NEW YORK, NY – The Autumn Internationals are always exciting to fans in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It gives people the chance to earn bragging rights. For the last few years, the bragging rights have remained with the SANZAR nations of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as they have winning tour records year after year. Aside from the November Tours (another name for the Autumn Internationals), we will cover Player Transactions, USA Rugby News and IRB News. There is also action from the Top 14 and LV= Cup. We’ll finish with Tier 3 action in the European Nations Cup. On to the Global Rugby Recap:
Penalty Kick:
Transactions: Conflicting reports are emerging in France over a potential move for Ma’a Nonu to Toulon after the World Cup. Our man in France, , will keep his ear to the ground regarding these reports and their validity.
USA Rugby News and Updates: The Women’s Premier League National Championship took place this weekend in Marietta, Ga. Congrats to The Glendale Raptors the 2014 WPL Champions. The title is the first for the raptors and a logical progression after making the semi-final last year. For more information, click here.
IRB News: The World Rugby Conference and Exhibition 2014 (ConfEx) takes place 17-18 November at Hilton London Metropole. The IRB announced that they will have former internationals Sean Fitzpatrick, Brian Moore, Agustín Pichot and Thomas Castaignède kick off and set the tone for the event by discussing the future of Rugby in a key panel session entitled ‘State of the Union’.
WEEKEND FIXTURE LIST:
Autumn Internationals: The weekend began with an interesting clash as Canada edged Namibia in England and ended their losing streak. Saturday witnessed 10 huge matches being played. We begin with the Maori All Blacks needing a late try to escape losing in Japan to keep their 11 year, 18 match undefeated streak going. The headliner match of the weekend was England hosting New Zealand. The match was marked by a storm, a red card and lots of second guessing of ref decisions. Two RWU staffers Nick Hall and combined together for a preview and will do the same for their review. Please click here for the review.
It was a case of deja vu all over again as Wales fought hard and came close but in the end lost to Australia. Ireland upset a very sloppy South Africa side that just couldn’t get out of its own way. In a rare display of attacking fireworks, Scotland easily outgunned Argentina while France romped over Fiji.
Earlier in the day, we saw Italy come from behind to defeat Samoa and end a 9 game losing streak. While Georgia was unable to stop a furious comeback by Tonga. Hong Kong was unfortunately no match for Russia.
The match that USA rugby fans care about saw the depleted USA Eagles travel to Romania. For a review of the match, has you covered, click here. If you want to watch the match, click here or scroll to the bottom.
To celebrate Veteran’s Day, the Barbarians will take on a UK Combined Services side. Meanwhile Gloucester will play an exhibition match against Tonga.
Here are the results:
Fri – 7th Nov 14
TOUR Canada 17 – 13 Namibia
Sun – 2nd Nov 14
TOUR Japan 18 – 20 Maori AB
TOUR England 21 – 24 New Zealand
TOUR Wales 28 – 33 Australia
TOUR Italy 24 – 13 Samoa
TOUR Georgia 9 – 23 Tonga
TOUR Ireland 29 – 15 South Africa
TOUR Scotland 41 – 31 Argentina
TOUR France 40 – 15 Fiji
TOUR Hong Kong 10 – 31 Russia
TOUR Romania 17 – 27 USA
Here is the midweek schedule:
Tue – 11th Nov 14
M INT Comb Services – Barbarians
TOUR Gloucester – Tonga
Top 14: Our Ligue Nationale de Rugby expert didn’t get the weekend off as there was still Top14 action to cover. Through some odd scheduling, despite it being in the middle of Autumn international season, there were some big games with playoff teams from last season involved in a rematch. A review can be found if you click here.
LV=Cup: With the rugby calendar so full, the LV= Cup has developed into one of the premier developmental tournaments for young players in Wales and England. The 12 Aviva premiership teams along with the 4 Welsh regions battle it out to find a champion. The LV=Cup allows the stars of tomorrow to showcase their abilities while the academy coaches show what they have been up to with the kids.
A full weekend of action saw Scarlets unable to stop an on-fire Northampton, while Saracens easily dispatched of the Ospreys. Harlequins managed to get the upperhand and defeat Dragons and Newcastle went down at home by the slimiest margin possible Cardiff. Exeter was too much for Bath then Wasps had too much firepower for London Irish. London Welsh are still winless in all competitions after losing to Gloucester. Leicester out-dueled the Sale Sharks.
Here are the results:
Fri – 7th Nov 14
Scarlets 7 – 24 Northampton
Ospreys 9 – 21 Saracens
Harlequins 31 – 21 Newport Gwent Dragons
Newcastle 21 – 22 Cardiff Blues
Sat – 8th Nov 14
Exeter 18 – 6 Bath
Sun – 9th Nov 14
Wasps 43 – 22 London Irish
London Welsh 9 – 18 Gloucester
Leicester 29 – 13 Sale Sharks
Tier 3 – In Tier 3, The men’s European Nations Cup consists of 7 divisions each with 4-6 teams. The matches determine who will get promoted and relegated from groups 1A, 1B, 2A – 2Dd and 3A. Saturday’s fixture list sees action between 1B and 2C. Ukraine left Moldova empty-handed after a solid display of rugby by the hosts. The Czech Republic were too much for Malta. After a fast start for their test side and a great winning streak, Israel has found life in 2A difficult as they lost again– this time to Croatia. Tiny Luxembourg managed to down Austria by using their home field advantage.
The Cook Islands national team is touring New Zealand and will play a midweek fixture against an All-Start Heartland Championship 15. The Heartland Championship is the conference just below the ITM cup with most players fully amateur.
Here are the results:
Sat – 8th Nov 14
Moldova 29 – 15 Ukraine
Czech Republic 27 – 13 Malta
Croatia 31 – 20 Israel
Luxembourg 18 – 13 Austria
Here is the weekend’s schedule:
Tue – 11th Nov 14
TOUR Cook Islands – Heartland XV
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.
And as always, stay low and keep pumping those legs.
PS: Here is the USA Game, and if you want to say thanks for the video, you can do so by donating to my MOVEMBER Campaign at https://us.movember.com/mospace/1862480
