Weekend Rugby Wrap-up: Autumn Internationals, Dubai 7s, Top 14, Aviva, Pro 12 and Keep Rugby Clean Day

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NEW YORK, NY: The Autumn Internationals, Dubai 7s, Aviva Premiership, Top 14 and Rabodirect Pro 12 were all filled some intense action. No point milling about, so let’s get into the Weekend Rugby Wrap-up.

Tier 1 & 2:  In Twickenham, rugby royalty, The Barbarians featuring 8 South Africans and 7 All Blacks, coached by AIG New Zealand All Blacks Head Coach Steve Hansen outplayed a weary and depleted Fiji. However, Fiji and its national rugby union were using the match to celebrate their 100 year anniversary. The match was played in the traditional wide open and cavalier spirited manner that one would expect from these two side.  The scoreline doesn’t show how fun and close a contest it was. Speaking of close contest, Wales came close to defeating Australia once again. It seems a bit repetitive but in the last minutes Wales lack the class or mental ability as WCR has pointed out, to win the game. The match was played in front of a soldout  Millennium stadium in Cardiff.

Here are this weekend’s results:
Sat – 30 NOV 2013
Barbarians 43 – 19 Fiji
Wales 26 – 30 Australia

Dubai 7s: In our special preview we went in-depth into the Dubai 7s with a pool by pool breakdown and predictions. If you trusted our predictions, then we are sorry, but you should have known better. Our predictions were off from top to bottom. To see how bad we were check out the preview. At the tournament, Australia won the womens division while Fiji shocked some people and won the mens.

Here are this weekend’s results:
Womens Division:
Cup: Australia
Second: New Zealand
Third: Russia
Plate: England
Bowl: Fiji

Mens Division:
Cup: Fiji
Second: South Africa
Third: New Zealand
Plate: Argentina
Bowl: Australia
Shield: France

Top 14: Our man in France, James Harrington will have your results and analysis, just CLICK HERE.

Aviva Premiership: Our East Midlands Machiavellian rugger, Nick Hall will be back later in the week with his talking points on this weekend’s action, so check back with him…Leicester went to Gloucester and emerged victorious in a tight match. Wasps were also successful on the road against a London Irish side that can’t find a way to win. Speaking of inability to win, Worcester continued their losing ways against Northampton while Saracens continued their winning ways against Sale. Bath continue to also win as they battled past Exeter and Harlequins totally dominated Newcastle.
Here are this weekend’s results:
Fri – 29th Nov 13
Gloucester 17 – 22 Leicester
Sat – 30th Nov 13
London Irish 12 – 19 Wasps
Saracens 24 – 19 Sale Sharks
Worcester 10 – 33 Northampton
Bath 21 – 16 Exeter
Sun – 1st Dec 13
Newcastle 9 – 35 Harlequins

Rabodirect Pro 12: In the Pro 12 is also heading to the halfway point and they playoff pack is emerging. Glasgow leapfrogged Ospreys in the standings by beating the Ospreys. Munster stayed top with the table with their win against Dragons. Edinburgh hammered Connacht while Ulster emerged successful from their Italian sojourn to face Zebre. Cardiff didn’t emerge successful from their sojourn but they did fight Treviso to a draw. Leinster ran rampant against Scarlets.

Tier 3 Action: We only had one match this week. Controversial side Cyprus welcomed Austria in a game that was built as the battle of the goats. Both countries mascots are bull Ram goats. It appears the goats in Cyprus are stronger as they bossed the match and stretched their world record test winning streak to 21 straight games.

Here are this weekend’s results:
Sat – 30 NOV 2013
Cyprus 22 – 08 Austria

Conversion Kick:
Keep Rugby Clean Day: This past friday, the IRB introduced their anti-doping campaign. The campaign is to young players to keep themselves free of PED. “The IRB’s Keep Rugby Clean programme is an awareness campaign to promote tournaments free of drugs, and to underline the fact that there is no place for doping in rugby.”  The program  has named several big names in the game as ambassadors to help spread the message and we hope that it does help keep the game clean.

IRB Anti-doping ambassadors
Cecil Afrika, South Africa
Vincent Clerc, France
Felipe Contepomi, Argentina
Bryan Habana, South Africa
Carla Hohepa, New Zealand
Carlin Isles, USA
Heather Moyse, Canada
David Pocock, Australia
Sam Warburton, Wales

That’s it for now… feel free to comment below, look for and “Like” our Facebook Rugby Wrap Up Page and follow us on Twitter @: RugbyWrapUp, Junoir Blaber, DJ Eberle, Nick Hall, James Harrington, Cody Kuxmann, Jaime Loyd and Declan Yeats, respectively.

And until the next time… stay low and keep pumping those legs.