-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: RFU must step in and end this financial ring-fencing
As the disappointments of the Six Nations fades into memory, club rugby comes back into focus as we approach the business...
-
James Haskell
/ 13 years agoJames Haskell: Wasps fall in classic episode of Euro thrills
The Premiership is fantastically competitive week-in- week-out. It’s hard, it’s physical and many of the weekly match-ups could easily be described...
-
James Haskell
/ 13 years agoJames Haskell: Let’s play in summer and watch skills grow
You wake-up. It’s Saturday morning. Your bedroom’s freezing, but at least it is only 10.00am, so you can ease back for...
-
James Haskell
/ 13 years agoJames Haskell: The pain of defeat will drive England on
I was asked in the build up to the game with Wales: “Have the players who had been involved with the...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain picks his 2013 Lions tour party with some surprising ins and outs
No Brian O’Driscoll. No Chris Robshaw. Neither men make my 2013 Lions tour party for the straightforward reason that others are...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Lancaster must take risks to find a true cutting edge
It must be incredibly disappointing for this England side to get that close to a Grand Slam and lose in the...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Change now or else!
There’s been a marked reluctance in English rugby ranks to accept that the 2015 Rugby World Cup draw is by far...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Hold it all! England have won the title…
When the Six Nations discuss the ‘on-going’ issue of bonus points, they would be well advised to examine the distorted impact...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain assesses the potential outcomes of the Heineken Cup quarter-finals
Can England’s leading club sides come up trumps when it is all on the line, or will they follow in the...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: Selection of Marler cost England the game
As the wheels fell off England‘s Chariot in Cardiff I couldn’t help thinking that it was probably for the best. The...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Don’t despair, we will come good
Stuart Lancaster has said he wants his England side to have amassed 600 caps between them before the 2015 World Cup…and...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Gatland must think French
There are not many Lions coaches who go into a tour on the back of a vintage Six Nations, and Warren...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Welsh will grab Lions share for Australia
After smashing the team that smashed the All Blacks, Wales will take the Lions‘ share when the Test series begins against...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: End this cult of ‘superstar’ refs and sort out the scrum
If there is one thing that has made this Six Nations Championship more memorable than most, it is the controversy that has...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain assesses the relative strengths and weaknesses of England and Italy
Italy have yet to beat England in the Six Nations, and, given that their only away win in the tournament since...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Grand Slam won’t faze this England
Wales are a dangerous side if they bring their best game to Cardiff on Saturday against England because they have ability...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Let Welsh go Scott-free and return their points
Tyson Keats is innocent. Mike Scott is not. That was the only verdict that was clear in the Friday night disciplinary...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Trust me, Cardiff jinx waits for Lancaster!
At a dinner in London some years ago, the English defined their rugby relationship with the Welsh as one based on...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: These ‘hospitality’ packages are just fleecing the fans
It would seem that Nick Cain‘s expose of the Lion’s tour ticket price rigging is just the tip of the ‘rip-off...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain looks at the England build-up to Italy – and beyond to the Lions
When teams which have battled to get within reach of big prizes start to batten down the hatches and ban words...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Launchbury has been the find of the season
Joe Launchbury has been the find of the international season. The England lock has a great range of skills for a...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Welsh are embroiled in new fight for justice
There are times, as we all know, when the law is an ass. Usually this coincides with legal technicalities getting in...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: It’s whisky galore if Telfer tribe triumph
When Scotland last won three matches on the bounce in the same Championship, they showed their gratitude to Wales by sending...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: President Jason can use his powers to help grassroots
The action of the RFU Council in overturning their nominations panel’s choice of president for the 2015 World Cup is probably...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson talks to Maesteg coach Richard Webster about the startling decline of Welsh club rugby
There was a time when the Welsh club game was the envy of the rugby world, when popular legend had it...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain assesses the dramatic fight for survival at the bottom of the Premiership
If relegation is meant to be all about dull, unambitious, lock-tight rugby then London Welsh and Sale have not been listening....
