Author: isport

Italian international player Sergio Parisse has become all too familiar with disappointment in the European competitions and he experienced another dose of it as his French club Stade Francais suffered defeat to Leinster 34-13 at the RDS and the skipper of the French outfit paid handsome tribute to the Irish club on their win.

It was just two years back when the club lost by a single point at the hands of English club Harlequins FC and this defeat is their fourth in a European final.

The inspirational number 8 and captain of the Italian national team stated that this is the second time in three years that they have suffered a defeat in the final of the same competition, adding that he is hopeful his young team can learn from this and grows from the experience. Sergio Parisse also added that Leinster won the match simply because they were the better of the two sides and it is quite natural that they are disappointed with the result.

Parisse mentioned that the Irish club scored three tries in the first half from things that they had been working in the practice sessions and they played very well and were smart enough. He mentioned that their opposition took the early lead and no matter how good a side the French outfit is, it was always difficult to come back from that. The coach of the French side also echoed his captain’s sentiments adding that they were absolutely smacked in the first half.

However, Sergio Parisse is a person who knows how to bounce back from defeats and he has plenty of experience leading his young Italian side and he is hopeful that he will be able to inspire the young French side bounce back from this defeat and move on to greater things.

Steve Hansen, the head coach of the world champions New Zealand Rugby Team has suggested that the established players of the Australia Rugby Team who were scratching around to discover their best form in the preliminary rounds of the Super Rugby series might already have started looking forward to the tour of the British and Irish Lions of the country, which is affecting their performances.

Speaking about the arrival of the Lions in the summer, Hansen raised various points that might make the officials of the Australian team wake up and take notice.

He stated that whenever there is a big event or the Lions come down for a tour, the senior players of the national team start focusing on that event from a long time ahead and as a result, their focus on winning the Super 15 is not as concrete as it should be. Speaking to a radio station in his native in New Zealand, Hansen also stated that it might just turn out to be a good thing for the Australia Rugby Team because they will come together to produce an extremely competitive side.

Both the Reds as well as the Waratahs, the two teams which had the most number of players called up to a training camp earlier in the season with an eye on the tour of the Lions have been underperforming in the opening rounds of the tournament with the New South Wales side already dropping several big name players due to the lack of performance.

However, Hansen has also seen a similarity in the slow start of the Reds as that in 2012 when most of the players for the Australia Rugby Team gradually paced themselves into the thick of things and slowly and surely, their performance began to improve with each game.

The England team seems to be in really good shape after beating New Zealand by a record 38-21 at Twickenham last December and won two opening matches at the six nations.

Joe Marler, the England prop forward is confident that if the World cup started tomorrow, it would be their cake walk. The rugby world cup named Webb Ellis Cup is due to begin in 2015 in England which is a long way from now on but the team looks confident and is eyeing that from now on.

He said “That’s our main goal. But we’ll be focusing on the process in between then and now because it’s still two-and-a-half years away, so we’ve got lots to do before then.”

There are some very good reasons for England to back them for the rugby world cup. The fly-half of England, Owen Farrell has delivered a brilliant performance till date and the sports critics have started to see him as the next Jonny Wilkinson of England rugby team and he has been put at the starting No. 10 for the match against British and Irish Lions to be held in Australia later this year.

The team hopes to test and improve their skills in loads of rugby matches that will be coming their way before the rugby world cup. August 15 would be the beginning of their warm up sessions when the team will be playing three test matches ahead of the world cup. Two of them will be held at Twickenham Stadium against France and Ireland. With these matches in hand they would be able to brush up their performances even more. The fixtures of these matches areas follows-

Fixtures for the 2015 RWC warm up matches:
August 15 – England v France
August 22 – France v England
September 5- England v Ireland

Given that the Australia rugby team is their opponent, England seems to be at peace like never before. According to the coach of the British Rugby team (Lions), Warren Gatland, Australia can be defeated any time if compared with New Zealand and South Africa.

