British and Irish Lions
Chris Hewett: Andy Farrell not alone with his ‘home’ Lions selections
“There's an epidemic sweeping through the England team, but it isn’t catching.” Attributed to John Arlott (who else?), the exquisite one-liner sprang to mind as a...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 days agoChris Hewett: Wallabies make the obvious choice with Giteau Law change
Inevitable. Had to happen. Written in the stars. Quite why the Australian rugby hierarchy spent so long umming and aaahhing about...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 week agoChris Hewett: Tough calls needed to take the initiative
The Lions may have reaffirmed their rugby sovereignty over the Wallabies during 80 mesmerising minutes in Melbourne, but they were well...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 weeks agoChris Hewett: It’s a long, hard road for – Bank of Dad, or not
Ten thousand hours seems a suspiciously convenient round number, but there are plenty of big brains who see it as the...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 3 weeks agoChris Hewett: France v the British and Irish Lions would be a stretch
Suddenly, rugby’s 24-hour news cycle is full of chatter about a French seat at the British and Irish Lions table. Abdel...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 month agoChris Hewett: One kick to win it… so who do you want?
Whoever it was, it couldn’t have been Carwyn James. For one thing, the most celebrated coach of all was a Welshman...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 month agoChris Hewett: Elite will have no time for Los Pumas
Phil Kearns never played a game of Test rugby against the British and Irish Lions: a stranger-than-fiction fact that bears repeating....
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 month agoChris Hewett: Whatever the voice, messages are mixed
If David Campese and Michael Lynagh were singing from the same hymn sheet as the Wallabies dominated the last decade of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 1 month agoChris Hewett: Let’s hope Wallace Sititi can return to his best
So he’s crocked again, which is sad to the point of depressing. Like every other attention-craving spectator sport engaged in the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Can Bath outdo the team that Jack Rowell built?
The dear departed Jack Rowell rather fancied himself as a master of the caustic punchline and remained particularly proud of one...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Jonny Wilkinson just shouldn’t be the lone star
You have to laugh. Otherwise, you’d cry yourself a river. According to a public vote organised by the folk who run...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Questions at No.3 are key for Andy Farrell’s British and Irish Lions
Prop forwards of the tighthead variety were not put on this earth to be like everyone else, and by and large...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Perhaps Paris isn’t the best of places
Can there be a rugby aficionado in the world who wouldn’t move heaven and earth to experience a weekend’s worth of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Without jeopardy, the game is nothing
The journey time between the sublime and the ridiculous can be speed-of-sound short: Clement Poitrenaud, the quintessence of French rugby cool...
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Roll up for the next circus in town, the R360 League
Here's an idea: let’s launch a new rugby tournament to run alongside…er…forgotten its name already. Ah, that’s right. R360. The one...
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Champions Cup
/ 2 months agoDamian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey: A pair of aces who fill our hearts with joy
If the level of mastery is unusually high, the depth of mystery is unfathomable.
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Chris Hewett
/ 2 months agoChris Hewett: Time to speak with one voice
Back in the age when men were men and Willie John McBride was wearing the red shirt of the British and...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: Danny Care still shines in list of the finest 9s
On the face of it, the easiest way to get noticed in big-time rugby is to bag a contract with Harlequins,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: Dangers of pushing the profit margins
According to George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about a thing or two, the “greatest cruelty one can inflict...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoEngland’s World Cup fast-track begins in Argentina
Your starter for 10: what might Jason Leonard, Richard Cockerill, Danny Grewcock and Martin Corry have in common, apart from a...
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Chris Hewett
/ 3 months agoChris Hewett: Leinster need to spread the love
"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” The American author Gore Vidal was an acknowledged master of the “ouch”...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: If there is any justice, George Ford will be a British and Irish Lion
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The difference between time and eternity? It’s all relative – get it? – but in...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: Geoff Parling is thriving as the quiet ‘Australian’
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Whatever lights might be hidden under rugby’s bushel, precious few of them belong to Australian...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoChris Hewett: Dan Biggar’s lessons in staying strong
The last time Wales won a game of rugby against someone other than the Barbarians – those struggling to recall that...
