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Football and Rugby Union – some random thoughts

Throughout its time the Rust’s sports coverage has consistently followed the progress of the sports of football and rugby union. It occurred to me recently that there are certain ironies and issues running through both these sports – some shared and some not. Recently England’s football [...]

December 7, 2023 // 0 Comments

Autumn sporting contests

We have now reached the end of autumnal sport contests: the Ryder Cup, the Rugby World Cup and the Cricket World Cup. Of the three I enjoyed the Rugby World Cup the most as England defied the critics – who at one stage doubted they could qualify – by holding South Africa until the 79th [...]

November 20, 2023 // 0 Comments

Leicester Tigers 25 Harlequins 29

Quins sit atop of the Premiership but there are cracks. Marcus Smith only converted 2 of the 5 tries and, defensively improved, they still look vulnerable. Joe Marler, Jack Walker, Marcus Smith, André Esterhuizen and Danny Care are all back from the World Cup whilst Will Porter, Nick David, Lennox [...]

November 12, 2023 // 0 Comments

Harlequins 40 Newcastle Falcons 12 ( Premiership Cup)

I streamed this from the Premiership website for £5.99. I’m such a Luddite that I could not work out how to watch it on my big screen TV, but rather my iPad which had rather a minuscule image. Quins ran out easy winners with top boys Joe Marler and Marcus Smith on the bench.  The finest moment [...]

November 5, 2023 // 0 Comments

Thoughts on two World Cups – the England perspective

The words England and English will be appearing a lot in this post. The Rugby World Cup Final was a tense, thrilling, match but afterwards there was some criticism of English referee Wayne Barnes. The problem is that – if you are continually told you are the best in the world – you [...]

October 29, 2023 // 0 Comments

Farewell to The Stoop: Harlequins 22 Exeter Chiefs 14

Yesterday I made what in advance I had billed as “possibly my last-ever visit to The Stoop” as a member of a five-person contingent for the Harlequins home Premiership match against the Exeter Chiefs, eventually won by the hosts by the margin of 22-14. I don’t regard myself as generally a [...]

October 23, 2023 // 0 Comments

Thoughts on two World Cup defeats … both to South Africa.

The defeat to South Africa in the cricket World cup was massively comprehensive (244 runs) the defeat in the Rugby World Cup (15-16) tragically narrow. On the BBC commentary there was an excellent South African who questioned England’’s decision to bowl  given the extreme heat and humidity [...]

October 22, 2023 // 0 Comments

New Zealand 44 Argentina 6

Whilst I understand the criticism of a draw made 3 years ago which had the four best teams in the world in the one section, it has helped the All Blacks who have choked in past World Cups by not meeting competitive opposition before the business end. This time they have had to play France and [...]

October 21, 2023 // 0 Comments

Sunday‘s quarter finals

Our readership has had plenty of opportunity to read of two more thrilling matches so I thought I would major on the coverage which, in my view, did not match the occasion. I was particularly irritated by David Flatman – the analyst for ITV’s coverage of France v South Africa. He [...]

October 16, 2023 // 0 Comments

The Saturday RWC quarter finals.

The two semi-final victories by Argentina and New Zealand prove that at the highest competitive levels it’s less about tactics and more about laying your body on the line for your country I remember the two football World Cup finals of 1974 and 1978, when Argentina beat Holland, the former had [...]

October 15, 2023 // 0 Comments

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