Tony McKeever

A brand new 24-team British & Irish Cup will take place next year. Twelve teams from the English Championship, six from the Welsh Principality Premiership, Irish provinces Munster, Leinster and Ulster and three Scottish sides will compete for the inaugural trophy. The teams will be divided into four pools of six, playing over five weekends […]

While many local rugby fans, players, supporters and administrators are preoccupied with the poor SA Super 14 form; are going through the motions of the Vodacom Cup; thinking about the British & Irish Lions tour starting the end of May and preparing a team for the Currie Cup in July, a more sinister and monumental […]

Here we are at exactly 43% of the Super 14 tournament done. There are upsets galore and the Bulls and Sharks are still up there with 22 and 21 points respectively as number 1 and number 2. A great achievement and a wonderful place to be for the balance of the tournament because now it […]

Now the drama starts to increase after 23% of the competition has passed us by. All visiting teams won their matches except for the Cheetahs. The top three — the Bulls, Waratahs and Sharks — have won all three of their games and the last 3 — the Chief, Highlanders and Cheetahs — have lost […]

There comes a time in the Super-14 competition when teams start to panic realising they are at the bottom half of the table. One thing and one thing only will halt their plummet to the bottom of the log, which is the consistency of the team to score four tries per game and lose by […]

What an interesting Friday and Saturday it turned out to be — starting off the Super 14 with some peculiar results on the table, which will count for a lot in 10 weeks’ time when the top teams angle for a quarter-final. Let’s digress for a moment: There was the upset last night in San […]

In a week’s time there will be much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth looking at the Super 14 table. It’s also interesting looking at the tables from previous years only because it removes the emotiveness of evaluation. The local media have been analysing the prospects of the Super 14 team and players and how they […]

Come June, SA Rugby will need to come up with guarantees of R3 billion for an event to be staged in 2015 and 2019. And a strategic plan of note. This is the same organisation that if you pop along to their site you will see they are operating off a 2003 and 2005 plan for […]

There has been a dizzying amount of information pumped out by the Super 14 Rugby teams in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, all of it on team sheets, teams, warm-up games, venues and players beset with injuries — the latest being Dan Carter’s (Crusaders) Achilles tendon op to Jaque Fourie’s (Bulls) hand. It’s almost […]

1. Stormers vs Saracens The Stormers ran in six tries in their 43-33 win over the English tourists Saracens in the international friendly clash at a sweltering Newlands on Sunday afternoon. 26 000 spectators turned out to watch the nine tries. Scorers: Stormers: Tries: Sireli Naqelevuki (2), Gcobani Bobo, Schalk Brits, Luke Watson, Joe Pietersen. […]

Here we go — January 2009 and the Super 14 warm up games have started in New Zealand. They are so organised their squads were announced mid November 2008. As we are four weeks out of the start of the Super 14 tournament on February 13, I thought we could focus on each of the […]

South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. could make southern hemisphere and Super Rugby more valuable to sponsors and broadcasters with an attractive rugby spectacle by introducing a coherent rugby inventory that complements the existing domestic and international tournaments and makes the Super 14 stronger. SA Rugby’s Hoskins as Chairman of Sanzar, […]