Daily Archives: 1 October 2014
Scottish Rugby today unveiled the first of at least four BT Sport Academies that will be opened around the country to nurture the best young Scottish talent to become the stars of tomorrow.
Where Caledonia leads today, the Borders, East and West will follow with all being operational by the 2015-16 season.
“The Academies are the cornerstone of our determination to create a new era for Scottish Rugby,” declared chief executive Mark Dodson at the opening of the Caledonia Academy at the University of Aberdeen’s Hillhead campus.
Kurtley Beale
Wallabies playmaker Kurtley Beale is facing an ARU integrity unit investigation after an alleged incident on a team flight in South America.
The ARU on Wednesday night said in a statement the matter had been referred to team management and Beale is facing disciplinary action.
The investigation centres around an alleged incident on the Wallabies’ flight from South Africa to Brazil on Sunday.
Beale isn’t being sent home but it’s not immediately known if the 47 Test star will be available for selection for the Wallabies’ Rugby Championship clash with Argentina in Mendoza on Saturday.
Stuart Lancaster
Stuart Lancaster will be England Head Coach until 2020 after the Rugby Football Union decided to extend his contract.
Appointed permanent head coach in March 2012, his tenure in charge of the England team is now set to include the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
Lancaster’s coaching team – Forwards Coach Graham Rowntree, Backs Coach Andy Farrell and Attacking Skills Coach Mike Catt – have also been contracted to the end of the 2019-20 season.
Tony Johnson
It’s the game that many of us have been waiting for, perhaps ever since Nigel Owens blew the final whistle at Ellis Park last year to end one of the greatest test matches ever played.
The fact that the Rugby Championship is no longer up for decision matters not one bit. There may be no trophy at stake, but there’s plenty to be gained, and a lot to lose for both teams when they run onto the hallowed turf again on Saturday.
There has certainly been a sense of something really building in Heyneke Meyers Springboks.
Argentina have made five changes to their starting line up as they make a last ditch bid to end their three-year Rugby Championship drought.
Pumas coach Daniel Hourcade will take a side to Mendoza missing the 120 Test caps’ worth of experience of veteran back rowers Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe and Jean Manuel Leguizamon they boasted on the Gold Coast three weeks ago.