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Reason's Round-Up

Our resident journo’s weekly round up of news from around the rugby world, this week featuring: Johnson’s decisions, Welsh fitness levels, Scotland’s lead-up, Dwyer on the Wallabies performance and the All Blacks jersey debate…

Pitch Size Matters

Can someone please tell me why there is a maximum pitch size but no minimum size. In recent years both the Osprey and Wasps have played blitz defences on small pitches and reduced rugby to a hit-athon…

Reason’s Round-Up

Our resident journo’s weekly round up of news from around the rugby world, this week featuring: Shane William’s believes, England’s midfield tactics, injury fears in lead up to World Cup and how many players can a coach rest before it becomes a scandal?…

The Four Basics

In this short video by All Black Captain Richie McCaw he describes the four simple things he thinks he needs to do well to be a good rugby player…

The Best in the World

It’s always interesting to select a World XV heading into a World Cup and then see how much it might have changed by the end of the competition. The players who often come through are from the smaller nations. We simply haven’t seen them play enough rugby at the top level to know how good they are…

Reason’s Round-Up

Our resident journo’s weekly round up of news from around the rugby world, this week featuring: USA looses key World Cup player, the return of Stephen Ferris, South Africa’s loss to the Wallabies, the All Blacks starting line-up and Rugby World Cup ticket pricing…

What's bugging Wayne Smith?

Laws that promote negative play make a lot of coaches want to throw rugby’s rulemakers under the deck of a scrummage machine. I am not talking about the laws that stop good, aggressive defence or the laws that hold attackers back from having an unfair advantage. I am talking about those laws that strangle an opportunity to attack before it has even started…

Alignment

Language changes over time and one of the new buzz words in the All Blacks coaching set-up is ‘alignment’. Once upon a time if you had talked about alignment in rugby Dan Carter might have asked if you wanted him to stand flat or drop into the pocket. But in 2011 ‘alignment’ is about making sure the coaches, captain, leadership group and players are all headed in the same direction…

The Red Rose in Black?

You have probably heard that the RFU have announced that England’s ‘away strip’ for the Rugby World Cup will be ‘all black’ in colour, consisting of jet black shirt/jersey and shorts. We’d be interested to know what your ‘take’ is on this decision…

Leadership

There is no point in trying to be a captain if you are not worth your place in the side. Maybe once a century, someone in some sport defies the convention. England once had a cricket captain called Mike Brearley who was not the world’s greatest opening bat but who had a mind like Plato. He was a successful leader..

Where did the All Blacks go so horribly wrong?

24 years and counting – that is how long it is since the world’s greatest rugby side has won the World Cup. Surely they can’t stuff it up this time? Not at home. Not with only one teeny, last minute defeat in the whole of 2010. Not with the four-time IRB coach of the year, the three-time player of the year and the greatest fly-half in history. They couldn’t drop another World Cup could they?…

The Perfect Tens

I have played against some pretty good 10’s over the years. Half of them even seem to go to my old school, Boys High in Christchurch. But there are a couple who really stand out. The big two in my time as a player have been Jonny Wilkinson and Stephen Larkham…