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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

A Test match worthy of the name

For those Rust readers who watched it – perhaps ‘because they were there’, or on TV (whether in company, or just with family sitting at home) – there is no need this morning to report upon the detail of yesterday’s 13-9 Ireland victory over England in the Six Nations [...]

March 19, 2017 // 0 Comments

Here we go!

For Northern Hemisphere fans the this year’s annual Six Nations finale on Saturday – three matches culminating in England’s attempt at securing consecutive Grand Slams and a word record 19 international victories in a row against Ireland in Dublin – is going to be a rugby [...]

March 17, 2017 // 0 Comments

Caught on the hop

For some of those who worship at the altar of the monotheist religion of Saint Eddie Jones, England’s rugby coach – and I admit that for a while I was a fan teetering on the point of submitting to conversion – the England v Italy Six Nations game on Sunday may have been a sobering event. [...]

February 28, 2017 // 0 Comments

You read it here first!

Continuing its ‘topic of the moment’ theme, here’s an article by Angela Pippos upon the latest developments in the march of the sport of netball towards world sporting domination that appears on the website today of The Guardian.  This is a genuine case of a phenomenon and not [...]

February 17, 2017 // 0 Comments

Here’s one for the girls

Following the mention of it in my colleague Derek Williams’s article yesterday I want to raise a hand in support of netball, a game that most females have played at school, if not subsequently. In fact, I still occasionally turn out for what virtually amounts to a ‘walking’ form [...]

February 14, 2017 // 0 Comments

Way to go yet, Eddie

The 2017 Six Nations tournament, which began accompanied by a new bonus point system yesterday, can prompt strange things amongst friends and families. With ‘His Nibs’ this year unusually confident that Scotland were about to emerge from years of under-achievement and become potential bolters [...]

February 5, 2017 // 0 Comments

You could have knocked me down with a feather

Today I shall be venturing a little beyond my remit for my first post of the New Year. Perhaps due to the blizzard of family activities, the McDonnell household has been full of chaos in recent times and – with not least my own catering duties to the fore – I have necessarily been distracted [...]

January 3, 2017 // 0 Comments

A worrying place to be?

These days – with the internet being a law unto itself and social media spreading truths, half-truths and wild speculation like wildfire – it is easy to become (or seem to become) a Jeremiah crying ‘Wolf!’ at the slightest issue or problem. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, developments [...]

December 7, 2016 // 0 Comments

Not there yet

Yesterday the family ate lunch together and then arranged ourselves around our sitting-room sofas to watch Sky Sport’s live coverage of England’s 37-21 (four try) rugby union victory over Australia that brought this years’ set of autumn internationals to a close. This may count as a statement [...]

December 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

Talk is cheap at the business end

In family circumstances yesterday in which I watched the whole of England’s 24-17 victory at Twickenham against Argentina and then the first half of Ireland’s 27-24 win over Australia in Dublin on television, it is fast becoming a moot point as to which of these home nations will be favourite [...]

November 27, 2016 // 0 Comments

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