THE DRAW may not have been the most glamorous of affairs, resembling something between an IT lecture and an awards ceremony for engravers, but we now know the Heineken Cup…
Tournaments
Should there be another cross-code Union versus League match?
BIZARRE THOUGH it may seem, but if the images are anything to go by then the mind-boggling dual-code pre-season showdown between football’s Marseille and rugby’s Toulon was a brilliant day…
Could Benji Marshall and other converts light up RWC 2015?
NEWS IS bubbling up from Down Under that NRL heavyweight Benji Marshall is on the verge of switching codes. The Kiwi playmaker has been heavily linked with a move to…
Mike Phillips doesn’t make the Top 14 cut… for now
IN THE August edition of Rugby World, British and Irish Lions scrum-half Mike Phillips spoke of his role for Bayonne in the French Top 14. After a tough year where…
French Top 14: New faces for the new season
OSTENTATIOUS OR talent-filled, either way, it is hard to deny that the Top 14 will have an impressive array of international stars next season. Indeed there is something for everyone…
Falcons fly back into the Premiership
THERE WILL undoubtedly have been roars of delight as Newcastle Falcons clambered out of the Championship at the first time of asking, but for one man watching Falcons 31-24 victory…
Top 14: Claassen and co. are ready to topple Toulon
THERE ARE still moments when Antonie Claassen has to pinch himself. Can it really be true? A French international and in the final of the Top 14? “It is hard…
Aviva Premiership final: an old-fashioned tear up
"AMBUSH AT the Allianz" could be a way of describing the Aviva Premiership semi-final between Northampton Saints and Saracens. That would do a disservice to Saints, though, who maintained an…
Lions 2013: Surviving finals and the Lions run-in
STAYIN’ ALIVE by the Bee Gees was a late 70s sentiment so powerful that it generated an eponymous follow-up movie to Saturday Night Fever in which John Travolta hustles to…
The Championship blog – Play-offs: Final Round 1
NEWCASTLE HAVE one foot back in the Aviva Premiership following their 9-18 win over Bedford in the first leg of the Championship final at Goldington Road on Thursday night. But…