Rugby World

IT’S LIKE some kind of turbo-charged Waltzer, the Six Nations news cycle. No ball has been kicked yet and before it all we’ve had players defecting to other sports, new captains, Lions left out of squads, bolters and injuries galore. This is what it’

IF YOU think Louis Rees-Zammit’s decision to quit rugby was a shock, spare a thought for Warren Gatland. The Wales boss only found out the wing was opting out of the sport an hour before he was due to name his Six Nations squad. The reason LRZ has ca

The paperback version of Le Coq: A Journey to the Heart of French Rugby by Peter Bills is released this Thursday. With a foreword from New Zealand legend Dan Carter, the former Perpignan and Racing fly-half, the book brings to life nearly 150 years o

WHAT DOES it mean to be the first Italian chosen to referee a men’s Six Nations game? It’s an important appointment, not just for me but for all Italian referees and the whole Italian rugby movement. This appointment can only make us all very proud b

Jake White has confirmed that the Bulls will return to Bristol’s Ashton Gate should they advance to the semi-finals of the Champions Cup. As South Africa is not a shareholder with EPCR, the South African franchises are not allowed to host games beyon

THE RECENT Champions Cup game between Exeter and Glasgow showed us how not to referee under pressure and gave us one of the most bemusing ends to a top contest by French ref Pierre Brousset. At the end of an exciting encounter, Exeter had a scrum sev

[Goes in Rugby World] WALES HAD a Six Nations match in Scotland (2005), writes TV director/producer Sion Thomas. There was two minutes until our show went on air and Ray Gravell was on the touchline. I looked at the bank of monitors and could see a s

IF YOU were lucky enough to spend time in France during the World Cup, the likelihood was you ended up humming the tune of La Peña Baiona. You might not have known what it was, but the iconic tune that belongs to the fans of l’Aviron Bayonnais – Bayo

WHEN YOU grow up in the Valleys, you don’t really notice so much when it rains as when it doesn’t. Which made it rather inevitable that, with the first lashings of Storm Henk battering Bridgend’s old Brewery Field on New Year’s Day, the Ospreys-Cardi

“I first played rugby aged seven at Wimborne RFC. I’d go to Taekwondo or gymnastics but rugby nights were the ones I’d wait all week to come back along.” “I’m from a small village, Winterborne Stickland in Dorset. Some of my favourite times are walki

The former England and Lions fly-half turned analyst BEFORE THE World Cup, we singled out Maro Itoje as the player who needed to rediscover his finest form if England were to have any chance of success, however that be defined. After a few seasons as

Fri 2 Feb Ireland 8pm, Stade Vélodrome Sat 10 Feb Scotland 2.15pm, Murrayfield Sun 25 Feb Italy 3pm, Stade Pierre Mauroy Sun 10 Mar Wales 3pm, Principality Stadium Sat 16 Mar England 8pm, Parc OL, Lyon France made 34 line breaks in the 2023 Six Natio

Sat 3 Feb Italy 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sat 10 Feb Wales 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 24 Feb Scotland 4.45pm, Murrayfield Sat 9 Mar Ireland 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 16 Mar France 8pm, Parc OL, Lyon England had the best scrum (96%) and lineout (92%) percentag

Fri 2 Feb France 8pm, Stade Vélodrome Sun 11 Feb Italy 3pm, Aviva Stadium Sat 24 Feb Wales 2.15pm, Aviva Stadium Sat 9 Mar England 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 16 Mar Scotland 4.45pm, Aviva Stadium Ireland conceded the fewest penalties in last year’s Six N

Sat 3 Feb England 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sun 11 Feb Ireland 3pm, Aviva Stadium Sun 25 Feb France 3pm, Stade Pierre Mauroy Sat 9 Mar Scotland 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sat 16 Mar Wales 2.15pm, Principality Stadium Italy have lost at home 25 times in a

Sat 3 Feb Scotland 4.45pm, Principality Stadium Sat 10 Feb England 4.45pm, Twickenham Sat 24 Feb Ireland 2.15pm, Aviva Stadium Sun 10 Mar France 3pm, Principality Stadium Sat 16 Mar Italy 2.15pm, Principality Stadium Wales regained possession from ki

