News By Chris Hewett
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 days agoChris Hewett: Key pieces might yet emerge for England chief Steve Borthwick
The World Cup is all that matters, right? Everything else is 50 shades of beige. If England’s second-string success in Argentina...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 weeks agoChris Hewett: These Flying Fijians deserve place in sun
Few historians of the ancient world put it quite this way, but the Peloponnesian War was won off the bench.
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 weeks agoChris Hewett: Without Jac Morgan, Wales will not be all right
The differences are obvious: he doesn’t have a shock of guitar-hero hair, or a nose so busted it resembles the last...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 weeks agoChris Hewett: I’d stick with Ben Earl in the back row, Steve Borthwick
Welcome to the “Yeti Syndrome”, a vivid way of categorising the many things we seek in rugby but no longer expect...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 month agoChris Hewett: ‘Finishers’ need to be put in their place
Imagine you are peering across halfway at a pack of forwards so big, knotted with muscle and profoundly pug-ugly that the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 month agoChris Hewett: Too much talent can be a problem
We have heard much wailing and gnashing of teeth over Tom Willis, largely from those who assumed the France-bound Saracens forward...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: The two-team solution has worked for Scotland
On a bad road day – the sad truth is that most days turn bad the moment you sit behind the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Change is the only permanent thing
It is 15 years since Bruce Craig, not obviously a man to be found wanting in the ambition department, bought himself...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: The pantomime villain who stole the show
It seems we must bid another fond farewell to Nic White, a modern master of scrum-half jiggery-pokery who first called it...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: Ollie Lawrence looks a good fit for 13 shirt
Nearly there. Ollie Lawrence, the talented Bath and England centre, is within touching distance of a return to competitive rugby after...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: Captains need the consent of others
There are almost as many good jokes about leadership as there are leaders who fall into the “bad joke” category. Here’s...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: Rassie Erasmus is in search of a brave new world with the Springboks
There is something unashamedly Old Testament about South Africa’s first-choice pack, possibly because its most accomplished components are more ancient than...
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Latest News
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: England may prove to be just too good at the Women’s World Cup
Remember a time when facts were sacred and figures added up, for better or worse? Life isn’t nearly so simple nowadays,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: France and England lead charge for 2027 World Cup
The last time the World Cup was played out on Australian soil, a little over two decades and a thousand poison-dart...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: Andy Farrell not alone with his ‘home’ Lions selections
“There's an epidemic sweeping through the England team, but it isn’t catching.” Attributed to John Arlott (who else?), the exquisite one-liner...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: Wallabies make the obvious choice with Giteau Law change
Inevitable. Had to happen. Written in the stars. Quite why the Australian rugby hierarchy spent so long umming and aaahhing about...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: Tough calls needed to take the initiative
The Lions may have reaffirmed their rugby sovereignty over the Wallabies during 80 mesmerising minutes in Melbourne, but they were well...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: It’s a long, hard road for – Bank of Dad, or not
Ten thousand hours seems a suspiciously convenient round number, but there are plenty of big brains who see it as the...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 5 months agoChris Hewett: France v the British and Irish Lions would be a stretch
Suddenly, rugby’s 24-hour news cycle is full of chatter about a French seat at the British and Irish Lions table. Abdel...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoChris Hewett: One kick to win it… so who do you want?
Whoever it was, it couldn’t have been Carwyn James. For one thing, the most celebrated coach of all was a Welshman...
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Latest News
/ 5 months agoChris Hewett: Ensure a record is worth breaking
Most people would have seized the opportunity without thinking twice, but Wiann Mulder is clearly not like most people. A mere...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoChris Hewett: Elite will have no time for Los Pumas
Phil Kearns never played a game of Test rugby against the British and Irish Lions: a stranger-than-fiction fact that bears repeating....
