European Rugby
On Friday night Toulouse locked horns against Racing Metro in the Top 14 playoffs for a much-anticipated game at the Stade Ernest-Wallon.
Nineteen minutes in, with Racing Metro 6-3 up, Toulouse’s centre Florian Fritz was tackled and as a result made contact with the onrushing knee of Racing Metro’s Francois Van Der Merwe.
It was a sickening blow, with the results clearly shown on television, as Fritz had blood pouring down his face and splattered on his arm. As play stopped and Toulouse’s medics tended to Fritz, it was clear he was visibly dazed. He had to be escorted off the pitch and stumbled onto the ground when he decided to walk off instead of being carried off on a stretcher.
When the curtain finally comes down on a long, hard and ultimately disappointing season for Edinburgh tomorrow night, it will surely come as a blessed relief to almost everyone associated with the club.
Coach Alan Solomons has made it abundantly clear that these last run of games have been an exercise in damage limitation. His focus has already moved on to next season, and he has apparently completed the planning and recruitment process (with announcements impending) which he believes will ensure that his troops hit the ground running.
The players are either exhausted after having to adapt during the heat of battle to a whole new way of doing things, or completely demotivated after being brutally apprised of the fact that they are no longer part of the club’s future.
Round 22 of the Pro12 promises to be a fitting finale to the regular season, with Play-Off spots and European qualification still to be settled.
As with previous seasons all 6 games will kick off simultaneously to add to the excitement and give no advantage to any team.
At the top of the table 3 teams are still in contention for the 2 home Play-Off spots and European qualification still to be settled.
Auckland coach Wayne Pivac has become the latest in a growing number of New Zealamd mentors who are heading to Europe.
The Scarlets announced that Pivac will join them as an assistant coach at Parc y Scarlets next season, to further strengthen the set-up in West Wales.
Schalk Brits says forgotten Springbok lock Alistair Hargreaves has improved a lot as a player since joining English club Saracens.
Hargreaves, 28, played four Tests for the Boks in 2010 and 2011 but was always viewed as being too “lightweight” for the rigours of Test rugby.
The Welsh Rugby Union have revealed on Thursday that they will stage their first full trial match in 14 years ahead of next month’s two-Test South Africa tour.
Rob Howley will coach the Probables, with his fellow Wales assistant Robin McBryde in charge of the Possibles for a game that will take place at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium on 30 May.
Tom Court, the Ulster prop forward, appeared today before an independent PRO12 Disciplinary Committee in Neath, South Wales, having been dismissed with a Red Card in the RaboDirect PRO12 match between Ulster and Leinster at Ravenhill on Friday 2 May 2014.
England have lost Billy Twelvetrees for most of their tour of New Zealand after he sustained an ankle injury that will keep him out of action for 6 weeks.
Gloucester centre Twelvetrees sustained the ankle injury playing for his Premiership club in the first half of last week’s match against London Irish.
Former Springbok loose forward Pedrie Wannenburg has moved from French club Castres to fellow Top 14 side Oyonnax.
Aviva Premiership Rugby club Newcastle Falcons have signed Tuilagi brothers Alesana “Alex” and Anitelea “Andy” on two-year deals ahead of the 2014-15 Aviva Premiership season.
Samoan internationals Alesana, 33, and Anitelea, 27, who both play at either wing or centre, bring the Falcons’ tally of new signings up to eight as Dean Richards continues to mould his side for next term.
Edinburgh Rugby lock Grant Gilchrist scooped this season’s coach-nominated Player of the Season award at the club’s 2013 / 2014 awards dinner. Roddy Grant, Dougie Fife, Cornell du Preez and Alasdair Dickinson were the other players who were honoured for their contributions this year to Edinburgh Rugby.
Wing Hanno Dirksen has signed a new three-year Ospreys contract keeping him at the Liberty Stadium until the end of the 2016-17 season.
He has been signed up ahead of the region’s final RaboDirect Pro12 clash of the season with Connacht on Saturday. Dirksen, 23, is the 13th player to re-commit to the region along with the likes of Alun Wyn Jones and Dan Baker.
Worcester director of rugby Dean Ryan says that he is “honoured” to have been asked to coach the Barbarians against England at Twickenham on 1 June.
England are likely to name a weakened side – just a week before Test matches on successive weekends in New Zealand.
Ian Humphreys is back at Ulster after the fly-half left London Irish to sign a two-year deal with his home province.
The 32-year-old former Leicester Tigers player moved from Ulster to the Exiles in 2012.
“I have loved my time at London Irish but when the unexpected opportunity to come home arose, it was a very easy decision to make,” said Humphreys. ” It’s exciting to be part of a squad that’s challenging in Europe and is at the top of the Pro12 every year.”
British and Irish Lions forwards Alex Corbisiero, Tom Croft and Tom Youngs will miss England’s forthcoming tour of New Zealand.
Croft and Corbisiero have recently returned to full fitness but are not yet considered ready for what is set to be a gruelling three-Test series against the world champion All Blacks.
Meanwhile Leicester hooker Youngs will miss the June campaign to help support his wife, who is having treatment for an illness.
Former DHL Western Province favourite Schalk Brits will return to Newlands along with rising French-based star, Rory Kockott, as 2 of 6 South Africans, four of whom have played test rugby, as part of the Samsung-sponsored World XV squad for their match against Heyneke Meyer’s Springboks at DHL Newlands on 7 June.
