NEW YORK, NY – With action from the RBS 6 Nations, the Women’s 6 Nations and the U-20 6 Nations. On the other side of the globe, the Women’s Sevens World Series – the Atlanta 7s – had great rugby moments. In addition to that there was action from two divisions of the European Nations Cup, the World Rugby Pacific Challenge and the NACRA Championships. The only non-test match action to be found were the #Top14 and the LV= Cup in the northern hemisphere and Super Rugby in the Southern hemisphere. All this and the Transfer Rumors, Player Transactions, USA Rugby and World Rugby news has plenty to cover. Let’s get to it.
Atlanta 7s: The third leg of the Womens Sevens World Series was filled with unexpected results and fantastic action. The only expected result was New Zealand winning it. As we have done all this season, our Team USA analysis and tournament results can be found by clicking here.
Player Transactions:
Aviva Premiership: Gloucester announced the signing of hooker Tom Lindsay, from Premiership rivals Wasps at the end of the season.
USA Rugby News/Updates: USA Rugby announced the host cities and venues for the both the 2015 Rugby Club Eastern regional, Western regional, and National club championships. Click here to read more.
World Rugby News: Crusaders and Fijian winger/center, Nemani Nadolo was named the Pacific Rugby Player of the Year. Check out his video on the World Rugby website.
As for the weekend’s fixtures:
Super Rugby: Our resident Kiwi and Super Rugby Expert Jamie Wall has had a busy weekend. He swung back and forth between matches and his guilty pleasure, the Cricket World Cup. Check out his through review of all the action by clicking here.
Top 14: The Top 14 has the the most interesting race for the playoffs and and regulation in European rugby. Every game counts as teams are trying to scrape into the playoff race or climb out of the relegation zone. Click here for another excellent review by our Top 14 expert James Harrington.
RBS 6 Nations: It is now a three way race for the 6N title. It will likely come down to points difference. For a great review of the round and all the incredible matches, check out our awesome review, when it posts.
RBS Women’s 6 Nations: The fourth round of the women’s 6N has created some crazy storylines for the fifth and final round. The were upsets all over the place. We will have full recap of all the round’s action later this week.
RBS U-20 6 Nations: Just like the men, the rising stars of European rugby, the U-20s will faced off this weekend. Scotland fell on the road to England, Italy were humbled by France and finally Wales outlasted Ireland in Wales.
Here is the weekend’s schedule:
Fri – 13th Mar 2015
England U20s 26 -11 Scotland U20s
Italy U20s 10 – 40 France U20s
Wales U20s 19 – 12 Ireland U20s
European Nations Cup:The ENC, or the 6 Nations “B” , is the premier tournament for the second-tier nations of Europe. Unbeknown to some, the ENC consists of seven divisions, each featuring between four and six teams. The matches played will determine who will get promoted and relegated from groups 1B, 2A – 2D, and 3A over a two-year cycle. Division 1A is where the six best teams in Europe, well outside of the 6N teams, reside. There is no promotion to Europe’s premier international rugby competition, only relegation back to 1B.
In 1A action this weekend, Russia were given a rude welcome and blanked in Georgia in match that is a deep-seated rivalry courtesy of political history and geographic location. In the Iberian derby, Portugal hosted Spain and unfortunately for the Lobos they had no answer for the Spanish attack. Germany played their best game to date, spurred on by their home fans, against Romania but it still wasn’t enough as they came up short. In 1B, recently relegated Belgium, edged out upstarts Moldova.
Here is the weekend’s schedule:
Sat – 14th Mar 2015
1A: Georgia 33 – 0 Russia
1A: Portugal 8 – 19 Spain
1A: Germany 12 – 17 Romania
1B: Belgium 17 – 14 Moldova
LV=Cup: The LV= Cup took center stage this weekend and it was well deserved. This cup is sometimes referred to as the Anglo-Welsh competition. It serves as an important developmental tournament for young players in Wales and England. This weekend was the semi-finals of the cup and will be a clash of 4 Aviva Premiership sides. Leicester Tigers hosted the defending LV= Cup champions, the Exeter Chiefs, in a thrilling affair that came down to the last 10 minutes before it was decided. In the end, Exeter’s pack showed its might by scoring the final try to secure the victory. In the other semi-final, it was a game of 2 halves. In the first half, Northampton , last year’s finalist, looked dominate. However, in the second half things changed. Led by European class of 2015 member, Maro Itoje, Saracens came roaring back and to take the lead then hold on to it with every once of strength to win the game.
Here is the weekend’s schedule:
Sat – 14th Mar 2015
Saracens 24 – 20 Northampton Saints
Sun – 15th Mar 2015
Leicester Tigers 22 – 30 Exeter Chiefs
World Rugby Pacific Challenge: The WRPC, was formerly known as the IRB Pacific Rugby Cup, but to make sure it wasn’t confused with the Pacific Nations Cup, it was re-branded. It has actually been held in an Australasian country since 2006. It features the National ‘A’ representative teams from the Asia-Pacific region, and is run by World Rugby through FORU, the Federation of Oceania Rugby Unions. This year’s development teams are from Japan, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji as one would expect. In a move to improve their program, Argentina (Pampas XV) joined last year and this year they are accompanied by Canada…In action this weekend, the Pampas XV kept their win streak alive by defeating Tonga A, Samoa A just edged out Canada A and Junior Japan were absolutely throttled by the Fiji Warriors.
Here are the results:
Sat – 14th Mar 2015
Pampas XV 31 – 7 Tonga A
Samoa A 19 – 17 Canada A
Junior Japan 0 – 83 Fiji Warriors
NACRA CHAMPIONSHIPS 2015: North America and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Championship kicked off last weekend. The NACRA Championship is for the countries in North America and the Caribbean. NACRA has 2 zones with top level (championship) and a bottom level (cup). Each Championship zone has 3 teams while the Cup Zones have 4 each. The Zones are regionally divided, so there is a North Zone and South Zone. USA Rugby competes in the North Zone Championship division. The USA is represented by the USA South Regional all-star team, in order to develop talent and make the competition a much fairer one.
The matches for this weekend saw The Cayman Islands welcomed USA South, Bermuda battled Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago fought with Barbados. The British Virgin Islands faced Curacao and finally St Vincent and the Grenadines took on St. Lucia. Unfortunately due to the slow rate of accessible information. We will update this column later in the week with the scores as well as post it in the weekend preview.
Here were the match-ups:
SAT – 14th Mar 15
North Zone Championship League
Cayman Islands – USA South
North Zone Cup League
Bermuda – Bahamas
South Zone Championship League
Trinidad & Tobago – Barbados
South Zone Cup League
British Virgin Islands – Curacao
St Vincent and the Grenadines – St Lucia
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.
