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Posted 135 days ago
SPORTING CLICHES are often abused. Every tournament has a Group of Death and every player is weighed and measured to see if they will be found inferior or capable of cutting huge swathes through the mustard. Of course, same old sayings and hilarious malapropisms from colourful commentators aside, it’s hard to avoid something simple and obvious about the Heineken Cup.
Posted 142 days ago
GET THE chopping block ready. Remove the ceremonial stretching-rings. It’s time to put my neck on the line. The season has, so far, provided very few genuine shocks. However, as all competitions enter the business end in a few months time, the increased impact of collisions and desperation in the faces of season-wearied professionals will ensure the edge of our seats will be as worn out as Emeli Sandé after her Olympics sing-athon.
Posted 160 days ago
EVERY YEAR, as Christmas drew closer, my school rugby team would embark upon a festive fitness regime. Regardless of how much frost there was, we would work on early morning sprints up ‘The Hill’. It was tortuous.
Posted 166 days ago
IT’S THE half-way stage of the Heineken Cup and for the French clubs things are looking good. With three of the six pool matches gone, only Biarritz of the seven Top 14 teams look to have no hope of qualifying for the last eight. Their 22-14 defeat away at Connacht last weekend leaves the Basque outfit third in pool 6, nine points behind leaders Harlequins and three adrift of Connacht.
Posted 215 days ago
TWO ROUNDS gone and four to go in the group stage of the Heineken Cup, and while some clubs are looking good others (no names, Edinburgh) are still looking for a point – any point. And the French clubs? There’s been the odd French farce but in the case of Toulon and Clermont it’s been nothing but force.
Posted 215 days ago
THE AUTUMN Internationals are just around the corner, with the Irish tasked to banish all memories of that humiliating 60-0 whitewash in Hamilton. If you cast your mind back, Ireland had very nearly accomplished the seemingly impossible task of beating the All Blacks one week prior to the final test whitewash.
Posted 215 days ago
YOU CANNOT win the Heineken Cup in Round Two, but you can go some way to losing it. After another action-packed weekend from across the continent, here and the winners and losers from over the last four days:
Posted 222 days ago
LET’S NOT get carried away. Gael Fickou had a good game for Toulouse in their win over Leicester on Sunday, but was the 18-year-old’s try-scoring performance really that special? Sure, Fickou showed the presence of mind and a sharp turn of pace to pounce on a loose ball and sprint 45 metres for the only try of a disappointing game.
Posted 222 days ago
A BRIEF scan of the results from Round One of the Heineken Cup highlighted that English sides may not be as far off the pace when it comes to the Heineken Cup as some had predicted before the tournament began.
Posted 226 days ago
THIS TIME three years ago, Exeter were still in the RFU Championship, in the middle of a week that started by playing London Welsh at Sandy Park and finished with an away trip to Birmingham. Fast forward to the present and the Chiefs are in Dublin, taking on arguably the greatest European side of all time, Leinster.