The reason why it is so easy for them to declare the team as weak is that the previous month the Wallabies had to kiss the field goodbye too soon against France who smashed them by a 33-6, and then there were the English rugby team, the Italian rugby team and the Wales rugby team that almost outshined them though the team came out victorious against them in a few matches.

Although the Australia rugby team managed to win against England in their last match, Gatland is optimistic about vanquishing the wallabies any time because he feels that his team has a reputation that is not made up. Lately, Australian team has been suffering with their performance. However, they have brought in two new players recently with whom they think the things are going to change for the better.

The Australia Rugby Team beat their South African counterparts 26-19 in a fascinating match at Perth to secure their first victory in the inaugural edition of the Rugby Championship. Going into the break at half time trailing The Springboks 13-6, The Wallabies came back strongly in the second half and took the game to the South Africans. And two tries from Ben Alexander and Scott Higginbotham in the second half ensured The Wallabies ran out worth winners against the South Africans, recording their fifth consecutive victory against the African country.

Having lost two consecutive matches against The All Blacks of New Zealand, the match against South Africa was a must win encounter for Robbie Deans and his Australia Rugby Team. However, that didn’t seem to make any difference to the performance of the side as they gave a poor account of themselves, eventually falling behind to a try scored by Bryan Habana. Having drawn with the Argentina Rugby Team in their last encounter, the South African team was high on confidence and held the edge over The Wallabies in the set pieces and put together some powerful runs as well.

However, The Springboks suffered for the lack of a creative spark in their back line and failed to convert all the pressure they had into scores on the board. However, The Wallabies managed to pull things together in the second half and the tries from Alexander and Higginbotham as well as the perfect kicking of Barnes led the team to a successful comeback victory over their rivals.

The next assignment for the Australia Rugby Team comes against a massively improved Argentina squad next week at Gold Coast and if The Wallabies can manage a similar performance like they did in the second half against The Springboks, there is nothing to worry about.

The injury ravaged Australia Rugby team have called up the services of loose forward Ben Mowen for the upcoming tests against Scotland and Wales that will take place in the first week of June itself after it was revealed that number 8 Ben McCalman will not be able to participate after suffering a shoulder injury which has ruled him out of action for at least a month.

However, the Western Force back row forward McCalman is likely to be retained in the squad in spite of his injury where he will continue with his rehabilitation process, a source close to The Wallabies said. This year has not gone good for Australia Rugby as they have not been able to show good form and still looks blighted by the poor form that plagued their stats in 2011 and furthermore, the number of injuries that the side has suffered in the last 4 or 5 months has not helped their cause either.

James Horwill with a hamstring injury, Kurtley Beale, a full back converted to a fly half with a shoulder injury and utility player at the back James O’Connor with a live problem are already on the treatment table and with McCalman now injured as well, Mowen will join up with a much depleted wallabies side that will take on the mighty Scotland and Wales.

Australia are the winners of the Tri Nations and they will take on Scotland at Newcastle for the test on the 5th of June after which, they will meet the Six Nations champions Wales for a series of three tests that kicks off on the 9th of June. And with such might awaiting them in the upcoming weeks, it waits to be seen what team Australia Rugby announces for the test against Scotland which will be clear on Sunday.

Australia rugby team was ranked sixth in the HSBC Sevens World Series ranking in Tokyo. They were placed in the Pool B along with New Zealand, United States and Hong Kong.

Even though the team was better ranked than two other opponents, Coach O’Connor was not ready to underestimate any of the teams.

In the Hong Kong series, USA had played very well only to be defeated by Kenya. Hong Kong played well as well and New Zealand was the champions. Australia started out well against Hong Kong but in lost their focus in the match against England.

Australia rugby team had a good start to the season but they were hampered by injuries. They started the series on a winning streak with the Day 1 match against France and a Day 2 win against Scotland. However Day 2 saw them defeated in the ands of Fiji and they finished second in the Pool matches.

The team had recuperated from their injuries right in time for the Tokyo series, and for the first time in the year they play with an unchanged side, which is going to do a lot to boost the team spirit because the injuries had forced O’Connor to play 22 players until now. The Tokyo series helped the team form a coercive side. This was very helpful as they had a strong line up of teams on their pool games with Hong Kong, USA and New Zealand, whom they had to defeat to advance further.

