The All Blacks and Springboks have played out another classic in what has now become a trilogy of matches that cannot separate the two teams on points. The South Africans created history by winning in Wellington in September by a wafer-thin two points, while the All Blacks returned the favour with the identical margin at Loftus a fortnight later. ...
There’s a saying that ‘attack is the best form of defence’. This is true of some sports, but certainly not true of football and rugby. Most of the time spent in training and in games is spent on defence. Jose Mourinho made a career out of it at Porto and Chelsea when his organized teams were impossible to break ...
Recently, former Wales captain Sam Warburton blew the long whistle on his career at the tender age of 29. The two time Lions captain and inspirational Welsh back row was so battered, and held together by tape that he decided he couldn’t go on any longer. And who can blame him? Serious rugby injuries are debilitating. Having suffered a ...
Serena Williams’ second round game against Carina Witthoft two Wednesdays ago, was a summary dismissal of the German, in front of a packed and adulatory Arthur Ashe Stadium. On a sweltering New York night – the warmest since 1948 – I listened as Laine and Anya sitting next to me on the Loge level, fawned and clapped at every ...
Yesterday, the Sri Lankan team under the captaincy of Dinesh Chandimal and the stewardship of Chandika Hathurusinghe and Asanka Gurusingha, the coach and manager respectively, refused to take the field for the third day of the second Test match against the visitors at St. Lucia. Sri Lanka were fighting to stay in the series after losing the first test against ...
The Australian cricket teams over the years have been unkind to the opposition, and called them derogatory nicknames. They have been rude and insulting, according to almost everyone that has played against them, from Ian Chappell and before to Steve Smith. It seems though, that they were kindest to their oldest foe. Calling the English the ‘whinging poms’, is almost ...
The Colombo weather this morning reflects the gloom that hangs around schools rugby in general. The gloom caused by the ugly, dark, cloud of crowd violence. Just this weekend we’ve seen clashes at the Royal v Wesley game, a stoppage for a bottle thrown at the SPC v Kingswood game, an attempted attack on the referee in at the STC ...
“When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.” – Chinua Achebe Except, unbeknownst to the seminal Nigerian writer on Empire, it can. What Steve Smith and his merry band of cheats did last Saturday at Newlands destroyed Australian cricketing tradition, not just in a day, but in a session. A ...
Finally, after the Rugby Championship has concluded and they went through it undeservedly unbeaten, the All Blacks came a cropper against a determined Australian outfit this afternoon at a Suncorp stadium that belied its name. Brisbane has so far been the most difficult place for recent All Black teams to tour, with their results being less than fashionable against the ...
Whattamatch! Somehow, as a Thomian, I had a bad feeling about the game going in. Warden Billimoria’s taciturn face at the team introductions was gloomier than the weather. Almost like he had a premonition of what was to come. It was not for the faint hearted. Taking a four cushion into the second leg of the 26th annual RL Hayman ...
It’s been nearly six years since a match this big has taken place at Eden Park. Even that game, the RWC 2011 final was not anticipated to be as close as it was, given the way Dan Carter had dismissed Le Frogs from his presence in the group game. It was probably his most influential performance in Black since the ...
The preamble to the first Test between the British and Irish Lions and the defending World Champions the All Blacks has degenerated into an A&E crisis for the Lions with their ever faithful media doing their best to camouflage the unavailability of some key players. Stuart Hogg has gone home after being reverse clotheslined by Connor Murray, and Owen Farrell ...
Talking to Dom and Asanka on the ‘Fix’ on Monday morning, I think I described our win against India as a ‘flash in the pan’ and anticipated that things will be ‘business as usual’ pretty soon. Despite the horror of my own cliches, I realise that cliches are all that can be used to describe what has turned out to ...
It’s been a trying week in Warren Gatland’s hotel room, that much is sure. The Lions coach, back in his native land of the long white cloud, had a countenance that would put any rain cloud to shame for much of the first two games on tour. The first, a narrow win against a team of Johnny Nonames comprising the ...
Watching the Exeter Chiefs string together 34 phases in the build up to their Premiership win over the weekend was pretty exhilarating. The fact that the Wasps didn’t concede a penalty in all those phases was also an extraordinary performance. But watching the Premiership final, I was reminded, glaringly, what a cruel game rugby can be. A devastated Nathan Hughes ...
Usually, lions roar. And do so in what has proverbially become known as their ‘den’. But apart from the Biblical story of Daniel which features a den, lions generally live on the vast planes without any fear. The question on everybody’s minds then, is whether the incongruent British and Itirsh Lions will mirror the lifestyle of their mascot from the ...
After much controversey, the schools rugby season has begun in earnest. How earnest we will know soon enough, because the Sports Minister has threatened to indefinitely postpone the tournament due to the absence of a rule book. Hardly a trivial matter, the absence of rules in this country. It seems to work quite well in government departments and corporate life. ...
My only guest blogger is also the only other person who sings ‘you’re shit and you know you are’ at the SSC bar to the tune of Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Go West’. With the Aussies thumped in the test series, their whinging has continued despite the ODI series win. When will they stop? Will they ever? …. Growing up a ...
Sri Lanka is still recovering from the surprise of a Test win against Australia. It’s only the second time ever that we’ve beaten them, and the first time in 17 years. Tests in Sri Lanka between these two countries have always been entertaining. The 1992 defeat stands out, but the 1999 win against Steve Waugh’s team was also punctuated by ...
My first memories of Thomian rugby are of that cohort of awks, masquerading as school kids, sweeping all before it like a horde of Middle Earth mercenaries. It was Sundar Niranjan’s ’89 behemoths that inspired me to play rugby, and in that year a precocious group of Prep School under 13 players coached by a young old boy, famously (among ...
