Investec Champions Cup: How Prem Rugby can beat Top 14 budgets Sport Business It seems to come around quicker every year; not Christmas but the Investec Champions Cup. Some criticise the competition – whether it is because of the inclusion of the South African United Rugby Championship teams, its availability being restricted to Premier Sports or its odd pool format – but it is the very best of [...]
Prem Rugby should consider radical shake-up of player transfer market Sport Business The best thing about the football off-season is the transfer speculation, deal agreements and player announcements. Watching teams bid £100m for a player is somewhat grotesque but it is also addictive, and transfer deadline day is some of the best live sports news around. Rugby has none of this. That’s mostly because players tend to [...]
Scotland Rugby should demand Wales’ cut region, and target Newcastle Red Bulls Sport Business Is the Scotland rugby team a little bit naff? They’re struggling to beat the biggest of opponents and are always the nearly team in the Six Nations. They’ll probably finish this autumn with expected wins over the USA and Tonga, while agonising losses to New Zealand and Argentina – thanks to one of the greatest [...]
WRU chiefs should eat humble pie over empty Wales rugby stadium November 14, 2025 The redeeming factor for Wales in their 28-52 loss to Argentina in Cardiff is that only 50,000 had to watch it inside the Principality Stadium. That’s not because the team’s national arena has a 50,000-seat cap for this game, or because renovation works forced the closure of a stand. It was because millions of Welsh [...]
Six Nations should stage Ireland matches in USA, but not England ones November 7, 2025 There have been calls this week for Six Nations matches to be played in the United States, and I agree. But it should never be England crossing the Atlantic, and should almost always be Ireland. Andy Farrell’s Ireland successfully staged an epic spectacle at Soldier Field in Chicago against New Zealand. The game was pretty [...]
World Rugby Nations Championship silence is deafening but predictable October 31, 2025 The World Rugby Nations Championship starts next year after the last ever autumn internationals campaign this year. Or does it? This is the last ever autumn rugby union series, not that you’d have any idea. Gone will be the days of friendly matches on chilly November evenings and in will come games with a trophy [...]
Welsh rugby should keep Scarlets but scrap Cardiff, Ospreys and Dragons October 24, 2025 With a decision expected at the end of the month, I back radical change to Welsh rugby’s regional structure. I wasn’t entirely shocked to read this week that there were over 80,000 tickets remaining for Wales’s autumn internationals, even though they’re taking on three of the southern hemisphere’s Big Four, plus Japan. What did flabbergast [...]
England Rugby should buy London Stadium and flog Twickenham land October 17, 2025 How do you solve a problem like increasing the revenues for England Rugby? Up sticks and buy the London Stadium, suggests Ollie Phillips Given the obstacles being thrown towards Allianz Stadium and England Rugby from local residents relating to the number of concerts the home of rugby wants to stage, it is no surprise that [...]
Rugby unions vs R360 spat is the sport’s failures in a nutshell October 10, 2025 When I look from the outside at the recent statement spat between many of the leading rugby unions and the rebel R360 start-up, I cannot help but hark back to the 2020 election for chairman of World Rugby. In the blue corner was the incumbent Sir Bill Beaumont, backing the status quo but wanting to [...]
Allianz Stadium Twickenham can be hub for global overseas sport October 3, 2025 On Saturday Argentina and South Africa will play a regular season Rugby Championship match at Allianz Stadium in Twickenham. But this is not out of the ordinary for the capital; next month the Springboks will take on Japan at Wembley and an All Blacks XV will face the Barbarians in Brentford. Looking back, too, there [...]
