance go to meet its maker in the immediate aftermath of the World Cup quarter-final weekend […]

Kolbe’s magic hidden from view

22 October 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT AMONG the many mysteries of this World Cup –Why isn’t Patrice Lagisquet coaching a competitive nation? Why doesn’t Ben O’Keeffe put a sock […]

One Goon show we could all do without

15 October 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED It is just about possible, if you’re seriously odd, to imagine that Dan Cole might stand a chance of out-performing Simone […]

Travelling coast to coast is a delight

15 October 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT A good many moons ago, this column identified the No.14 shirt as the latest cutting-edge fashion garment in the rugby wardrobe. After all […]

Sacrificial lambs who took one for the team

8 October 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED RUGBY being a hard old game even when things are going your way, the willingness to suffer is every bit as […]

Bunker mentality makes it easier for refs

8 October 2023 0 comments

Where football leads, rugby inevitably follows. So when can we expect the equivalent of a VAR cock-up to lord it over the national news bulletins […]

It wasn’t so easy back in Rory’s day

1 October 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED RORY Underwood. Remember him? You should. To this day, the Leicester wing stands tall – rather taller than he was in […]

Time to take the show on the road, England

1 October 2023 0 comments

According to those who know their stuff when it comes to the scorched landscape of domestic politics, there is a prime reason why our elected […]

Biggest boots are made for winning

24 September 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED If catches win cricket matches – a fact of sporting life mischievously underscored by the recent joke about Jonny “Butterfingers” Bairstow […]

Sure you are in the right place, Sonny Bill?

24 September 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT There are still those of us, generally of “a certain age”, who continue to defend the BBC as though our lives depend on […]

Time for an elite 16-team contest

17 September 2023 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST OCTOBER 2003 was a busy old month, what with Mother Teresa being beatified by Pope John Paul II, the Chinese launching […]

For me, anthems strike the right note

17 September 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT FAR be it for us to fly in the face of public opinion in this corner of the paper, but the World Cup […]

Cipriani’s spat more suited to Colosseum

10 September 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED ONE of these fine days, with the grace of God and a following wind, a World Cup will be played in […]

Too many clubs, not enough players

10 September 2023 0 comments

If it ever turns out that the governing body at Twickenham has a monopoly on rugby wisdom, we are all up the Swannee without a […]

Should we care about the world rankings?

3 September 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED THE way Clive Woodward saw it back in 2003, the International Rugby Board’s new-fangled ranking system was a many-splendored thing. “I […]

Diamonds on the soles of his shoes

3 September 2023 0 comments

Siya Kolisi? What a man. If rugby is built on the stories it tells about its finest practitioners – the fables and legends and grand […]

Big cats likely to dine on minnows

27 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED IT MUST be a sobering prospect for the makeweights, travelling to a World Cup with a bunch of players registering close […]

Hansen’s secrets not hard to guess

27 August 2023 0 comments

There has been quite the hue and cry down there in All Black country following the latest twist in trans-Tasman affairs. Steve Hansen, head coach […]

A brief history of tackles which changed a game

20 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED It has been fiendishly difficult to identify rugby union’s precise place in the constellation of professional sports since it took up […]

Ignore the league tough guys, it’s better to be soft and safe

20 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Contrary to popular belief, there are still differences between the two codes of rugby. Union still has its flankers and its lineouts, together […]

A hat-trick for Sam would be deserved

13 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED We’ll know soon enough if Sam Whitelock is finally past it. The venerable All Black lock from Palmerston North, home to […]

Sorry we won’t see Hooper in France

13 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Wayne Shelford lost matches as captain of the All Blacks as often as he finished second in hand-to-hand combat. Which was never. So […]

Crowds need to be part of the action

6 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THE best part of 84,000 spectators congregated at “The G” for last weekend’s Bledisloe Cup contest in Melbourne, which was just about as […]

The day Mouritz showed his desire

6 August 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Every so often, rugby sheds its hard skin and shows us its soft side. Not that Mouritz Botha was soft, you understand. It […]

The greatest tour ever? Not likely…

30 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED IT IS no exaggeration to place exaggeration very high on the list of rugby’s deadly sins. It may even be in […]

