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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

Full Contact/Six Nations documentary (Netflix)

A colleague on the Rust asked me if I had seen this documentary. As I had not, I watched it on Wednesday night and was disappointed. I am no fan of “fly-on-the-wall” documentaries. Vast amounts of money are expended in return for granting access to “where-the-fan-cannot-go” [...]

February 2, 2024 // 0 Comments

Ireland 13 South Africa 8

This epic match more than matched the billing and hype and I share my colleague Derek Williams’ viewpoint that the Boks should be beaten. Their bomb squad of 7 forwards attracted a lot of attention though few pointed out that – in the absence of Malcolm Marx – they did not have a [...]

September 24, 2023 // 0 Comments

Wales 32 Fiji 26

Wales’s victory over Fiji was the best World Cup game so far. I had watched South Africa beat Scotland but I find the Boks to be a boring bunch of behemoths. Scotland play attractively but are over-reliant on the mercurial Finn Russell and frankly it was a pea-shooter against a Panzer tank. [...]

September 11, 2023 // 0 Comments

Rugby World Cup Preview

The first observation to make about the Rugby World Cup is that the four best Rugby nations (France, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa) are all in the lower section. Whilst France v New Zealand is a tasty opener I’m looking forward more to the Pool B encounter between world number one Ireland [...]

September 8, 2023 // 0 Comments

Review: The Sound Of Music (Chichester Festival Theatre)

Last weekend – somewhat out of the blue – I received an invitation to attend the penultimate evening performance of the Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of Rogers & Hammerstein’s musical The Sound of Music and was only too happy to accept. There can scarcely be a Ruster unaware [...]

September 6, 2023 // 0 Comments

South Africa 35 New Zealand 7

This match at Twickenham between the current World Champions and one of the forthcoming tournament’s favourites ended with a resounding victory for the Boks. They overpowered the All Blacks with the power of their pack and some highly effective players behind the scrum – notably full back [...]

August 26, 2023 // 0 Comments

Rugby Union in disarray over Owen Farrell decision

Some developments in the world of sport seem to defy logic, morality, decency and belief. It is undeniable that –  down through sporting history in such as track & field, professional boxing, Tour de France cycling, football, rugby in both the union and league codes, karate and [...]

August 16, 2023 // 0 Comments

England 19-17 Wales ; France 30-27 Scotland

Derek Williams of this parish summed up the England performance well.  I would add the inexperienced Georgian referee ( easier to call him that as I or predictive text would surely mis-spell his name! ) was a little too quick to brandish the cards.  At one stage England only had 12.players on the [...]

August 13, 2023 // 0 Comments

The Women’s Rugby World Cup Final

England’s Red Roses rugby union team duly came off second best against New Zealand’s Black Ferns yesterday by a score margin of 31 to 34 in the 2021 Women’s Rugby World Cup final played at Eden Park in front of over 40,000 spectators, thereby concluding their 30-match winning streak against [...]

November 13, 2022 // 0 Comments

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