SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE UP TO 35% Read Rugby World’s digital issue Subscribe to the Rugby World Newsletter
Posted 61 days ago
THERE’LL BE a new face in the Top 14 next season, captained by an old face , and an English one at that. Former Bristol flanker Joe El-Abd joined Oyonnax last summer after three seasons with Toulon, a stint on the Cote d’Azur that had him sharing a dressing room with some of the greats of the game: Jonny Wilkinson, Sonny Bill Williams, George Smith and Tana Umaga to name but a few.
Posted 72 days ago
CLERMONT AUVERGNE demonstrated just why they are the favourites to lift the Heineken Cup this year as they clinically saw off Montpellier. Rugby World, however, has decided to pinpoint a few individuals, rather than teams, who stood out over the weekend.
Posted 77 days ago
COMPARED TO the chill winds that have been blowing through Leicester of late, Toulon on Sunday will feel positively balmy for the English club. Spring has been slow in showing its face even on the Cote D’Azur but temperatures of 15 degrees make a mockery of the sub-zero conditions in England. But the Tigers can expect the mercury to rise on Sunday evening when they emerge at the Stade Mayol to take on Toulon in their eagerly-awaited Heineken Cup quarter-final.
Posted 160 days ago
FOR ALL the talk in recent weeks about Jonny Wilkinson, and will-he-or-won’t-he sign on for another stint at Toulon, there’s another Englishman in the south of France in a similar situation. In fact the similarities don’t stop there. Iain Balshaw and Jonny Wilkinson first played in the same team in 1997, the all-conquering England schoolboys’ side that also featured Mike Tindall.
Posted 184 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 267 days ago
“MICHALAK IS back” screams the headline in this week’s Midi Olympique, alongside a photograph of Toulon’s Freddie, a player for whom the word ‘mercurial’ could have been invented. Michalak played a prominent part in easing his club to their sixth consecutive win of the season last Saturday, a 33-12 defeat of Castres in which Jonny Wilkinson scored 18 of the points.
Posted 272 days ago
THEY SAY Lourdes is where you go in search of a miracle cure, but if you’re a thirty-something Englishman Toulon seems to be the place in France that has healing properties. We know all about Jonny Wilkinson, rejuvenated since he left Newcastle for the Cote d’Azur in 2009, and Simon Shaw has had a second wind since he quit Wasps for Toulon 12 months ago.
Posted 301 days ago
DOWN IN Perpignan Luke Charteris isn’t hard to miss. At 6ft 9in and 20st, and with that fair Celtic skin of his, he stands out a mile in the Catalan city where people tend to be shorter, stockier and slightly more bronzed. Not that the Wales lock minds the attention. “I’m loving it down here,” he tells Rugby World.
Posted 307 days ago
By Gavin Mortimer, Rugby World writer
THE OLYMPICS are over and the football season is about to get underway. But don’t worry, it’s not all depressing news on the sports front. The 2012-13 rugby season is just round the corner in the British Isles while over in France the new Top 14 campaign kicks off this weekend.
You have to feel for…
Posted 364 days ago
IN CASE you missed it what with all the misery surrounding the Home Nations narrow defeats at the weekend, France also suffered at the hands of the southern hemisphere. Their 23-20 loss to Argentina in Cordoba was Les Bleus eighth defeat in 11 matches against the Pumas, writes Gavin Mortimer.
France have the chance to level the two-Test series this Saturday…