Always room for Bakkies and Co

30 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT SAY what you like about Bakkies Botha – most people don’t, for reasons of self-preservation – but there are times when you have […]

Under-20s proved the future is bright

23 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST DID you hear the one about the trainee fortune teller who gave up because he couldn’t see any future in it? […]

Eddie’s a head honcho in a hurry

23 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Eddie Jones is not a man to let the grass grow under his feet, even if his most trenchant critics would happily watch […]

Barrett J has keys to the kingdom

16 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Rugby is a game of infinite possibility, especially when it comes to dreaming up collective nouns. A “squabble of hookers” sounds […]

Let’s not abandon Fiji for the sake of US

16 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Not for the first time, the ever-knowledgeable Paul Rees has treated us to a thorough account of the thinking inside World Rugby, the […]

When law and spirit are not the same

9 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT We’ve heard an awful lot – far too much, frankly – about the spirit of cricket just recently, and it has had little […]

Another lesson from the French

9 July 2023 0 comments

We are still a few days away from Premiership Rugby’s latest “big reveal”: the fixture list for the 2023-24 campaign, featuring all those clubs still […]

Time to balance a weighty problem

2 July 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST ACLEVER man once predicted that progress would eventually turn out to be a circle rather than a straight line. As the […]

There’s more woe from the Smiths

2 July 2023 0 comments

Rugby’s optimists – and there are still some of you out there, just as there are people who continue to think it was right to […]

Law-tinkerers are a danger to the game

25 June 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST THE odds on Owen Farrell travelling to the World Cup as England’s starting No.10 are even shorter than the lifespan of […]

A new trophy, same old tricks …

25 June 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT It is one thing for a populist Prime Minister to ride a wave of duplicity before crashing head-first into the rocks: if a […]

So, who is set to fly in under the radar?

18 June 2023 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Remember Jean-Marc Doussain’s international debut for France? Probably not. The poor bloke would happily forget it himself, but the art of […]

Wood is just the man to talk sense

18 June 2023 0 comments

It would be stretching a point to suggest that Tom Wood, the brick-hard Northampton flanker who won a half-century of caps for England before calling […]

When the collective carries all before it

11 June 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Dings Crusaders? Crazy name, cracking club. One of the oldest and most successful of the dozens of local teams in Bristol, […]

Tongans have a plan for Ireland

11 June 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Interesting rumblings from down Tonga way, where Toutai Kefu, the magnificent Wallaby No.8 who rumbled all the way to a World Cup winner’s […]

Time we got round to telling full story

4 June 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST “No story lives unless someone wants to listen.” So said J KRowling, who knows a thing or two about storytelling: the […]

Freedom of speech cuts both ways

4 June 2023 0 comments

If Steve Hansen did a million things right over the long stretch of a storied career as an All Black think-tanker, not even his closest […]

Masterful Skelton is the talk of the town

28 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST IF Simon Shaw of England was a 20-storey tower block of a lock blessed with penthouse levels of skill and self-restraint, […]

‘Chilling’ Nowell leaves us shivering

28 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT When a front-line England player tells his national coach that he is unavailable for World Cup duty – not because he has suffered […]

No debate, Hill has to be the Immortal No.6

21 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST UP, you could not make it. BT Sport, whose coverage of English club rugby has been close to outstanding for a […]

How England could use that Limerick spirit

21 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT BACK in the dim and distant, when down-to-earth Munster were the side to beat in Ireland and hifalutin Leinster were no more intimidating […]

Why Ojomoh could be in with a shout

14 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST SO Bath won the big one against Saracens Under-12s and secured their Champions Cup qualification at the final tap of the […]

Smith has vision to see through the fog

14 May 2023 0 comments

Wayne Smith, who secured a place in the pantheon of great coaches long before his astonishing triumph with the Black Ferns at last year’s Women’s […]

Nine Lions of Leinster would be in my team

7 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Mitchell, Aston, Wotherspoon, Rotherham, Bromet, Hammond, Mayfield, Surtees, Thompson: on an early September afternoon in 1891, nine Cambridge University rugger types took the […]

Gatland can get Wales on top again

7 May 2023 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Few people on God’s earth know more about professional Welsh rugby than Warren Gatland, who successfully coached the Test side through three World […]

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