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Jeff Probyn
/ 3 years agoA legend, a team-mate and great, great friend
JEFF PROBYN A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME SOMETIMES it’s easy to write about the passing of a great sportsman...
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James Harrington
/ 3 years agoGarbajosa joins list of axed coaches
JAMES HARRINGTON FRENCH COLUMN It has been a busy week in various corridors of power in French rugby – with, in...
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Jeremy Guscott
/ 3 years agoNo more excuses: Time to get serious, England
JEREMY GUSCOTT OUTSPOKEN AND UNMISSABLE… EVERY WEEK AS soon as Steve Borthwick got the England head coach job he will have...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoHe’s quite some man, that Emery…
David Emery 1946-2023 Peter Jackson looks back on the life and times of a giant in the world of sport and...
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Nick Cain
/ 3 years agoArrival of novice advisers is cause for grave concern
NICK CAIN READ HIS EXPERT OPINION EVERY WEEK There could not have been a bigger catalyst for change at Twickenham than...
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Nick Cain
/ 3 years agoYour chance to join the (£55,000) culture club
NICK CAIN The RFU’s failure to put in a robust, stringent regulatory framework has led to three Premiership clubs going bust...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 years agoWhen the collective carries all before it
CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Dings Crusaders? Crazy name, cracking club. One of the oldest and most successful of the dozens of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 years agoTongans have a plan for Ireland
CHRIS HEWETT Interesting rumblings from down Tonga way, where Toutai Kefu, the magnificent Wallaby No.8 who rumbled all the way to...
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Features
/ 3 years agoToo many promises, too little scrutiny
After London Irish became the third club casualty of a brutal season, Paul Rees considers what might happen next If thoughts...
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Features
/ 3 years agoSafety first as red cards rise to an all-time high
Peter Jackson finds that only Ireland kept on the right side of every referee as the game gets to grips with...
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Rugby World Cup
/ 3 years agoCrusaders give Gats a blueprint to beat Fiji
SHANE WILLIAMS WALES AND LIONS LEGEND Thank you, Scott Robertson and your Crusaders players for showing Wales the way to beat...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoTop Cat happy to recall the glory days
PETER JACKSON THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW THE only man to captain Wales, coach Wales, select Wales, manage Wales, and...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoThere’s no stopping Ramos
PETER JACKSON Thomas Ramos is en route to finishing the season 100 or so points clear of his nearest challenger across...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoAfter this, Prince Harry could be calling AWJ
PETER JACKSON Alun Wyn Jones continues to treat ‘the media’ with such contempt that it may be but a matter of...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoWhen Kirk took the All Blacks right to the top of the world
Brendan Gallagher begins a series on the star man at each global gathering Being the first in anything often confers iconic...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoHow a boat trip on the Seine swung the vote
The IRB took the momentous decision to stage a first World Cup in March 1985 in strange circumstances. Prior to their...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoWe must find a way to stop vicious spiral
RUGBY MATTERS A weekly look at the game’s other talking points BRENDAN GALLAGHER Heaven knows The Rugby Paper has been warning...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoWhen I needed a helping hand…
RUGBY MATTERS BRENDAN GALLAGHER You could fill a noisy bar with the journalists past and present queuing to buy David Emery...
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Jeff Probyn
/ 3 years agoGame is spending above its means
JEFF PROBYN A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME Just as we all thought it couldn’t get any worse now the...
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James Harrington
/ 3 years agoTop two get set to put on the glitz
JAMES HARRINGTON FRENCH COLUMN It's the final the Top 14 wanted and needed. Toulouse and La Rochelle – the two best...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoFollowing famous footsteps
PETER JACKSON When he lived in one of London’s swishest hotels at the height of his trans-Atlantic stardom, Richard Harris made...
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Jeremy Guscott
/ 3 years agoHard to see who can catch Saracens
JEREMY GUSCOTT OUTSPOKEN AND UNMISSABLE... EVERY WEEK It's hard to predict whether this will be the start of a period of...
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Nick Cain
/ 3 years agoTime to call up X-factor reserves
NICK CAIN READ HIS EXPERT OPINION EVERY WEEK Where can Steve Borthwick find the X-factor players to take England back to...
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Nick Cain
/ 3 years agoToo many young players rejected too soon
Georgia's U20 victory over England is an example of one country making the most of their resources, while the other is...
