Daily Archives: 3 August 2014
Quade Cooper
Quade Cooper’s comeback from shoulder and hip surgery will be through the new National Rugby Championship to prove his fitness for a Wallabies recall.
Playing three or four games in the latter stages of the NRC would be the perfect vehicle to rebuild confidence, timing and match hardness.
Tiger Woods’ swing, the unlikely source of Cheika’s motivation.
Michael Chieka didn’t quite take a sledgehammer to the Waratahs’ chronic problems; he took golf clubs instead.
As his players gathered in the change-room before the biggest Super Rugby game of their careers, and for most the biggest in their lives, Cheika slowly began to pull out 23 golf clubs, each personalised with female names.
A fresh-looking Argentina will leave for South Africa on Wednesday for their 16 August Rugby Championship opener against the Springboks in Pretoria under new coach Daniel Hourcade and led by a new captain in hooker Agustin Creevy.
Hourcade, who took charge last November right after the last Rugby Championship in which the Pumas lost all six of their matches, has dispensed with all but a handful of the 2007 World Cup semi-finalists and many 2011 quarter-finalists.
Michael Cheika
He’s loath to talk about dynasties and sustained dominance, but NSW Waratahs coach Michael Cheika is already plotting a path to back-to-back Super Rugby titles.
With a season remaining on his three-year contract, Cheika laughed off speculation he could be heading off to coach the Argentine national team after guiding the Waratahs to their Holy Grail.
“What, for a holiday? No, I’m here. We’re well into our planning for next season,” Cheika said after the Waratahs’ last-gasp 33-32 win over the Crusaders in Saturday night’s final.
David de Lautour, a Kiwi born actor, has been cast to play the role of Stephen Donald in the upcoming movie, The Kick.
Rugby World Cup champion Stephen “Beaver” Donald has opened up about being the target of vile hate mail and the anguish his family endured when he was subjected to a torrent of public abuse.
The All Blacks cult first-five became a hero around New Zealand when he booted the team to victory in their nail-biting 2011 Rugby World Cup 8-7 final victory over France.
But in the lead-up to the screening of telemovie The Kick, which relives his magic moment, Donald has told how he was treated after being blamed for costing the All Blacks victory against the Wallabies in Hong Kong a year before the tournament.