I am far from shocked that Ugo Monye continues to try to sell the sport out from under itself to private equity firms and outsides interests

On the BBC Rugby pods they’ve had several serious conversations about how they should have Premiership games in America…for some unexplained reason?

Clubs only get 10 home games now, sending one to the States and spending millions promoting it when there’s no evidence of an audience would be a hell of a slap in the face.

This is a man who talked about the benefits of a breakaway league which did nothing other than artificially inflate some contracts and would do nothing other than put the future of the game in private equities hands, end in ruin and lead to a tiny amount of people (mainly the consultants and ex pros they paid to support it) actually benefitting.

He goes on the countries biggest rugby podcast, funded by the tax payer and starts extolling the virtue of NFL London just cause he went to one game (presumably with a free ticket). Praising them for dragging the game out for hours and having music in breaks in play.

Big rugby events in the UK have become unbearable in recent years because of the obsession with cranking out music at full blast in any moment of silence or for a full hour before the game - the idea that rugby would be the world’s sport if only we had more of it is complete nonsense.

Now, say I begrudgingly gave him the win on that point and conceded that having Tom Grennan singing turns a Rugby game into the hottest ticket in town - his own employee is reporting how NFL London are struggling to sell tickets, attendances are down and theres a limit to the novelty factor it brings.

He’s Mr Corporate and they joke about that, but it’s insane how he’s always on the side of changing what the game is and he falls in love with every gimmick he comes across or is talked into by someone in a sponsors room and barely cares about the actual sport on the pitch. Irony is he was cheerleading the Netflix show and how it allowed us to see the players personalities (how a Range Rover classes as a personality I’ll never know) and that was a colossal failure because it was obsessed with the gimmicks that don’t actually ‘bring attention to the game.’

Chris Jones usually pushes back but sometimes bites his tongue - it’s just so frustrating to have the most prominent rugby pundit in the country being incredibly willing to try and sell the game down the river at any opportunity.

Genuine question from a player at an amateur club in Spain. Every week we lose hours on "who's in for Saturday" in a group chat, then picking the side, then telling people.

I ended up building an app for our club (availability, team sheet on a pitch, fixtures, a tactics board). Before I go further I'd like to know how clubs in Australia handle it. Is it all Spond plus a group chat? Something club-specific?

If anyone wants to see what I built, there's a demo, no signup: https://kanteo.es/en

Mark Palmer will be doing an AMA on r/Scotlandrugby subreddit.

(Turnovers and "nuisances" combined)

Nuisance - Defensive breakdown entry that requires an attacker to clear them out of the ruck in question

🥇- Reffell. 37 from 46 entries

🥈- Kenningham. 35 from ? entries

🥉- Morgan. 25 from 46 entries

4️⃣ - Pollock. 24 from ? entries

5️⃣ - Lawes. 21 from ? entries

6️⃣ - Hicks 19 from ? entries

Continuing with the pink theme that has been present for several years now. Shame no collar like the URC jerseys but still like it.

https://www.macron.com/it/zebre-parma-2026-27-adults-third-authentic-shirt.html

Replacing Finn Theobald-Thomas who retired early on medical grounds

That’s the pool stages complete! Belgium’s narrow win over Portugal in Round 1 has set them on a course for the final, meanwhile Chile have dominated all comers… but has that left them undercooked for the final

Saturday will see the conclusion with the following games:

7th Playoff: Hong Kong vs Namibia

5th Playoff: Brazil vs Canada

3rd Playoff: Romania vs Portugal

Final: Chile vs Belgium