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Rugby

And so the gloves come off

We are now entering purdah time for the coaches of Rugby World Cup teams – the period with twelve days to go to the opening match [England v Fiji at Twickenham Stadium – Friday 18th September, kick-off 8.00pm] when the squad selections are done, the ‘warm up’ matches are over and all that [...]

September 6, 2015 // 0 Comments

Reaction to the final 2015 England Rugby World Cup squad

Yesterday’s announcement of Stuart Lancaster’s 31-man squad for the 2015 Rugby World Cup yesterday has already been extensively analysed in the media but here’s my six pennies’ worth. Let me begin by stating that, as an England supporter, I very much hope that everything which follows will [...]

August 28, 2015 // 0 Comments

The eagles have landed but (just) remain in touch

Having yesterday forsaken the drudgery of Britain for a week’s recuperation sampling the delights of the Tuscan/Umbrian border with my husband and three other couples, regular Rust readers may react with a variety of emotions to the news that I spent the early evening contemplating the novelty of [...]

August 23, 2015 // 0 Comments

Much ado about something

Last night – Saturday 15th August – in front of a less-than-full Twickenham Stadium (official attendance circa 63,000), Stuart Lancaster’s makeshift England team held on to beat Phillipe Saint-Andre’s French equivalent by 19-14 in the first of two ‘warm up’ clashes between them [...]

August 16, 2015 // 0 Comments

Time to turn the screw

With less than forty days to go to the opening or the 2015 Rugby World Cup the anticipatory excitement is growing. I must declare an immediate interest – I shall reporting on the tournament from the relative safety of my sofa and, unless something radical happens, have no plans to attend a single [...]

August 11, 2015 // 0 Comments

Down there but coming up

Anyone who watched the South Africa versus New Zealand match in the Southern Hemisphere’s Rugby Championship at Ellis Park (kick-off 4.05pm UK time) on Sky Sports yesterday, eventually won 20-27 by the All Blacks, would have marvelled at the spectacle. This was a full-bloodied Test Match of [...]

July 26, 2015 // 0 Comments

Sports and broadcasting (again)

Today I wish to return briefly to an issue that continues to rumbles on this august website, that of whether – these days, and especially when one is beyond the first flush of youth – it is better to go to the trouble of actually attending sporting events or (alternatively) at some [...]

July 9, 2015 // 0 Comments

What’s not to like?

We sports lovers live in a golden age. There is a surfeit of sport going on in the world and modern technology renders it available to viewers and listeners in a manner of which previous generations can only have dreamed. When it comes to presentation, things have changed much in the last seventy [...]

June 21, 2015 // 0 Comments

Tribute to a rugby great

The news broke yesterday morning that Jerry Collins, the former All Black, and his wife had been killed  in an horrific motor accident in southern France and their young baby girl is still fighting for her life. Collins, 34, was a larger-than-life sporting character, respected and admired by fans [...]

June 6, 2015 // 0 Comments

Pretty vacant, really

Yesterday a young England team beat the Barbarians at Twickenham by the embarrassing margin of 73-12 in front of a crowd of barely 30,000. As a contest it was little more than a training run-out. Danny Cipriani deservedly won the man-of-the-match award for kicking 11 out of 11 and in all scoring [...]

June 1, 2015 // 0 Comments

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