#rugby-union

#rugby-union

England 21 Ireland 42 Twickenham has so often been a graveyard for Ireland teams, but in time, we might well look back on this remarkable bonus point victory as the rebirth of Andy Farrell's side. With half an hour gone here, Ireland were 22-0 to the good, and as The Fields of Athenry rang around the stadium, the large travelling support were in dreamland. So too were the Ireland players. England, meanwhile, were shell-shocked.

The template for beating England in their own backyard was laid out by head coach Andrew Browne and his Irish U-20 charges as they stunned their fancied hosts in front of 13,000 at the Rec in Bath.

Ronan O'Gara was pitch-side on Thursday night in Paris, so he got a close-up view of France's mauling of Ireland. When he read Andy Farrell's quotes about his team lacking "fight" and "intent", he could empathise with the Ireland coach because he's been trying to regenerate his La Rochelle team for two seasons.

Over the next 12 months the capital will host a vast range of sporting events, truly living up to its rep as the planet's greatest city for sport. Those events will include notable firsts, like Wembley hosting its first ever college American football game) and the inaugural rugby union Nations Championship finals, plus important returns, such as NBA at the O2 and tennis' Laver Cup. In September London will become the first city to have ever hosted the Laver twice.

Bristol produced a scintillating attacking display to hammer Harlequins 40-14 under the lights at Twickenham Stadium. In Quins' annual 'Big Game', it was the Bears who came out on top as they ran in six tries and won by 26 points. Unanswered scores from Kalaveti Ravouvou, Joe Batley, Gabriel Oghre and Louis Rees-Zammit gave the visitors a ruthless 26-0 lead at the break against a Harlequins side that had at times produced some good rugby themselves.

Shortly after the hour mark at The Rec last weekend, Bath's influential scrum-half Ben Spencer put up the latest of his many towering box-kicks, and Alex Nankivell, Munster's makeshift winger, took his eye off the ball for a split second before fumbling it into touch. A brief stoppage in play followed, and as Nankivell assessed Bath's attacking shape before they took their lineout, he locked eyes with Finn Russell, whose body language left him in no doubt about what was coming next.

The IRFU may be disconnected from a chunk of their audience on the price of Test rugby at Lansdowne Road but at least those who ponied up large can claim to have witnessed a truly crazy match. In the 2013 Six Nations in Rome Ireland had their backline sundered by a freakish run of injuries, leaving holes being filled by men who didn't know how to hold a shovel.

This latest one was 52-26, and if you missed it, it will look like just another in their long list of losses to New Zealand, which now stretches back 34 matches to 1953. But it's just possible, too, that, for the men who coached it and played in it, for the tens of thousands in the ground, and the hundreds of thousands watching on TV,

The numbers are not on Wales' side. - Wales have won only two of their last 21Tests - New Zealand have scored 40 or more points in four of their last five games against Wales. - The first half has been the highest scoring period in seven of Wales' matches in 2025 - Kiwi winger Will Jordan has scored 43 tries in 52 Tests. I expect he'll add at least one or two more today.

Deaves's ascent is one of the game's more uncommon career paths in the era of professional rugby. He joined the Ospreys Academy from his local club, Pontyclun, in the Rhondda after a brief civil engineering course at Bridgend College. His early days at Ospreys, alongside British & Irish Test Lions Alex Cuthbert, Justin Tipuric and Rhys Webb, saw him turn up for morning training sessions in his van ahead of afternoon work as a roofer.

Speak to anyone who has worked with Andy Farrell and they will tell you he embraces chaos and wants anyone in his teams to do the same.

Ben Te'o doesn't follow rugby union closely now, but he made sure to attend the Lions match in Brisbane. He looked forward to reconnecting with former teammates.

Andrew Porter embodies the rugby union prop forward role, characterized by his impressive physique and well-defined cauliflower ears, a testament to the sport's physicality.