Rugby’s most outspoken and influential journalist RUGBY IS always changing, priorities differ from era to era, and what the sport demands of players changes in emphasis. But the real truths of the game are permanent. For me, now and always, the key p

Sat 3 Feb Wales 4.45pm, Principality Stadium Sat 10 Feb France 2.15pm, Murrayfield Sat 24 Feb England 4.45pm, Murrayfield Sat 9 Mar Italy 2.15pm, Stadio Olimpico Sat 16 Mar Ireland 4.45pm, Aviva Stadium Scotland’s 28-point win v Wales in last year’s

BACK IN the day, when Iain Henderson was still the uncapped tyro of Ravenhill, he shared a student house with a couple of other likely lads, a gang of boys who found their kicks in the strangest places. For fun, they blew up microwaves. At thirty qui

ITALIAN RUGBY has been in thrall to Ange Capuozzo for the past couple of years, and it turns out that Azzurri supporters have the elfin attacker to thank for Martin Page-Relo too. Before moving to Lyon last summer, the livewire nine was at Toulouse,

GRANT GILCHRIST has been a key part of the Scotland set-up for close to a decade, having done his national service under coaches Scott Johnson, Vern Cotter and Gregor Townsend. He has established himself as one of the most consistent locks in the Eur

CHARACTERS SELDOM come bigger than Corey Domachowski, the football-loving prop whose nicknames have included Dom the Bomb and Fat Ronaldo. A year ago he was barely featuring for his club Cardiff and contemplated throwing in the towel. Now he’s a Wale

CLEAR AS a bell and as obvious as a four-by-fivesquare ‘word jumble’ is the talent of the young Waratahs and Wallabies prop. In 2023 Angus Bell not only broke through, he kept running… And kicking. Now, on the eve of a new Super Rugby Pacific season,

COMING INTO a Test set-up as a youngster must be nerve-racking enough. But to do it in the Six Nations? Phew! Yet some athletes are meant for the big stage and there is none bigger than the treasured annual championship – burst onto the scene there a

LA ROCHELLE was a second division club when Uini Atonio arrived on the French Atlantic coast on a one-year deal. Little did the huge tighthead prop know what that move would turn into: a decade-long international career, a Grand Slam, two Champions C

WHEN KIRANI James raced home to win Grenada’s first-ever Olympic medal with gold in the 400m at London 2012, an instant legacy was forged – that much was clear. What wasn’t so transparent at the time was that a new sport, a decade on, would take its

UNFLAPPABLE. THAT’S the vibe you get off Sam Underhill, it’s suggested to us by one game insider. He just gives off a sense that the big occasions, well, he neither loves nor hates them, he just plays. So we asked the Bath back-row about that. He tel

1 Former Wales and Lions scrum-half coaching the Scarlets (6,4) 8 “-- - Marcus”, what BT commentator Ali Eykyn dubbed the Quins fly-half after his star showing v Gloucester (5) 9 - - - Ibitoye, winger who joined Bristol Bears from Tel Aviv Heat in 20

No holds barred in Stephen Jones’s column Exclusive interviews with star players Trenchant analysis from Sean Holley ON SALE TUE 27 FEBRUARY ■

ON THE weekend of King Charles III’s coronation last year, the rugby club who play on the ground where the monarch learnt to fly a helicopter also had their crowning glory. Dartmouth RFC play home matches on the fields behind a local leisure centre t

AMONGST THE questions about Ireland’s failings at the World Cup is one that has yet to be fully answered: who is Johnny Sexton’s long-term replacement? Enter Munster’s Jack Crowley. The man from County Cork featured at the World Cup and helped Munste

“The back of the lineout is a great place to attack from because it traps so many defensive forwards and gives you extra space for the backs to run in. There are two ways to stop the opposition from reaching the back. You can mirror their lineout by

I want to highlight the good work that Ystradgynlais, my local club, has done for my 82-year-old father and other retired players. Knowing how lonely some of our elderly ex-players are, they’ve set up a club each Friday for former team-mates aged 70-