Australian Rugby
The Waratahs will kick off their Super Rugby 2012 preparations with the first of two trial matches against Samoa in Tamworth on Friday February 10, 2012.
A second match will take place at the Sydney Football Stadium the following week with full details due to be confirmed shortly.
Sporting fans from across Australia have paid Reds maestro Ewen McKenzie the ultimate honour by selecting him as the nation’s best coach for 2011.
The Super Rugby side may be at a low ebb but optimism is plentiful, writes Josh Rakic.
YOU get the sense World Cup-winning Springboks coach Jake White did his homework on Australia before agreeing to a four-year deal with the Brumbies. After all, he was a Johannesburg school teacher.
Wales (6) 18 / Wallabies (3) 24 (Final Score)
Wales and the Australian Wallabies did battle at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff at 16:30 SA Time.
This was the live match discussion Article.
The match was NOT broadcast LIVE on TV in SA. There will be a recorded broadcast from about 18:00 SA Time.
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Twenty-one-year-old James O’Connor will start his maiden Test as a fly-half after today being named in the number 10 jersey for the Wallabies for Saturday’s game against Wales in Cardiff.
Wales centre Jamie Roberts will target Australia’s new midfield combination of James O’Connor and Berrick Barnes in Saturday’s Cardiff Test match.
With the international season taking a bit of a breather, I thought some informative statistics would be interesting. I am looking at the home record of the top nations, seeing when was the last time they lost a home test to each of the other nations.
I would think any nation would expect at least a 75% home win record as the minimm standard to attain. anything less would mean your home ground advantage counts for very little and travelling teams do not find it a daunting task to tour.
The British and Irish Lions have announced the schedule for their 2013 tour of Australia
The Brumbies have moved quickly to end speculation over the future of their coach Jake White after he was linked to the vacant England job.
Jake White, who coached South Africa to 2007 World Cup success, dropped a hint on Sunday that he would welcome an approach to succeed Martin Johnson as England coach.
Barbarians (3) 11 / Wallabies (18) 60 (Final Score)
The Barbarians took on the Australian Wallabies at Twickenham at 16:35 SA Time (14:35 GMT).
This was the live match discussion Article.
The match was broadcast LIVE on SuperSport 1, SHD & M-Net on TV in SA.
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The New Season kicked off for the HSBC Sevens World Series, with the first of the tournaments held at the Gold Coast, Australia on 25 and 26 November 2011.
Seeing as the times are at ‘unusual hours’ in South African terms, starting at the ungodly hour of 04:30 SA Time, was only have a lively general Discussion Article and not a Live Article with Score Updates as the games proceed.
This is exactly that, the Discussion Article, here you will find all the scores.
Western Force flanker David Pocock has been named as Wallabies captain for Australia’s match against the Barbarians at Twickenham Stadium in London.
World Cup winning coach Graham Henry has chosen 2007 World Cup winning player Victor Matfield to lead the Barbarians in the game against Australia this weekend.
With Rugby news now a bit scrappy and few and far between for Southern Hemisphere Rugby interests, at least we can look forward to some Rugby participation by the Southern Hemisphere this weekend.
There is the HSBC Sevens World Series Gold Coast Tournament, the first IRB Sevens Tournament for the 2011 – 2012 Season, on Friday and Saturday as well as the Wallabies vs Barbarians game on Saturday, where Springbok legend Victor Matfield bids his final farewell in any form of competative rugby, finally retiring after a wonderful playing career.
SANZAR have announced the ten-man Merit Panel of referees for the 2012 Super Rugby competition with South Africans making up half of the positions.
Wallabies and Reds star winger Digby Ioane looks set to give the cold shoulder a lucrative Japanese contract offer in order to help the Reds with their Super Rugby title defence.
The Springboks will kick-off the new format competition against the Pumas when the all-new “The Castle Rugby Championship” launches in 2012 – the replacement for the Tri-Nations series, SANZAR announced on Tuesday.
An agreement confirming Argentina’s participation was signed in Auckland recently by the SANZAR Joint Venture partners after several months of negotiations with the Unión Argentina de Rugby (UAR) and the International Rugby Board (IRB).
AUSTRALIA will defend their southern hemisphere title next year in an expanded competition called The Rugby Championship – and will meet new boys Argentina on the Gold Coast.
Australia’s long injury list from the Rugby World Cup has opened the door for three new Wallaby caps in the Australian rugby squad which will play two matches in Wales and England in late November and December.
The Crusaders and Melbourne Rebels will play a pre-season Super Rugby match in Singapore in order to take advantage of the growing Asian market.
The Brumbies have added towering lock Leon Power for the 2012 Super Rugby season from Bay of Plenty in New Zealand’s ITM Cup.
The Melbourne Rebels have named their 30 strong Super Rugby squad for the 2012 Super Rugby season which includes several new signings including James O’Connor and Kurtley Beale.
Wallabies and Reds playmaker Quade Cooper will be sidelined for at least six months due to knee surgery after he collapsed playing in the Rugby World Cup’s third place play off.
So the world cup is over, and what have we learnt?There were some controversial issues, some very close matches and some really angry fans.
The concept of the X-factor actually comes from racehorses, specifically from a horse called Eclipse. An extremely large heart is a trait that occasionally occurs in Thoroughbreds, linked to a genetic condition passed down via the dam line, known as the “x-factor”.
Eclipse, the horse, was necropsied after his death in 1789. Because Eclipse’s heart appeared to be much larger than other horses, it was weighed, and found to be 14 pounds (6.4 kg), almost twice the normal weight. Eclipse is believed to have passed the trait on via his daughters, and pedigree research verified that arguably the best racehorse ever, namely Secretariat can trace in his dam line to a daughter of Eclipse.
In the 20th century, the heart of Phar Lap was weighed and also documented to be 6.35 kilograms (14.0 lb), or essentially the same size as that of Eclipse.
Now you might ask what this has got to do with the All Blacks and the Rugby World Cup final.
Wallabies (7) 21 / Wales (3) 18 (Final Score)
The Australian Wallabies and Wales did battle at Eden Park, Auckland at 09:30 SA Time (20:30 NZ Time).
This was the live match discussion Article.
The match was broadcast LIVE on SuperSport 1, SHD & M-Net on TV in SA.
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The Wallabies take the spoils and the Rugby World Cup 2011 Bronze medal in a match which promised so much at the start and then deteriorated into a scrappy affair.
The best passage of play in the match was probably the last 28-phase possession play by Wales, leading to Leigh Halfpenny’s try after full time was well over.
I still just can’t get over that quarter final loss.
The more I think about it the more I feel we were robbed. Yes, the referee was bad and wrong and yes we contributed to our demise with how we approached the game and by the appointment of a puppet as Springbok coach 4 years ago. However, all of that (poor referee, game plan, coach selection) and the Pool construction process at this year’s Rugby World Cup is part of an insidious virus, in my opinion, which is destroying Rugby Union as we know it. It is this virus which orchestrated our demise in the Rugby World Cup quarter final match against Australia.
While Australia and Wales arrived at the Rugby World Cup with different goals but have ended up with the same intention: To go home with something tangible to show.