NEW YORK, NY – The rugby calendar is starting to fill up. We are having more and more action to cover. We have to discuss the match results, team news and transactions as we prepare for The Global Rugby Recap:
News & Transactions:
Super Rugby: The Blue Bulls have confirmed the retention of five high-profile Springboks for the next few years. The players, Handre Pollard (until Oct 2019), Adriaan Strauss (Oct 2019), Jesse Kriel (Oct 2019), Trevor Nyakane (Oct 2018) and Jan Serfontein (Oct 2017) have all confirmed the signing of extensions with the franchise.
USA Rugby: The Elite City 7s recently completed. This marks a successful second year. Last year the tournament was played in Houston in conjuction with the USA Eagles match against Scotland. This year it was in Philadelphia as the Eagles take on Harlequins. The men’s bracket contained teams from Boston (playing as Academy Development), Ohio, Philadelphia, Salt Lake, and southern California, and welcomes Atlanta, New York City, and a combined Armed Forces side into the mix. The women’s bracket includes the first AIG Women’s Collegiate All-American Sevens team, a combined Armed Forces side, Northeast Academy, and Club 7s National Champion and National Development Academy American Rugby Pro Training Center from Little Rock, Ark. The winners were New York City Sevens and the Women’s College All-Americans Sevens… USA Rugby has selected 55 deserving student-athletes from 35 schools as the Women’s Collegiate All-Americans for the 2014-15 season. Reigning Division I National Champions in both 15s and sevens, Penn State leads the list with six players, while DI runner-up Central Washington produced five players of its own.
World Rugby News: In a bit of absolute nonsense news, a South African political party is taking the country’s sports minister and the South African Rugby Union to court in a bid to stop the Springboks from competing at the Rugby World Cup (RWC). The Agency for New Agenda party (ANA) and its president Edward Mahlomola Mokhoanatse has sought an urgent order in the North Gauteng High Court to compel SARU and the South African sports department officials to surrender their passports so they cannot travel. The basis for the ANA’s application is an alleged lack of transformation in South African rugby. They claim it is still dominated by whites and the team does not fully represent the majority of South Africans. This is nonsense and won’t go anywhere but stay tuned… As a result of their win over Ireland this weekend, Wales have overtaken RWC opponents England in the World Rugby rankings VIEW FULL RANKINGS HERE >>
The weekend’s fixtures:
Top 14: The #Top14 is back and finished up its second round. Our Ligue Nationale de Rugby expert has a wonderful recap of the round for those who didn’t get to watch every match, please Click here. Mssr. Harrington also has put together a great preview of the season ahead, if you Click here.
World Cup Warm-up: With only a few warm-up matches left, before the World Cup and rosters coming out, it is time for final preparations. So every minute of game time counts as players are trying to lockdown spots on the roster/matchday squad. The results this weekend saw Tonga dominate Nottingham and the Newcastle Falcons were too much for Georgia. Japan absolutely smashed Uruguay, as did Scotland against Italy. Ireland fell to Wales, Barbarians edged out Samoa, Canada finally got a win against the Glasgow Warriors. The USA fell to Harlequins and for a complete recap of the match, check out our own ‘s article here.
Here are the results:
Fri Aug 28 2015
Nottingham 14 – 69 Tonga
Newcastle Falcons 27 – 7 Georgia
Sat Aug 29 2015
Japan 40 – 0 Uruguay
Ireland 10 – 16 Wales
Barbarians 27 – 24 Samoa
Scotland 48 – 7 Italy
Canada 19 – 12 Glasgow Warriors
Sun Aug 30 2015
USA 19 – 24 Harlequins
Oceania Rugby Cup:
Here are the results:
Sun Aug 30 2015
American Samoa 8 – 20 Tahiti
Papua New Guinea 58 – 19 Solomon Islands
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 tournament, 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. As a sign of the growth of the tournament is that the 4 Welsh regions have decided to play in the English club 7s tournament, the premier pro club 7s tournament. In an upset, the Newport Gwent Dragons defeated Wasps at the death despite Wasps being the in-form team the whole tournament.
Here are the results:
Fri – 28th Aug 15
1. Quarter-Final 1 –Newport Gwent Dragons 26 – 10 Sale Sharks
2. Quarter-Final 2 – Gloucester Rugby 31 – 26 Harlequins
3. Quarter-Final 3 – Wasps 33 – 5 Exeter Chiefs
4. Quarter-Final 4 – Newcastle Falcons 26 – 31 Scarlets
5. Plate Semi-Final – Sale Sharks 45 -24 Harlequins
6. Cup Semi-Final – Newport Gwent Dragons 19 -14 Gloucester Rugby
7. Plate Semi-Final – Exeter Chiefs 14 – 12 Newcastle Falcons
8. Cup Semi-Final – Scarlets 12 – 33 Wasps
9. Plate Final – Sale Sharks 19 – 26 Chiefs
10. Cup Final – Newport Gwent Dragons 17 – 14 Wasps
ITM Cup: For our preview of the season, CLICK HERE. The third round began with Bay of Plenty winning easily against Southland, Tasman demolished Manawatu and Hawkes Bay cruised by Counties Manukau. The remaining fixtures saw Auckland upset at home by Canterbury, Taranaki fell to Otago, and Wellington blanked Northland. On short rest from their midweek fixtures Bay of Plenty were crushed by Waikato and Southland lost by the smallest margin possible to North Harbour.
Here are the results:
Wed – 26th Aug 15
Bay Of Plenty 26 – 10 Southland
Thu – 27th Aug 15
Tasman 41 – 21 Manawatu
Fri – 28th Aug 15
Counties Manukau 11 – 35 Hawkes Bay
Sat – 29th Aug 15
Auckland 21 – 27 Canterbury
Taranaki 27 – 34 Otago
Wellington 29-0 Northland
Sun – 30th Aug 15
Bay Of Plenty 10-43 Waikato
Southland 25-26 North Harbour
Currie Cup: The 77th edition of the Currie Cup kicked off last weekend and you can find our preview HERE. As for round 4, this weekend, we have seen the Free State Cheetahs triumph over Western Province and the Golden Lions absolutely pummel the Pumas. Griquas fell to the Blue Bulls and the Eastern Province Kings came up short against the Natal Sharks.
Here are the results:
Fri – 29th Aug 15
Free State Cheetahs 28 – 21 Western Province
Sat – 30th Aug 15
Griquas 32 – 46 Blue Bulls
Eastern Province Kings 20 – 24 Natal Sharks
Aus. NRC: Australia’s third tier competition goes into its second year as the National Rugby Championship has kicked off. We took the time to provide a preview and explain the competition, just CLICK HERE. Those with New York Rugby Club ties like me, will be supporting the defending champs Brisbane City since one of their feeder clubs, is New York’s sister club West (Brisbane) Bulldogs. To kickoff the weekend, in a Thursday match, the Sydney Stars won a shootout against Queensland Country. Melbourne Rising were dominated by Brisbane City, NSW Country Eagles had no answer for the University of Canberra Vikings. In the final match of the round saw Perth Spirit beaten by North Harbour Rays.
Here are the results:
Thu – 27th Aug 15
Sydney Stars 50–40 Queensland Country
Sat – 29th Aug 15
Melbourne Rising 21 – 45 Brisbane City
NSW Country Eagles 13 – 37 University of Canberra Vikings
Perth Spirit 26 – 45 North Harbour Rays
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, Audrey Youn, Akweley Okine, Rocky Brown and Declan Yeats, respectively.
And as always, stay low and keep pumping those legs!
