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/ 11 September 2007
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South Africa flanker Schalk Burger was cited on Tuesday for a high tackle on Samoa scrumhalf Junior Polu in his team’s World Cup Pool A 59-7 victory on Sunday. If Burger is suspended he will miss the Springboks’ pivotal group clash against defending champions England at the Stade de France on Friday evening.
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/ 10 September 2007
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South Africa will beat world champions England in their crucial World Cup clash on Friday, Springbok coach Jake White claimed after his side walloped Samoa 59-7. White said he wasn’t basing his optimism on the poor performance of England in their 28-10 win over the United States or the 1995 world champions’ comprehensive defeat of Samoa, but on more solid factors.
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/ 10 September 2007
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Argentina made another statement for inclusion in a top annual competition with their win over France but their treatment as second class citizens is manifest in having to play their second World Cup match four days later. The Pumas meet Georgia in the next Pool D game at the Gerland stadium on Tuesday.
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/ 10 September 2007
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Namibian rugby union president Dirk Conradie and his entire executive committee have been barred from attending the World Cup in France, organisers confirmed on Sunday. Conradie has been accused of complicity in the irregular sale of World Cup tickets, a charge he denies.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Brian O’Driscoll scored a try four minutes into his return from injury on Sunday but it proved to be a rare highlight for Ireland as they opened their World Cup campaign with a scrappy 32-17 victory over Namibia. O’Driscoll scored the first of his team’s five tries that earned his team a bonus point to leapfrog Argentina.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Scotland overcame a gallant Portuguese side packed with amateurs with a 56-10 win in their World Cup Pool C game on Sunday. After a dismal Six Nations where they ended with the wooden spoon, the Scots were in need of a confidence-building win.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Veteran South Africa full-back Percy Montgomery made up for missing the 2003 World Cup through suspension as he inspired his side to a 59-7 victory over a valiant Samoa in Paris on Sunday in their World Cup clash at the Parc des Princes as he scored 29 points.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Wales had to call on the experience of captain Gareth Thomas and Stephen Jones coming off the bench on Sunday to repel Canada and record a 42-17 victory in the second Pool B match at La Beaujoire on Sunday. Canada were 17-9 ahead close to the hour after three unanswered tries before Wales at last showed some true attacking flair.
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/ 9 September 2007
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New Zealand and Australia scored a combined total of 167 points and 24 tries as the southern hemisphere giants ruthlessly exposed the huge gap in international rugby at the World Cup on Saturday. The All Blacks swept aside Italy, who had beaten both Wales and Scotland in the Six Nations this year, 76-14 while Australia crushed Japan 91-3.
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/ 9 September 2007
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South Africa unleash their massive forward pack against a robust Samoa team in the second Rugby World Cup Pool B match on Sunday. Springbok coach Jake White is worried about the power of the Pacific Islanders having an impact on his team’s chances of beating 2003 world champion England in the crucial Group A match on Friday.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Champions England produced a sluggish, uninspired and deeply flawed performance on Sunday to beat the United States 28-10 in their opening World Cup Pool A match. England failed to even gain the bonus point awarded for four tries, falling one short after leading 21-3 at halftime.
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/ 9 September 2007
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Coach Brian Ashton expressed his disappointment with Saturday’s ragged display by world champions England but insisted it would have no bearing on next Friday’s key clash with South Africa. England struggled to a 28-10 victory over a committed United States side in the opening game of Pool A.
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/ 8 September 2007
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Twice champions Australia showed they are starting to rediscover their best form at the perfect time by thrashing Japan 91-3 in their opening World Cup Pool B match on Saturday. Despite playing their first game in seven weeks, the Wallabies gave a brilliant display of open rugby to pile on 13 unanswered tries in their opening match of the tournament.
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/ 8 September 2007
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Hot tournament favourites New Zealand got their World Cup campaign off to the ideal start at the Stade Velodrome with a scintillating 76-14 rout of rivals Italy. The contest was dead and buried after the first 20 breathless minutes, during which the All Blacks scored five converted tries against an Italian team shown up to be woefully inept in their early defensive alignment.
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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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/ 8 September 2007
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World Cup debutants Portugal are looking to emerge with more than their dignity intact when they take on Scotland in their opening Pool C match on Sunday. For ”Os Lobos”, the aim of both their first three pool matches against the Scots, New Zealand and Italy is to ensure they retain enough physical and mental resources to confront Romania in their only winnable game.
