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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

Rugby’s Premiership – a commercial head-case?

When it comes to one’s specialist subjects, interests and hobbies (not least favourite sports) over the course of decades one’s perceptions of the pertinent issues of any specific moment, as formed by one’s personal impressions and attitudes – taken together with media reports, [...]

September 17, 2022 // 0 Comments

More England rugby woes

England have now suffered four consecutive defeats. Most of my rugby pals shared my pessimism in the build-up and were critical of Eddie Jones. On Saturday, England failed to beat a 14 man team – not of the highest rank – who lost their fly half to injury in the warm up. The [...]

July 3, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Quins factor

It barely becomes anyone, still less me, to strike a bum note after watching the Harlequins execute yet another of their now routine “coming back from being all but dead and buried on the scoreboard only to snatch victory at the death with another of their harum-scarum all-out attacking blitz” [...]

May 22, 2022 // 0 Comments

Toulon 19 Toulouse 15

Yesterday I joined the Rusters in Nice as I had a ticket for Toulon v Toulouse, two of the powerhouses of French rugby. So much so that the match is played in the Orange Velodrome Stadium of Olympique Marseilles and attracted a sell out crowd of 64,580. I was saddened that Toulouse chose to rest [...]

April 24, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Trailfinders won’t be trailblazers next season

Yesterday brought the news that Ealing Trailfinders – who came top of rugby union’s Championship 2021/2022 league table, thereby becoming entitled to be promoted to the Premiership but then were judged by the RFU to have failed to meet the set criteria required, specifically including a minimum [...]

April 23, 2022 // 0 Comments

European Rugby Champions Cup results

There exists a small but committed group of columnists on this organ who would admit variously to past, current or even relatively recent adherence to the fortunes of Premiership rugby club Harlequins FC. [For the purists or ‘anoraks’ amongst our readers interested in such things, until the [...]

April 11, 2022 // 0 Comments

Eddie Jones in the dock

The fall-out ramifications from England’s loss to Scotland in the Calcutta Cup match on Saturday evening continue to dominate the sporting media and – justifiably, many fans and pundits believe – Eddie Jones continues to cop most of the flak for England’s spectacular slide from [...]

February 7, 2022 // 0 Comments

Scotland hold on for a famous victory

Writing as a Scot now residing in the English home counties, yesterday’s 20-17 rugby union victory over England at Murrayfield comfortably qualified as a welcome not to say exhilarating opening to the annual Six Nations campaign. Statistically, it is very rare that a team losing its opening game [...]

February 6, 2022 // 0 Comments

Big Game 13 (looking back)

Today I am taking up my esteemed sports editor Mr Hollingworth’s general invitation issued to Rust contributors who might like to post upon the subject of England Premiership club Harlequins’ Big Game 13 which took place last Monday (27th December) at RFU Twickenham. The ‘Big Game’ concept [...]

December 29, 2021 // 0 Comments

And now for the Six Nations …

With the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn international series now concluded the question now to be addressed is in what state the home nations (and France) have emerged as we enter the two and a half month “fallow period” before the commencement of the 2022 Six Nations tournament. The first [...]

November 22, 2021 // 0 Comments

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