NEW YORK, NY – Once again, we the Weekend Rugby Recap is poured fresh like your favorite pint of plain. It’s just the right temp and waiting, so let’s get it served…
Women’s Rugby World Cup: It was the final matchday of the WRWC on Saturday in Marconnes, France. For much more in-depth coverage of each match, we recommend our friends Scrum Queens or Your Scrumhalf Connection. They are the forerunners in Women’s rugby coverage. As for the results, Ireland completed a perfect round of pool play as they roughed up Kazakhstan, which was similar to what Spain did to Samoa. In the 3 big matches of the day England and Canada fought to a stand still, New Zealand bounced back from their midweek loss to thump the USA Eagles and France outlasted Australia.
Here are the results:
Ireland 40 – 5 Kazakhstan
Spain 41 – 5 Samoa
England 13 – 13 Canada
Wales 35 – 3 South Africa
New Zealand 34 – 3 USA
Australia 3 – 17 France
There were 7 teams fighting for the final 4 spots going into the final matchday. Australia’s loss to France forced them into depending on results to go their way, it didn’t. New Zealand faced the USA in battle for the 2 seed. New Zealand did their part and with Australia losing they really needed one of England or Canada to dominate the other, but the stalemate meant both sides went through tied for first place. This means that there will be new champions of the WRWC for the first time in the tournaments history.
Here are the final standings:
1. France
2. Ireland
3. England
4. Canada
5. New Zealand
6. Australia
7. USA
8. Wales
9. Spain
10. South Africa
11. Samoa
12. Kazakhstan
The WRWC has playoffs for 1st place between the top 4 teams, 5th place between the 5-8th place teams, 9th place between the 9th-12th place teams. So all the teams playing will get a chance to win a playoff game. The battle for 5th place will feature some intense clashes from teams very angry to miss out on finals qualification. The finals will see England and France as the favorites but then again, no one saw New Zealand not making it. Once again, this is why we play the game.
Here is the knockout phase schedule:
WED – 13TH Aug 2014
9th Place Playoff: South Africa – Samoa FFR HQ – Pitch 1
5th Place Playoff: New Zealand – Wales Stade Jean Bouin
9th Place Playoff: Spain – Kazakhstan FFR HQ – Pitch 1
1st Place Playoff: Ireland – England Stade Jean Bouin
5th Place Playoff: Australia – USA FFR HQ – Pitch 1
1st Place Playoff: France – Canada Stade Jean Bouin
Premiership 7s: The Premiership Rugby Sevens Series is a 7s competition for the 12 Aviva Premiership Clubs that will play the following season. From this, loads of young talent are discovered. The premiership 7s is now followed by a World Club 7s tournament, which is the brainchild of the Premiership 7s branding team. This weekend at the Twickenham Stoop, home of The Harlequins saw the hosts along with Cardiff Blues, Gloucester, Leicester Tigers, London Irish, Newcastle Falcons, the Dragons and Northampton Saints fight it out for the Premiership Rugby 7s title. It was deja vu all over again as Gloucester won the title. It was against an upstart Dragons side that did themselves proud. In the Plate final, last year’s runners up Leicester defeated London Irish.
Plate Final Leicester Tigers 7s 17 – 0 London Irish 7s
Cup Final Gloucester 7s 12 – 5 Newport Gwent Dragons 7s
Currie Cup: The 76th edition of the Currie Cup kicked off this weekend. We will have our preview of the season ahead, out later this week. As for the action this weekend, Western Province defeated Eastern Province in a fun match, Sharks struggled past Griquas, Lions hammered Blue Bulls and Pumas edged out the Cheetahs of Free State.
Here are the results:
Fri – 8th Aug 14
Eastern Province Kings 16 – 35 Western Province
Sat – 9th Aug 14
Griquas 24 – 31 Sharks
Lions 41 – 13 Blue Bulls
Pumas 28 – 21 Cheetahs
Speaking of rugby seasons, our Top 14 expert-du-jour, , has put together a preview of the new season, just CLICK HERE. Meanwhile the RWU Super Rugby Superman, Jamie Wall, has a great recap of the whole season. Please CLICK HERE.
Conversion Kick:
Transactions: Neil Hollinshead – the man who was conned London Welsh into thinking he would inject £1 m a year – was on Friday found guilty and jailed for seven years.
Former France captain Lionel Nallet has announced that he will retire at the end of the 2014/15 season. The 37-year-old helped Lyon back into the Top 14 and decided to play on for one more year hoping to provide consistency and help them avoid relegation.
Crusaders winger Nemani Nadolo has signed a new 2-year contract at the Super Rugby franchise, CEO Hamish Riach announced…The Highlanders have re-signed scrum-half Aaron Smith until the end of Super Rugby 2016…The Brumbies have recruited giant second row Rory Arnold. At 6’8″, Arnold will be the tlalest player in Super Rugby since Andries Bekker, the tallest player in the competition’s history…Former All Blacks wing Hosea Gear has confirmed that he will be joining the Chiefs for the 2015 Super Rugby season…
Reds Looking At Fiji: Following up ‘s article on Brive setting up a rugby academy in Fiji, the Super Rugby Queensland Reds are also targeting Fijian talent. Operations manager and former Wallaby scrum-half Sam Cordingley, was in Fiji, Saturday at the local league semi-final between Nadroga and Suva.
USA Rugby News and Updates: USA Rugby held their club 7s championships in Seattle this weekend. There were great matches all around. As of press time the results are listed below.
Here are the results:
Men
Cup: Seattle OPSB v Old Blue of New York
Shield: 1823 Rugby
Bowl: Schuylkill River Exiles
Here are the results:
Men
Cup: San Diego Surfers v Old Blue of New York
Shield: D.C. Furies
Bowl: Philadelphia Rugby
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, Karen Ritter , Jamie Wall, Jake Frechette and Declan Yeats, respectively.
