Tony McKeever

“Australian Rugby Union officials are pushing for top European nations to be included in an expanded Tri-Nations tournament and teams from North and South America, Japan and the Pacific to be involved in an expanded Super 12 competition. “ARU chief executive John O’Neill reportedly wants the Super 12, the southern hemisphere’s premier provincial rugby competition, […]

Take a sample group of 10 Springbok players, playing in the 2008 Super 14; just because they are household names because of their visibility and profile in the media, you think you have a handle on this game of rugby and know what is going on. Then try to focus on these famous 10 and […]

Butch James sounds alarm over endless grind. Big bang theory? Every rugby player knows all about it, particularly the fly-half taking on the world single-handedly. One minute Butch James is steering South Africa to Test victories, the next he is back sloshing through the West Country ooze with Bath. In theory James is the future: […]

Here then, after much sifting and research, are the playing times of South African rugby’s elite Super 14 group of the Cheetahs, Bulls, Sharks, Lions and Stormers and their total playing time for the 2007 Super 14 season, to offer a benchmark of whether South Africa is maximising the playing time of its asset base […]

Here we are a few days away from the Tri-Nations final with South Africa as spectators to the clash in Brisbane on Saturday between the All Blacks and Wallabies and all we read about in South Africa are sex, lies and video tape. I am tracking the Guinness Premiership taking place between 12 teams in […]

Rugby Racism Spat May Cause Soweto Club to Leave Main Union By Vernon Wessels Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) — The Soweto Rugby Club, which started Johannesburg’s first senior black rugby team, threatened to quit the main provincial union, saying its claims of racist abuse weren’t dealt with. The union denied the allegation. The spat is the […]

How many hundreds of thousands of different opinions and versions are out there of what the Springboks need to do to win at home? It is a veritable blizzard of furious opinions and passionate theories of player combinations and styles that makes the vein thump in the temple and brings on a migraine. Winning is […]

The power play — Alex Perry, Stellenbosch, publish on Time.com on June 18 2008 Rugby is not a gentle game. But when the South African team walked onto Newlands rugby ground in Cape Town to face the British and Irish Lions on Sept. 12, 1903, expectations were of an especially violent match. It was just […]

Gentlemen: Over the past 48 hours there have been a number of reports emanating from New Zealand and Australia concerning a hybrid tournament of the Super 14. Interesting proposals, but it clearly reveals the market is ready for change and that the Sanzar announcement last month of the expansion of the Super 14 finals to […]

Why, oh why must South Africa always follow? The New Zealanders are on a path of reinventing rugby tournaments in the southern hemisphere. It is time SA Rugby snapped out of it and launched its own initiatives. Here is a report just in that will rock the rugby world. Unions keen on trans-Tasman rugby By […]

Was it or was it not a try of Ma’a Nonu shortly after the restart of the All Blacks-Wallabies Tri-Nations clash at Eden Park? Mark Lawrence, one of the world’s best referees, referred the decision to Shaun Veldsman, a fellow South African who was the television match official, to study the six different camera angles […]

The pressure is on SANZAR to finesse its rugby tournaments in the southern hemisphere and to provide the three Rugby Unions, their sponsors and broadcasters, with rugby tournaments that are relative and contemporary to modern sports fans. Change and a makeover of rugby is inevitable and it has to happen sooner than later. And now […]