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/ 8 September 2007
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South Africa test their World Cup credentials against the rugged Samoans on Sunday in Paris in a warm-up for their Pool A decider against defending champions England next Friday. The Springboks, who were knocked out in the quarterfinals in 2003, have had a relatively smooth preparation compared to their own rocky standards and are regarded as one of few sides capable of stopping the All Blacks.
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/ 7 September 2007
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The media boycott of the Rugby World Cup was lifted on Friday, just 90 minutes before the first match kicked-off, after an agreement was reached between the International Rugby Board and the media coalition, the management of Agence France-Presse announced.
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/ 7 September 2007
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Rugby World Cup organisers turned down requests on Thursday from the French government and the European Union to return to negotiations and diffuse a media row which threatens coverage of the tournament opening on Friday. The International Rugby Board (IRB) and its subsidiary RWC declined all requests to resume negotiations.
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/ 6 September 2007
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Leading international news agencies on Thursday launched a boycott of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, plunging the event into controversy on the eve of its opening game. Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters, the Associated Press, Getty Pictures and the German agency, dpa, said no text, photo or video news on the World Cup would be sent for 24 hours.
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/ 5 September 2007
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Springbok coach Jake White pledged on Wednesday that his side will launch an all-out assault on Samoa when they kick off their World Cup campaign on Sunday. ”We will play against Samoa with the best team that we can put on the pitch,” said White ahead of the Paris Pool A encounter.
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/ 5 September 2007
Former French president Jacques Chirac on Wednesday discussed his plans to set up a foundation with Nelson Mandela, who is on a private visit to France to raise funds for his charity institutes. Chirac is, in the coming months, to launch a foundation devoted to the environment and promoting understanding among cultures.
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/ 5 September 2007
Former South African president Nelson Mandela, in Paris on a private visit, met French President Nicolas Sarkozy for dinner at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday, Sarkozy’s spokesperson said. Sarkozy presented Mandela with a book of photographs from an early campaign of civil disobedience in 1952.
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/ 4 September 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=rugbyworldcup07_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/317644/icon_rwc_03.gif" align=left border=0></a>England flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson has been ruled out of the defending champion’s World Cup opener against the United States after twisting his ankle in training on Tuesday. "Jonny Wilkinson twisted his ankle in training this morning and is not available for selection," said coach Brian Ashton.
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/ 4 September 2007
Gaz de France and Suez on Monday agreed to create the world’s third-largest listed power and gas company after President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in to prevent the 18-month old deal from collapsing. The politically charged ”merger of equals”, delayed by disputes over valuation and control, will be on the basis of 21 Gaz de France shares for 22 Suez shares.
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/ 3 September 2007
Nelson Mandela arrived in Paris on Monday for a three-day visit, and was greeted at the airport by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The 89-year-old Mandela, moving with difficulty, climbed off the airplane at Orly Airport with the help of a white cane and was met by Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
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/ 3 September 2007
Gaz de France and Suez on Monday cleared the way to the creation of Europe’s third-largest power company after their boards approved the revised terms of a politically charged merger plan. The companies’ boards met late on Sunday to approve the deal, hammered out in government offices over the weekend.
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There’s no question that great athletes take their sports to the level of art. But as the French host the Rugby World Cup, they’re pushing that concept a step further by bringing rugby into an art museum. It’s a genteel Parisian touch to a sport more often associated with muscle, body-crunching tackles.
Club rugby in the northern hemisphere has long been derided as the poor cousin in world rugby. But the post-World Cup exodus of a raft of top-flight internationals from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will help confound that long-standing belief.
More than two million tickets have been sold for the Rugby World Cup, which kicks off on September 7, the organising committee of rugby’s showpiece four-yearly event said on Wednesday. "We have sold 2,05-million tickets and it’s not finished since we’re still shifting about 1Â 500 a day," said committee head Bernard Lapasset.
The Duke of Wellington may have said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the fields of Eton College, but more surely the game of rugby was founded on the fields of another British public rugby school appropriately called Rugby. And who is to blame for that? An Englishman called William Webb Ellis, who — horrors of horrors for the English — is buried in the town of Menton in the south of France.
Nine years after millions took to the streets of the capital to celebrate victory amid the euphoria of one of the most successful Soccer World Cup tournaments ever, the rugby equivalent is failing to ignite similar enthusiasm among the French. While the multi-ethnic population living in the shadow of Stade de France could identify with the 1998 soccer team, rugby is seen as an elitist sport.