on the evidence of the first weekend of the new French Top 14 season, the style of rugby perfected in particular by the All Blacks in this season’s southern hemisphere Tri-Nations competition has yet to reach the shores of Europe.

Plans for the proposed International Super Rugby (ISR) tournament are set to go ahead, despite SANZAR confirming that they will not support the IPL-styled competition set to be launched in January 2012.

The Australian Rugby Union is set to take a strong stance against a proposed new IPL-styled competition, set to be launched by Stormers Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus in 2012.

Rocky Elsom will captain Australia for the first time on home soil in his 50th test, named to lead the Wallabies in their first test of 2010 against Fiji in Canberra.

The Rugby Players’ Association has voted Saracens hooker Schalk Brits player of the year in his debut season in the Guinness Premiership.

“Perhaps it is time for English rugby to be run like a modern professional sport, and not a rural prep school.”
Saracens will appeal against director of rugby Brendan Venter’s 14-week touchline ban after chief executive Edward Griffiths angrily described disciplinary officer Jeff Blackett’s judgement as “self parody” and a “public attack”.

The Springboks will play home three-Test series against England (twice), France and Ireland in the six years either side of the 2015 Rugby World Cup as a result of an International Rugby Board decision to return to ‘old-style’ rugby touring.

Rugby Club Innsbruck earned a deserved victory over McDonalds OÖ this weekend in near perfect conditions at Hatting.

Super 14 players Wandile Mjekevu and fullback Patrick Lambie have been drafted in to the SA Under-20 training squad that will participate in a seven-day pre-World Championship camp in Saldanha from next Thursday.

Vienna Celtic 43 – 27 Rugby Club Innsbruck
Two late tries gave Vienna Celtic victory over RCI in the opening Bundesliga fixture of 2010.

A number of Australian players can be expected to turn out for New Zealand teams in the NPC this season according to Counties Manukau coach Milton Haig.
UMAGA ALSO DRAWING CARD FOR SAFFAS.

Aerial ping-pong killing the game – Paul Sackey
Paul Sackey has stuck the boot into English rugby by revealing that he is quitting Wasps out of sheer boredom and frustration.

The Maties and the Ikeys continued their unbeaten records this year, as the South ruled the North in some intriguing Round Five battles in the 2010 FNB Varsity Cup presented by Steinhoff International.

Springbok Sevens coach Paul Treu must be thinking that the more things change, the more they stay the same, as his side lost their third consecutive IRB Sevens Plate final, going down 26-22 to Australia in the Wellington Sevens.

The FNB Varsity Cup has never been scared of experimentation – and this year will see the introduction of 23-man playing squads for the first time in South African rugby history and pink shorts.