All 6 of these South Africans play their rugby abroad and have been released by their clubs for this match.
Veteran Toulon flyhalf Frederic Michalak has been preferred to Montpellier’s Francois Trinh-Duc in France coach Philippe Saint-Andre’s squad to tour Australia in June.
Saint-Andre named a 31-man squad on Wednesday and once again Trinh-Duc finds himself out in the cold, with Michalak recalled as back up for first-choice flyhalf Remi Tales.
Although first choice under Saint-Andre’s predecessor Marc Lievremont, Trinh-Duc has found himself eased out of international reckoning under the new coach.
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) is hopeful of ending the lingering fall-out with its four regional sides to establish a proper domestic structure next season, chairperson David Pickering said.
The four Welsh regions refused to renew the existing “rugby services agreement” with the WRU before the governing body’s 31 December deadline.
With 500 days to go until Rugby World Cup 2015 in England kicks off, Rugby World Cup Limited Chairman Bernard Lapasset is confident that preparations are on track to deliver “an unforgettable and special” record-breaking event that will further the growth of the sport worldwide.
With fans snapping up tickets in record numbers through the official supporter tour programme and with Rugby community ticket sales beginning today, tournament organisers England Rugby 2015 Limited have announced that tickets for all 48 matches will go on general sale globally from September 12-29 2014.
France will travel to Australia eyeing a successful three-test tour ahead of next year’s World Cup, coach Phillippe Saint-Andre said Tuesday.
Les Bleus could only finish fourth in this year’s Six Nations, with three victories in their five matches, but Saint-Andre was quick to proclaim his team as potential World Cup winners on English soil in 2015.
The first step in that mission was a testing tour of Australia.
Leinster have confirmed that 21 players have signed new IRFU contracts to continue playing with the province for the next season and beyond, plus the signing of prop Sean McCarthy from Jersey.
Coach Matt O’Connor made the announcement ahead of training as season ticket number sales have also now passed the 10,000 mark for next season.
The Rhino Collision Kings Award is awarded each year to the team in the RaboDirect PRO12 which has shown most improvement at the breakdown throughout the regular season.
The trophy is a replica of the groundbreaking Collision King machine invented by Richie Gray, Rhino skills consultant and brand ambassador who was recently appointed breakdown coach to the Springboks through to next year’s World Cup.
The selection panel for the Award is chaired by Galashiels-based Gray, who in addition to other duties has been a BBC Radio Scotland commentator throughout much of the PRO12 season.
A late try by Oyonnax’s Jonathan Bousquet gave his side a losing bonus point that kept them in the French Top 14 and sent Perpignan down for the first time in 103 years.
With Bayonne winning comfortably 23-13 against champions Castres it came down to a straight fight between Perpignan and Oyonnax for survival.
Kane Douglas is understood to have agreed to a two-year deal with Leinster that would rule him out of contention for the 2015 World Cup.
The 14-Test cap Wallaby locks omission from the World Cup squad due to the Australian’s policy to not pick foreign based players would be a massive blow according to his Warartahs team mates.
Iconic former French international Sebastien Chabal, popularly known as the “Caveman”, has announced Monday that he will retire from the sport next weekend.
Former All Black stalwart Mils Muliaina has signed for Connacht for next season, the Irish province announced on Monday.
The 33-year-old fullback, capped 100 times by New Zealand, has signed a one-year contract with the Irish club to become the first ever All Black to play with Connacht.
With three sides well in the hunt for the RaboDirect PRO12 Grand Final it is no surprise that the Irish regions make up a large chunk of this season’s Dream Team.
Table toppers and defending champions Leinster have three representatives, all of them in the pack as Sean Cronin, Rhys Ruddock and Jordi Murphy are selected.
Former All Blacks prop Greg Feek is to join Ireland’s backroom staff as scrum-coach on a two-year deal from the start of next season, the Irish Rugby Football Union announced on Thursday.
London Irish have signed flyhalf Chris Noakes from Super Rugby franchise, the Blues, on a two-year contract, the English Premiership side announced Thursday.
The 28-year-old, who has also appeared for the Highlanders, is eligible to play for England.
Springbok and Saracens hooker Schalk Brits has been shortlisted for the 2014 European Player of the Year award.
World Cup winning Springbok Danie Rossouw has announced that he will retire from professional rugby at the end of the European season.
The versatile forward, who is equally at home at lock, flank or eighthman, will finish the season at RC Toulon before hanging up his boots.
French club rugby’s governing body, the LNR (Ligue Nationale de Rugby) has announced radical new plans (entitled the ‘New Deal’, showcasing France’s bizarre love of anglicised naming devices) designed to improve the Top 14, and by proxy the French international team, from the start of next season.
The May Day weekend should provide the most intense scrutiny of the RaboDirect PRO12 table to date.
The opening fixture between Zebre and Ospreys could go a long way to answering some of the questions – a loss for the hosts would put Treviso in the driving seat for the Italian spot in next season’s European competition, whilst a loss for the visitors Ospreys, without picking up any league points, would take away their mathematical chances of making the Play-Offs .
Gareth Anscombe has become hot property recently with coaches from Wales and New Zealand hinting that they would like to secure the play-makers signature.
Anscombe, who is currently contracted to the Chiefs for Super Rugby – but only until the end of the season – is on the Blues, Cardiff Blues, New Zealand and Wales international team’s wish list.
Versatile Stormers forward Deon Fourie could further his career at French club Lyon.