France
World Cup finalists France will bid to get their Six Nations campaign off with a resounding bang when they host Italy at the Stade de France on Saturday.
Wales came from nowhere to win it in 2008 with a Grand Slam to boot. Ireland emulated them twelve months later, France followed suit in 2010 and last year England made it to the top of the pile before their World Cup implosion.
There is nothing to beat the RBS 6 Nations and not merely because of its capacity to spread the title around. Four different champions in successive years had last happened long before the Five became Six, a sequence completed in 1982 when Ollie Campbell’s fusillade of seven goals swamped a lone Scottish try to guarantee Ireland the Triple Crown and, ultimately, the championship.
The Outspoken Toulon owner and club president Mourad Boudjellal has been given a 130-day ban for using lurid language to describe the level of refereeing in a recent Top 14 Rugby match.
French referees said they were suing Toulon president Mourad Boudjellal for defamation after he made lurid accusations in the wake of a Top 14 defeat.
This one is brilliant, tears rolling down my cheeks I laughed so much. Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal can expect to hear from the Ligue Nationale de Rugby’s disciplinary officials after making some outrageous statements over the weekend.
Almost time for the Six Nations competition. First games will be played in four weeks time. Here is some History of the Championship.
Played annually, the format of the Championship is simple: each team plays every other team once, with home field advantage alternating from one year to the next.
Two points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss and unlike most other rugby union competitions the bonus point system is not used.
Wesley Fofana (photo) and Yoann Maestri are in line to make their international debuts after being picked for France’s RBS 6 Nations squad by new head coach Philippe Saint-André.
Clermont centre Fofana has impressed both domestically and in Europe and could start alongside club colleague Aurélien Rougerie while Toulouse’s 23-year-old man mountain Maestri is one of four second rows named.
While the All Blacks finish the year as the world champions, the ranks of the refereeing fraternity also boast something of a ‘winner’ with South African official Craig Joubert overseeing the 8-7 win over France.
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.
French No.8 Imanol Harinordoquy of Biarritz said that the French coach Marc Lièvremont was lost at the World Cup in New Zealand and that the players had taken over the running of the team, ignoring their coach.
New Zealand media have accused a French player of head-butting and eye gouging All Black captain Richie McCaw in the Rugby World Cup final.
All Blacks manager Darren Shand says the French rugby team should not have been fined for confronting New Zealand’s Maori haka or ceremonial challenge in the tense moments before kick-off in Sunday’s Rugby World Cup final.
France captain Thierry Dusautoir was named the International Rugby Board (IRB) player of the year for 2011 at a ceremony in Aucklad on Monday.
All Blacks (5) 8 / France (0) 7 (Final Score)
The New Zealand All Blacks and France did battle in the Final of Rugby World Cup 2011 at Eden Park, Auckland at 10:00 SA Time (21:00 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 All Blacks held out a very galant and determined France side… and wins Rugby World Cup 2011 by 1 point.
Yip, that’s right… only 1 point!
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.
The biggest gift we can give our kids or the next generation of sports men and women, is to remove the fear of failure from their minds.
“This guy just has so much time on the ball.” Ever heard that expression? Sure you did. Continue reading