Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors come to grips during a maul in their Champions Cup Round of 16 – Reuters/Peter Cziborra The maul is a bastion of rugby union, synonymous with the sport. Search an English dictionary and the entry will be one of a handful of nouns – alongside flanker, ruck and scrum – whose … Read more
A big year ahead for (clockwise from top left) Simone Biles, Harry Kane, Dina Asher-Smith, Iga Swiatek, Jos Buttler and Max Verstappen (Getty) The coming months will offer no shortage of action in the sporting world, with a host of major international tournaments taking place in 2024 – such as the Paris Olympics, the European … Read more
Tyler Offiah (right), 17, is already taller than his father, Martin (left) Tyler Offiah, the son of rugby league great Martin, will join Bath on a three-year deal after rejecting interest from Leicester Tigers, Gloucester, Sale Sharks and Wigan Warriors. The 17-year-old, who played for England Under-18s at the recent Six Nations Rugby Festival in … Read more
Zach Mercer – Getty Images/Bob Bradford Zach Mercer has experienced many highs and lows. From leaving his boyhood club Bath in 2021 to join Montpellier, winning the Top 14 in his first year in France and the Player of the Year award the following season, then returning home to fight for a place in the … Read more
Sam Burgess gets his first job as senior head coach at Warrington Wolves – Getty Images/Olly Hassell Sam Burgess stands at the entrance to a catering area at Halliwell Jones Stadium. It is high, wide and has the same dimensions as the doorway. It looks like he should be playing for Warrington Wolves this weekend … Read more
Louis Rees-Zammit (top left) and Harry Mallinder (top right) swap rugby for American football – NFL Louis Rees-Zammit’s defection to American football on the eve of the Six Nations entered the public consciousness in a way that rugby union rarely does. It left excited questions floating around on cell phones. Why did the Welsh wing, … Read more
Kerry Packer wanted to revolutionize rugby union in 1995, in the same way he had transformed cricket in 1977 It has been locked away in a vault for almost thirty years, but the original player contract from the ‘World Rugby Corporation’, the Kerry Packer-backed £200m rebel rugby circus that threatened to create a breakaway global … Read more