I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Rob Andrew but he certainly knows how to rub people up the wrong way:
“In no particular order, Andrew expressed his disquiet that the Welsh referee Nigel Owens had been sighted in the same hotel as the All Blacks prior to last weekend’s Test in Auckland, slammed the local […]

Paul Ackford, writing in the Telegraph, questions Martin Johnson’s ability to be successful as the new England manager:
“The big beast is back in the jungle. Martin Johnson was impressive on Friday. The smile had replaced the scowl because this was alien territory for him and he needed to schmooze, not snarl. No one knows - […]

Writing in the Independent, Chris Hewitt makes his case against the Experimental Law Variations:
If you can imagine a game of rugby in which the scrum was the most gripping theatre of action, in which the line-out tested the skills and discipline of every forward on the field, in which the breakdown was so fiercely contested […]

This article appeared in The Australian:
“LOTE TUQIRI’s well-intentioned actions in rolling Matt Giteau on his side after he was knocked out in last weekend’s Waratahs-Western Force match could have caused Giteau to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Lote Tuqiri
That is a worst-case and even alarmist scenario. But so widespread was the media’s […]

This article originally appeared on stuff.co.nz and is written by SPIRO ZAVOS
“An iron law of Super 14 rugby is that coaches lose their jobs, new players burst on to the scene and the competition goes on.
A subsidiary law, unfortunately, is that the Waratahs don’t win the Super 14 tournament. At halftime at the SFS, with […]

As Wales fans nurse some sore heads this morning after celebrating the RBS Six Nations Grand Slam, Skysports.com looks back on the team of the tournament.
Unsurprisingly, there is a fairly strong Welsh flavour to the XV - with Warren Gatland turning them from World Cup chumps to Euro champs in the space for five months.
However, […]

Famous Frenchman Thomas Castaignede writes in the Guardian:
“There will be many questions asked in the next 24 hours about just what kind of team the French coach, Marc Lièvremont, will name to face Wales on Saturday, with victory in the Six Nations still in theory attainable. The speculation will be intense because of the huge […]

One of Britain’s top rugby writers, Mike Cleary, shares his thoughts on the new ELV’s:
“When you want a miserable bugger, you can’t find one anywhere. According to my highly reliable sources in Bath on Saturday, there was not a whingeing, whining, grumpy soul to be found in and around the Recreation Ground. Well, apart from […]

Found this in the New Zealand Herald:
“The earnings of professional rugby players in New Zealand are dwarfed by their counterparts in other sports - no surprise there - but compare favourably with averages in English and French rugby, writes Gregor Paul.
In the next few weeks, someone is going to have their bones rattled by Jerry […]

Chris Hewett writes in the Independent (UK)
Toby Flood, the Newcastle midfielder who has it in him to provide a lasting solution to one of England’s most pressing positional problems, made a number of striking comments at red-rose base camp yesterday, the least accurate of which was that Jonny Wilkinson “played really well” against Wales in […]