It was, quite simply, the Maddison Levi show. France had kept level with Australia until half-time of the World Sevens Series final in Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium but then Levi took over. By the time she had finished, Australia were celebrating gold medals after running out 26-7 winners amid brightening optimism for the forthcoming Olympic Games. […]

With the race for positions at the rear of the Super Rugby finals grid settled early on Saturday afternoon, attention switched to the pointy end of qualifying, and fans weren’t left disappointed. The Hurricanes overcame an early Highlanders’ try and another confounding kit clash to purr away to an impressive 41-14 win in Wellington; the […]

Only five games this weekend but plenty to get stuck into. Here come your talking points for NRL Round 13. State of Origin is great, but its impact is not a good thing It used to be that the State of Origin period was a good test of depth and system for the better teams […]

Forget the post-contact metres, forget the VB hard work index. All this focus on the science and the measurable leaves an intangible but important attribute off the whiteboard of coaching considerations. After reading about Jake Trbojevic and then watching the first two games this week, it struck me that this scientific approach often misses that […]

It’s that time of year when Queenslanders like to remind their saner cousins south of the border that State of Origin is some form of payback for the years Queensland had to suffer defeat after defeat at the hands of NSW in the Interstate Series that preceded the origin concept. In the Interstate Series, players […]