NEW YORK, NY – We are ready for the week ahead after another heavy weekend workload. We covered action from the southern hemisphere’s Super Rugby and the northern hemisphere’s three top leagues. Before we begin working on the fixtures, we will discuss the latest news from USA Rugby and World Rugby. With all that said let’s get into the Global Rugby Recap:
Player Transactions:
For the first time in a long time, this has been a quiet weekend on the transactions front, despite late-breaking news that Piri Weepu has signed a two-year deal with Top 14 side Oyonnax. Expect clubs to use the week to make some moves and some announcements in the next few days.
USA Rugby News and Updates: USA Rugby announced that National Director of 7s, Alex Magleby, will lead an initiative to turn the national team programs into a unified group. He will have overall responsibility for the men’s and women’s national team pathways, age-grade programs, and the management of an integrated high performance system within the development, emerging, and elite levels of the game in the United States.
World Rugby News: The Barbarians and Samoa will go head to head at London’s Olympic Stadium on 29 August in a historic first-ever rugby match at the Rugby World Cup 2015 venue… The full schedule for the Pacific Nations Cup – a World Rugby tournament designed to expose Pacific Rim teams and players to a greater number of international test matches – has been announced, click here… Players, coaches and referees from across Europe gathered in south-east England this week to take part in a Rugby Football Union-led Women’s Rugby World Cup 2014 legacy initiative called the Unity Project. For more info, click here.
As for the weekend’s fixtures:
Super Rugby: The second weekend of Super Rugby saw a return to normal service in terms of predictions. Our resident Kiwi and Super Rugby expert has put together another fantastic review of the round’s action including an update on the Karmichael Hunt saga. For his rundown of the matches and which ones are worth watching, just click here.
Top 14: There were some interesting results in the latest round of the Top14. Both the top of the table and the relegation zone were impacted by the upsets and gut-wrenching losses that seemed to be the order of the day. Our Top 14 Rugby expert has another thorough review of the action, if you just click here.
Aviva Premiership: The Aviva weekend was filled with tight action. If you discount the drubbing of London Welsh by Gloucester, then 11 points was the largest victory of the weekend. The action began as Newcastle and Wasps couldn’t be separated after 80 minutes. Sale gave their playoff hopes a shot in the arm with a narrow victory over Saracens, while Harlequins faint playoff chances were dealt a further blow as Exeter beat them by aforementioned 11-point margin. The prime-time clash of the weekend saw second place Bath come up short against reigning champions Northampton. The weekend finished with Leicester grinding out a tough win against the London Irish. Our Midlands rugby man, Nick Hall will have a full report, later this week.
Here are the results:
FRI – 20TH FEB 15
Newcastle 23 – 23 Wasps
SAT – 21ST FEB 15
Sale 14 – 10 Saracens
Harlequins 21 – 32 Exeter
Gloucester 48 – 10 London Welsh
Bath 13 – 21 Northampton
SUN – 22ND FEB 15
London Irish 6 – 12 Leicester
Guinness Pro 12: The playoff race in the Pro 12 is now incredibly tight. First through fifth are separated by just four points and the sixth place side is starting to make moves too. The weekend began with Treviso shocking an out-of-sorts Cardiff Blues side dealing with the imminent departure of director of rugby Mark Hammett. Second-place Ulster edged out Edinburgh, and third-place Leinster kept pace by easily dispatching Zebre. Scarlets tied with Munster, while top-of-the-table Glasgow Warriors barely got past a tough challenge from fifth-place Ospreys. Newport-Gwent Dragons bravely fought with 14 men against Connacht but eventually came up a try short.
Here are the results:
FRI – 20TH FEB 15
Benetton Treviso 40 – 24 Cardiff Blues
Edinburgh 17 – 20 Ulster
Leinster 29 – 8 Zebre
SAT – 21ST FEB 15
Scarlets 25 – 25 Munster
Glasgow Warriors 19 – 16 Ospreys
SUN – 22ND FEB 15
Newport-Gwent Dragons 25 – 30 Connacht
European Nations Cup (1B): the ENC, or the 6 Nations “B” if you like, is the premier tournament for the second-tier nations of Europe. However, it is classified as division 1A. The ENC actually consists of 7 divisions, each with 4-6 teams in each division. The matches played will determine who will get promoted and relegated form groups 1B, 2A – 2D, and 3A over a two year cycle. This weekend in 1B, Netherlands hosted Belgium and lost by a slim margin.
Here is the weekend’s schedule:
Sat – 21st Feb 2015
Netherlands 21-23 Belgium
Oh… Did you see Russell Crowe’s move? He eschewed the red carpet for a green one and 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, James Harrington, Jamie Wall, Nick Hall, DJ Eberle, Jake Frechette, Scheenagh Harrington, Jamie Loyd, Cody Kuxmann, Karen Ritter and Declan Yeats, respectively.
And as always, stay low and keep pumping those legs.