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Breathless, but the Referee didn’t blow
Stuart Lancaster spoke before this game about the last 20 minutes being crucial, about how England’s now superior fitness would pay...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Lions levy hits their own fans
The latest twist in the Lions Test ticket story is that the Australian Rugby Union has refuted the statement from a...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Tragic Nick helps pal Huw keep injury in perspective
Sometime on Wednesday morning Huw Bennett will bow his head and remember the day they buried his friend in a churchyard...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: Lancaster was always in win-win situation with RFU
It’s just over a year ago that many observers were questioning the decision of the RFU to appoint a ‘nobody’ as...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain talks to Tom Wood about his triumphant return to England’s back row
Tom Wood is the embodiment of the new England. He is a fierce marauder who uses his mobility and work-rate to...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Clockwork England show their composure
Remember the great England World Cup-winning side and the management mantra that came from their head coach Sir Clive Woodward, T-CUP,...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Here’s the real reason for Warren Gatland’s outburst
None of the explanations I’ve heard so far for Warren Gatland‘s ill-conceived comments about the divisive potential of having too many...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Ryan aware that Welsh armband fits loosely
Wales have changed their captain so often in recent seasons that Ryan Jones is in his ninth spell in charge. In...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: I’m starting to believe in a Grand Slam for England
It has often been said that a week in rugby is a long time. Two weeks ago I sang the praises...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain looks at the key areas which will decide today’s battle at the Aviva stadium, Dublin
It is a decade since England last won in Dublin in the Six Nations. In the interim there have been heartache...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: BOD magic captured in a move from the matrix
The best centre I have seen play in the last decade is Brian O’Driscoll. That’s not forgetting my favourites, Philippe Sella,...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Yes to bonus points, no to TV-driven fixture lists
There are so many contradictory knee-jerk spoutings about the Six Nations that you sometimes wonder whether Glenda Slagg has taken up...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Rowlands remains Top Cat of the lineout
The 50th anniversary of perhaps the strangest of all Wales matches has come and gone with scarcely a mention. Admittedly it...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: Mutual trust is what bonds a winning squad together
Why is it that every England team have to proffer the idea that they are so different to those that have...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain talks to Fred Michalak who has gone from enfant terrible to mature superstar
Fred Michalak is France‘s main man going into this Six Nations, with all the signs pointing towards flaky Fred having been...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: Hold onto your hats for a humdinger!
Owen Farrell will rightly get the headlines for his latest incarnation as England‘s Iceman. But he will also be the first...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: Can Stuart Lancaster do everything?
There are a couple of questions that need urgent answers since Stuart Lancaster‘s extraordinary elevation this week from being the England...
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: WRU see sense with price cut
When he retired after captaining Wales at the 1995 World Cup in Johannesburg, Mike Hall began to make the most of...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: Memo to Telfer: the Scots are most elitist of them all
So the English are too arrogant, too pretentious and too condescending and the Welsh are lazy, or so says former Scotland...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain : Ben Morgan set to fire with Telfer ‘bullet up his bum’
Ben Morgan couldn’t be in more illustrious company. A quick scan of who the Gloucester and England No.8 will be contending...
-
Jeremy Guscott
/ 13 years agoJeremy Guscott: No Manu Tuilagi? Then send for speedy Jonathan Joseph
How could England lose at home to the old enemy after beating New Zealand so convincingly? It’s so fresh in the...
-
Nick Cain
/ 13 years agoNick Cain: the Scots are no pushovers
Two months ago there was not a single scribe, broadcaster, or media pundit anywhere who predicted England would beat New Zealand....
-
Peter Jackson
/ 13 years agoPeter Jackson: Bonus points could cost Grand Slammers the title
Six years ago France went into the final match of the final round knowing exactly what they had to do to...
-
Jeff Probyn
/ 13 years agoJeff Probyn: Scotland must prove they should not be demoted
Just one more week and the wait is over for the most eagerly awaited Six Nations Championship in years. Each of...