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Chris Hewett
/ 4 months agoOwners should be careful what they wish for
By Chris Hewett The ambition among some Premiership owners to turn the league into rugby’s version of cricket’s T20 is a...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 4 months agoBritish and Irish Lions: Come on, Andy Farrell, put a bolter on your list
Thinking Allowed by Chris Hewett Henry Pollock is the most headline-grabbing talent to emerge in English rugby since Maro Itoje, who...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoExplosion of tries is turning into a circus
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Some of us remember “Mr Creosote”, the Monty Python character who, after a light dinner...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoTwo point tries for rolling mauls? The giants who are spoiling it for all of us
Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Poor old Italy came up with plenty of solutions to the problems posed by Ireland in...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoOscar Jegou shows the All Blacks how it’s done
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed All the talk down New Zealand way is of “Succession”. No, they haven’t made a...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoHowzat! Azzurri are left stumped
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Box office: England’s Elliot Daly scores against Italy in last year’s Six Nations match PICTURE: Alamy AS...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoLytchett Minster 2s? Now they were decent…
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Anyone seeking to capture the essence of rugby’s transformation over recent decades need not wrestle...
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Chris Hewett
/ 5 months agoA win’s a win for England? Up to a point, my lord…
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed If England intend to make a habit of winning games on their backsides, they should...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoThe time’s ripe for a summit of the egos
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Summits are all the rage right now, “rage” being the operative word, and as the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoScrums in danger of falling off the stage
By Chris Hewett We do not yet know whether the Sabercats or the Seawolves will emerge the stronger, or whether the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoGoggleboxers must not lose sight of reality
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed There was an overpowering whiff of something significant in the air as the 1984 John...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoLet us permit No.8s freedom of expression
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The great and good of World Rugby are clearly intent on turning scrum-halves into the...
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Chris Hewett
/ 6 months agoThe best Six Nations? Here are my top three
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed The turn of the century was as notable for the things that failed to happen...
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Chris Hewett
/ 7 months agoSix of the best who deserved a chance during the Six Nations
Thinking Allowed by Chris Hewett A great rugby coach is rarer than radium, as England have discovered in recent decades. Precious...
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Chris Hewett
/ 7 months agoCaptains don’t have to play the full 80
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed It seems your columnist’s hotline to the England head coach Steve Borthwick has turned positively...
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Chris Hewett
/ 7 months agoWe need to watch rugby in the raw
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed According to Inkoo Kang, a leading critic at The New Yorker magazine and, almost by definition,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 7 months agoA star-studded XV that would lead by example
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Like “business ethics” and “military intelligence”, the phrase “rugby leadership” is not an oxymoron. Almost,...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoLet’s hope Brizball can stay in fashion
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed This is not obviously the time to be talking balls – the Twickenham elite have...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoNo Franco Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed Here's a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby sites on the worldwide web...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoNo Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoNo Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of...
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Champions Cup
/ 8 months agoThe global travellers who light up game
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed There is nothing especially funny about short-term memory loss, but it may just have an...
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Chris Hewett
/ 8 months agoOh, for a one-stop TV shop for the lot
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Gogglebox: Bath taking on La Rochelle on Friday night PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a brain teaser: if...
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British and Irish Lions
/ 8 months agoScotland deserve fair share of British & Irish Lions
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed We may be exaggerating here, but not by much: since the wonderful Tom Smith made...
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Chris Hewett
/ 9 months agoKolbe’s majesty is a delight to behold
CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CHESLIN Kolbe won the “man of the match” award for his two-try contribution to South Africa’s victory...
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Chris Hewett
/ 9 months agoWe will all suffer in the land of the giants
By Chris Hewett - Thinking Allowed It was the rugby version of Easy Street, the 1917 silent movie in which Charlie...
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