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Features
/ 3 years agoHelping to develop the best referees
Paul Rees talks to Chris White about the specialist programme which has trained some of the top refs in world rugby...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 years agoTime we got round to telling full story
CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST "No story lives unless someone wants to listen.” So said J KRowling, who knows a thing or...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 years agoFreedom of speech cuts both ways
If Steve Hansen did a million things right over the long stretch of a storied career as an All Black think-tanker,...
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Shane Williams
/ 3 years agoNo Webb or Carre but plenty of talent
SHANE WILLIAMS WALES AND LIONS LEGEND We have a summer of international rugby to look forward to before Wales get to...
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Shane Williams
/ 3 years agoOne night in St Helens made us all feel good
SHANE WILLIAMS For all those ‘Doubting Thomases’ out there who keep thinking there is nothing good left in Welsh rugby then...
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Features
/ 3 years ago15 stars of a bonkers season
Paul Rees selects his team of the tournament from the Gallagher Premiership 2022/23 The most emotionally charged Premiership campaign finished as...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoMcCaw tips Wales to cause carnage
THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW When it comes to talking about ‘carnage’ at the World Cup, nobody is more impeccably...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoKeyboard warriors target Carre case
The Welsh Rugby Union has been bombarded from all directions all year that it seems almost unfair to point out that...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoEddie is putting his mind to it
PETER JACKSON Australia scrum-half Nic White came up with an interesting observation on Eddie Jones finding room for three psychologists in...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoStunning Munster are the best of the bunch
RUGBY MATTERS - A weekly look at the game’s other talking points What with an epic Champions Cup final and a very...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoBastareaud deserves his cheering send-off, too
Sergio Parisse’s long farewell has taken centre stage recently but let’s hear it also for Mathieu Bastareaud who also took his...
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Jeff Probyn
/ 3 years agoGood to see Prem stars in Baa-Baa shirts
JEFF PROBYN A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME What a show Eddie Jones staged on his return to Twickenham in...
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Jeff Probyn
/ 3 years agoWR has made mess of how game is played
JEFF PROBYN With the season over and the Premiership finally decided, it would be good to look back and see what...
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James Harrington
/ 3 years agoKremer’s red gives Racing easy ride
JAMES HARRINGTON FRENCH COLUMN Argentinian back-row Marcos Kremer’s last act for Stade Francais was to get sent off - for the...
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Jeremy Guscott
/ 3 years agoBorthwick must pull off a minor miracle
JEREMY GUSCOTT OUTSPOKEN AND UNMISSABLE... EVERY WEEK Steve Hansen isn’t wrong when he says that the 2023 World Cup draw is...
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Brendan Gallagher
/ 3 years agoFarrell shows who’s the master
BRENDAN GALLAGHER It was billed as a titanic head-to-head between Owen Farrell and George Ford but in truth rugby, a game...
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Paul Rees
/ 3 years agoSanderson will know that better times are ahead
PAUL REES As Alex Sanderson reflected on what could have been after a Premiership final that yielded 60 points, Sale’s director...
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Nick Cain
/ 3 years agoStrewth, mate! Fast Eddie’s cash jackpot
NICK CAIN READ HIS EXPERT OPINION EVERY WEEK Eddie Jones returned to Twickenham this week as an RFU-made millionaire coach. Jones,...
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Nick Cain
/ 3 years agoDavid Emery honoured at rugby awards
David Emery is the reason that The Rugby Paper exists, and since its inception in September 2008 I have had the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 years agoMasterful Skelton is the talk of the town
CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST IF Simon Shaw of England was a 20-storey tower block of a lock blessed with penthouse levels...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 years ago‘Chilling’ Nowell leaves us shivering
CHRIS HEWETT When a front-line England player tells his national coach that he is unavailable for World Cup duty – not...
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Paul Rees
/ 3 years agoIt’s time for real change in a game drowning in debt
Paul Rees looks back on a sobering season for the professional game in England and wonders what happens next The...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 3 years agoWe need more time to prepare the 2025 Lions
SHANE WILLIAMS WALES AND LIONS LEGEND I was fortunate enough to go on two tours with the British & Irish Lions...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoPutting the boot in – but not if it’s bright green …
PETER JACKSON THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW Tawera Kerr-Barlow’s fluorescent green boots, as worn when La Rochelle dared to give...
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoAlarm as Europe just keeps getting smaller
Europe, as defined by European Professional Club Rugby, is in the process of shrinking almost as alarmingly as the English Premiership....
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Peter Jackson
/ 3 years agoO’Gara’s touch of Old Big ’Ead
On the face of it, Brian Clough and Ronan O’Gara do not appear to have much in common: different ball games,...
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