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Articles by Sandra McDonnell

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About Sandra McDonnell

As an Englishwoman married to a Scot, Sandra experiences some tension at home during Six Nations tournaments. Her enthusiasm for rugby was acquired through early visits to Fylde club matches with her father and her proud boast is that she has missed only two England home games at Twickenham since 1995. Sandra has three grown-up children, none of whom follow rugby. More Posts

What goes around comes around (maybe)

The tribal gulf between adherents of Rugby Union and Rugby League, caused by the hundred years ‘parting of the ways’ in 1895 when the Northern Union clubs (League wasn’t called League until about 1922) split off over the question of ‘broken time’ payments, i.e. professionalism, remains [...]

April 28, 2016 // 0 Comments

The resumption of normal service

Yesterday, because of family commitments upon this Easter weekend, I watched ‘live’ on television only parts of the back-to-back Aviva Premiership games between Saracens and Exeter Chiefs and then Worcester Warriors and London Irish – both courtesy of BT Sport whose overall coverage I think [...]

March 27, 2016 // 0 Comments

A glimpse of the future perhaps …

Yesterday I travelled to Twickenham Stadium to watch some of the Nat West School Finals Day, the culmination of a season’s worth of rugby involving schools from all over the country. It was certainly the case in times gone by that school rugby was one of the purest form of the sport. Nobody was [...]

March 17, 2016 // 0 Comments

The evidence of our eyes

England rugby player James Haskell hit the media this week by giving an interview bemoaning the fact that that TMO video replays of incidents during a match are relayed to television viewers at home and to crowds in the stadium, apparently on the twin points that in his view this may unduly [...]

March 9, 2016 // 0 Comments

Some mothers do have them

For a couple of years now, great things have been predicted of – and for – the England rugby squad’s Maro Itoje, who will make his starting debut in the second row against Ireland tomorrow in the Six Nations match at Twickenham. He is lauded for everything from his size [six feet five [...]

February 26, 2016 // 0 Comments

Steady on, Eddie!

By most accounts Dylan Hartley, the Northampton Saints hooker who will turn 30 in March, winner of 66 England caps, is a regular sort of guy to meet – modest, almost quiet, and dedicated to his professional sport. Yesterday he was appointed captain of England for the 2016 Six Nations by new head [...]

January 26, 2016 // 0 Comments

The trouble with self-imposed principles

As a player Dean Ryan, 49, the current Director of Rugby at Worcester Warriors, was a tough, rock-hard, uncompromising, sometimes belligerent, Number 8 good enough to have won 6 caps for England – in other words, a top class forward but not a world-class one. When his playing career was over, [...]

January 22, 2016 // 0 Comments

Both in laws and application

If I was asked to list the aspects of rugby union that could be improved, I’m pretty sure that my list would not be too much different from that of every other rugby fan – the laws (and how they are applied) would be right up there. Scrums – everything about them generally, but [...]

January 20, 2016 // 0 Comments

The wait is almost over

Unless I have managed to cross some wires somewhere, this week’s biggest rugby union development – certainly for England fans – will be the announcement of new head coach Eddie Jones’ first Elite Player Squad containing those players from which he will select his teams for the 2016 Six [...]

January 11, 2016 // 0 Comments

Do you know what it is yet, Mr Jones …?

Like many England rugby fans, I am waiting on tenterhooks to find out exactly how new head coach Eddie Jones eventually sets up his chosen coaching team and in particular just what he is going to do – or even ‘what he is going to be allowed to do’ by the crazy agreement in place between the [...]

December 17, 2015 // 0 Comments

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