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoChris Hewett: Whatever the voice, messages are mixed
If David Campese and Michael Lynagh were singing from the same hymn sheet as the Wallabies dominated the last decade of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoChris Hewett: Let’s hope Wallace Sititi can return to his best
So he’s crocked again, which is sad to the point of depressing. Like every other attention-craving spectator sport engaged in the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Jonny Wilkinson just shouldn’t be the lone star
You have to laugh. Otherwise, you’d cry yourself a river. According to a public vote organised by the folk who run...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Questions at No.3 are key for Andy Farrell’s British and Irish Lions
Prop forwards of the tighthead variety were not put on this earth to be like everyone else, and by and large...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Perhaps Paris isn’t the best of places
Can there be a rugby aficionado in the world who wouldn’t move heaven and earth to experience a weekend’s worth of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Without jeopardy, the game is nothing
The journey time between the sublime and the ridiculous can be speed-of-sound short: Clement Poitrenaud, the quintessence of French rugby cool...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Roll up for the next circus in town, the R360 League
Here's an idea: let’s launch a new rugby tournament to run alongside…er…forgotten its name already. Ah, that’s right. R360. The one...
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Champions Cup
/ 6 months agoDamian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey: A pair of aces who fill our hearts with joy
If the level of mastery is unusually high, the depth of mystery is unfathomable.
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Time to speak with one voice
Back in the age when men were men and Willie John McBride was wearing the red shirt of the British and...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Danny Care still shines in list of the finest 9s
On the face of it, the easiest way to get noticed in big-time rugby is to bag a contract with Harlequins,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoChris Hewett: Dangers of pushing the profit margins
According to George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about a thing or two, the “greatest cruelty one can inflict...
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Chris Hewett
/ 7 months agoChris Hewett: Leinster need to spread the love
"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” The American author Gore Vidal was an acknowledged master of the “ouch”...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 7 months agoChris Hewett: If there is any justice, George Ford will be a British and Irish Lion
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The difference between time and eternity? It’s all relative – get it? – but in...
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Latest News
/ 7 months agoChris Hewett: Players moving north is no shock
If it takes at least seven years to train as an architect – and a minimum of 70 to negotiate the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoChris Hewett: Geoff Parling is thriving as the quiet ‘Australian’
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Whatever lights might be hidden under rugby’s bushel, precious few of them belong to Australian...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoChris Hewett: Dan Biggar’s lessons in staying strong
The last time Wales won a game of rugby against someone other than the Barbarians – those struggling to recall that...
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Letters
/ 2 years agoSorry Chris, but we’re heading up another cul-de-sac
I KNOW it has been the season of goodwill, but Chris Hewett’s comment that the RFU is pointing in the right...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoWelcome to mad, mad world of modern rugby | Chris Hewett
A single English Premiership campaign is an interesting bunch of competitions. We’ve been treated to old-style fights for the title in...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoSean Fitzpatrick is talking heresy and real sense | Chris Hewett
Chris Hewett on Sean Fitzpatrick's comments of how rugby can lead itself to greater growth by reducing international fixtures
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoJoke isn’t on fun figure Cockerill any more | Chris Hewett
Richard Cockerill in as England's forwards coach? Chris Hewett on a bullish Midlander transitioning into coaching
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoThe sterile Lions Tests are killing the game | Chris Hewett
Chris Hewett on how the boredom set in watching the three Lions Tests this summer
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoExodus of the props brings era to an end | Chris Hewett
THERE was a time, not so long ago, when Premiership clubs would pay tighthead props in Bitcoin, provided they were good...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoA draw can signify honour, just ask the Olympians | Chris Hewett
CONTRARY to the spirit of an age obsessed with winners and losers, there is nothing wrong with a draw. Ask Mutaz...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoLions series needed Buzz Aldrin at full-back | Chris Hewett
There are those revered for their kicking ability over the decades, but the sport has changed its dynamics and expectations since...
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Latest News
/ 4 years agoSevens circuit is lacking top stars | Chris Hewett
After the success of sevens at the Olympics, attention now turns to whether the World Sevens Series circuit to suitable for...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoDitch the tech like Anna did to strike gold | Chris Hewett
Purity and simplicity are not among the nouns most commonly associated with Rugby Union in its current state of confusion: prop...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoLeaking Lions may put a plug in it now | Chris Hewett
JIM TELFER was not best pleased. “For God’s sake cut it out,” he snarled at Mark Regan and Barrie Williams, two...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 years agoFarewell to Newlands, mecca of memories | Chris Hewett
Newlands was the beating heart of rugby in the Western Cape and for the Springboks for decades












