All hail the Six Nations, the tournament that never ceases to surprise and fascinate. Having scraped one victory last season and gone home from the World Cup early, Wales looked to be continuing their downward spiral when they trailed England 19-6 with 20 minutes remaining of their opening match on February 2.
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/ 18 February 2008
France and England meet next Saturday in the Six Nations at the same venue where French World Cup hopes were extinguished by their bitter rivals. New French coach Marc Lievremont has swept out a lot of the old guard and replaced them with fresh faces with a view to rebuilding for the 2011 World Cup.
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/ 22 October 2007
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South Africa may have reclaimed the World Cup for the southern hemisphere after a one-off win by England in 2003, but that is not to say that the debate over who is in the ascendancy has been resolved. For many, the Springboks’ tactics in the 15-6 win over England in the final were decidedly of northern values.
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/ 21 October 2007
France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy’s first looming Cabinet crisis has been triggered neither by the announcement of his own divorce nor by the transport paralysis caused by the past week’s public servants’ strikes. It comes down to rugby.
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/ 21 October 2007
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France’s first hosting of rugby’s World Cup will leave mixed emotions on the home front. The six-week long tournament was superbly organised, the grounds were packed, and there was colour and drama aplenty. But the script that had the French hosts taking on the mighty All Blacks in the final in Paris failed to materialise.
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/ 19 October 2007
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Argentina ended the World Cup the way they had started it, running in five tries to tame France 34-10 in an ill-tempered third-place playoff at the Parc des Princes on Friday.
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/ 19 October 2007
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France and Argentina clash on Friday in a World Cup third place play-off overshadowed by simmering French resentment at their opening night shock defeat to the Pumas five weeks ago. That 17-12 embarrassment threatened to send the hosts’ campaign into freefall before they righted their listing ship with a spectacular quarterfinal win over the All Blacks.
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/ 15 October 2007
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Outside Paris’s Frog and Rosbif English pub on Sunday morning, hoarse men and women in rugby shirts were still downing pints of beer with their bacon breakfasts and trying to come to terms with one of the more improbable results in English rugby history.
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/ 13 October 2007
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Jonny Wilkinson booted defending champions England into the World Cup final with a late penalty and trademark drop-goal against France in a gritty 14-9 semifinal in Paris on Saturday. England struggled to convert their massive territorial domination over France into points.
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/ 11 October 2007
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Rarely has the term ”Le Crunch”, often used to describe internationals between England and France, been more appropriate than for Saturday’s World Cup semifinal at the Stade de France. The old rivals will meet for the 90th time, knowing that defeat for either side could signal the end of some distinguished rugby careers.
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France upset the odds in dramatic style to come from behind and beat tournament favourites New Zealand 20-18 in the World Cup quarterfinal at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday. For the All Blacks, 13-0 up as early as the 30th minute, defeat was arguably as devastating as their equally unexpected 43-31 loss to France in the 1999 World Cup semifinal at Twickenham.
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/ 21 September 2007
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Hosts France kept their nerve and their hopes alive of landing their first World Cup title in Paris on Friday as they beat Ireland 25-3 in their crunch group-D clash at the Stade de France. Two second-half tries by winger Vincent Clerc and 15 points from man-of-the-match Jean-Baptiste Elissalde were enough to see the Irish off.
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/ 21 September 2007
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There have been times during his tenure as Springbok coach when Jake White must have wished he were Bernard Laporte — but this is not one of them. At the same time that White and his charges are relaxing after a job well done, the coach of France is wondering if his team will still be in the World Cup on Saturday morning.
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/ 8 September 2007
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An unforgiving French media gave no quarter in its appraisal of a ”catastrophic” France team after the World Cup hosts’ shock defeat to Argentina here on Friday. France lost the tournament’s opening match 17-12 to the Pumas — a result which has severely dented their chances of even reaching the final four of the competition.
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/ 7 September 2007
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Argentina created one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history by beating host nation France 17-12 at Stade Francais on Friday night. In front of a full house at Saint Denis France froze in the headlights and produced a string of errors suggesting that they will not be the force some had expected in the showpiece event.
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/ 4 September 2007
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While most French presidents have avoided sport, Nicolas Sarkozy prides himself on televised jogging sessions, cheering the Tour de France and appearing in the stands of the Paris Saint Germain football team. Now he is reinventing himself as a rugby fan to take maximum political advantage of the World Cup that begins in France on Friday.