The Australia rugby team defeated Samoan in the Tokyo Seven series and won their sixth HSBC Sevens World Series title. This was their first series win since 2010, when they had defeated South Africa in London. With this win, Australia rugby team has silenced their critics and has overcome the ghost of past injuries that has haunted them the whole year.

The Wallabies may be looking in good condition after a third place finish in last year’s World Cup but the domestic game in Australia is hardly looking world beating.

Three Australian sides suffered defeats to overseas sides in the last round of games with the only Aussie side to taste success being Western Force who overcame fellow Aussies and reigning champions Queensland Reds.

With all five Australian sides struggling so far in the campaign it looks unlikely that there will be back to back Aussie winners. Last year’s Champions Queensland seem in the worst form of all, being hammered by the Western Force 45-19 this week. Only the Brumbies sit in the top half of the table as things stand and they themselves have only played one game away from home thus far.

In a dreadful round for the Australian sides the common issue was a failure to take opportunities when they were available to them. With all the losing sides having chances to score tries that they just couldn’t finish off. The second common issue was the injuries to key five eighths. Brumbies inside centre Matt Toomua has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury and Western Force’s fly half James Stannard picked up an ankle injury which will keep him out for at least a week.

Ill discipline has also been a constant thorn in the side of the Aussies with Cooper Vuna, Lloyd Johansson and Phoenix Battye all being disciplined for dangerous tackling.

With these issues and a lack of form it seems unlikely that Australian sides will be causing too much bother to the South African and Ireland Rugby sides come final’s time. In fact as things stand the only reason any Australian side anywhere near the top is the adoption of the new ranking system for this season.

Under the old system the Brumbies would be sitting sixth in the lowest play-off position and the prospect of a play off without any Australian participation would be a real possibility.

The two famous Australian rugby stars, Stirling Mortlock and George Smith have been awarded the ‘Officers of the Order of Australia’ during yesterday’s Australia Day honourings.

Mortlock is a former captain of the Australian rugby team. He has scored over 500 test points for the Wallabies and was also skipper for Australia and Brumbies. He now plays for the Melbourne Rebels, where he has also been appointed as captain.

Smith is currently a flanker for the Toulon rugby team. He played 110 matches for the Wallabies, before retiring from the Australian national team on February 5, 2010. George is the Wallaby forward with the most appearances and the highest capped flanker in Rugby Union’s history.

Mortlock and George shared almost 90% of their international caps. They are both from Sydney and total a staggering 190 caps for the Wallabies. Reports confirm that they are delighted by the award. We also want to congratulate them once again for a great career.

The two stars also expressed their public desire to witness the 2012 Australian Open Final from Rod Laver Arena. Who knows, perhaps we will see them on Sunday in the stands.

There have been numerous speculations going on regarding the vacant post of the coach of the Australia Rugby team.

With the retirement of the New Zealander Robbie Deans, the doors are open for the Wallabies and they are expecting Ewen Mckenzie of the Queensland red to come and coach them.

Mckenzie is quite a well known personality when it comes to the rugby circuit as he has made a huge impact by improving the game performance and the victory counts for the Queensland Reds.

Mckenzie however has probably decided to continue and extend his contract till 2014 as he seems to be quite happy with his current club. The Australia rugby team however are leaving no stone unturned and are making use of all possible situations where they can convince him into coaching their team.

Mckenzie has been opted as a future mentor for the Wallabies for quite some time and they will not give up until the final verdict takes place and they realize that there are no expectations further on.

The doors for the Wallabies are still open and they hope that they manage to get someone who is capable of making an impact and improving their performance and ranking on the leader board.

The Australia rugby team need to find other alternatives to help them have a more professional approach to their game so that they can improve on their weak areas and excel in them so that they can face the real champions in the years to come and beat the best at their game.

The transfer windows open up every year and teams keep trying their level best to hire some of the finest coaches and players through these transfers. Not all of them end successfully though and alternative strategies need to be implemented.