Hawke’s Bay rout Manawatu in pre-season

15/08/2012 Hawke's Bay made no race of the pre-competition rugby match against Manawatu winning 37-13 at Napier today. The Magpies made most of the running throughout, scoring four tries to just a solitary try by Manawatu captain Nick Crosswell 11 minutes from the start. The game started ominously for the Manawatu Turbos when

Wallabies name team to face All Blacks

14/08/2012 A second Test starting role for Dave Dennis, a move from the side to the back of the scrum for Scott Higginbotham and a return to a starting midfield position for Anthony Fainga’a, represent the only changes to the Qantas Wallabies starting side for this weekend’s Bledisloe Cup opener in

SBW free to play for All Blacks

Aug 13, 2012 Sonny Bill Williams' availability for the All Blacks opening two matches of the Rugby Championship has been officially confirmed. Williams comes into the All Blacks squad for the back-to-back Bledisloe Cup matches as an injury replacement for Conrad Smith. Williams did not train with the squad in Auckland on Friday,

Currie Cup still has a kick

12-08-2012 Cape Town - The Currie Cup is like the boxer who takes a terrible pounding but, fuelled by astonishing levels of pride, simply refuses to crash to the canvas. Why, we may have seen just enough quality in the first round of the compressed, increasingly marginalised 2012 competition to suggest that

ITM Cup Pre Season

Northland v North Harbour August 10 2012 Northland played North Harbour in a pre season match up at Mahurangi Rugby Club in Warkworth.  Northland edged out their neighbours 29-24. http://heathjohnsonphotography.com/2012/08/11/itm-cup-pre-season-northland-v-north-harbour-august-10-2012/

Aussies defend ‘weak’ Cooper

Aug 10, 2012 Quade Cooper's fellow Wallabies have leapt to his defence after former All Blacks coach Graham Henry called him the team's "glaring weakness" at last year's World Cup. In his recently released biography The Final Word, Henry said: "Quade Cooper was plainly the weakest link. Coach Robbie Deans had taken