Rugby World Cup Groups 2015: Key Storylines in Pool A

Australia, England, Fiji, Uruguay and Wales make up Pool A of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and the pool is looking like the most fascinating of all. With the group featuring three of the world’s top five teams, as per World Rugby rankings, at least one heavyweight will exit the tournament at this stage. This is a group of unlucky teams, home comforts, veterans seeking redemption and big-name cross-code converts. In the following slides, Bleacher Report outlines five key storylines to follow during the much-anticipated Pool A. Begin Slideshow  Read More →

Rugby World Cup Fixtures 2015: Key Battles in Week 1 Matches

The time for holding back has almost reached its end, and Friday’s opening fixture of the 2015 Rugby World Cup signals the beginning of a more serious test welcomed by the global elite. The upper echelon of world rugby has had its experimentation period, but from this weekend onward, fans can expect to see international coaches wheeling out their big guns in force. Among the most enticing fixtures in Week 1 sits a southern-hemisphere clash between New Zealand and Argentina, a European duel between France and Italy, along with a testing opener for hosts England, who take on Fiji. Read on as... 

Rugby World Cup 2015: Ranking Top Forwards in Tournament

Travel to any rugby club on a dark, midweek evening and observe the forwards going through a punishing session on the scrummage machine, or beating each other up in a rucking drill. At some point in proceedings, they’ll come together for some words of wisdom from their coach. Any gambling man would have a shilling or two on one of his first lines being: “Remember, boys, forwards win matches, backs decide by how much.” It has ever been thus. The players wearing No. 1 to No. 8 are the hole diggers, the piano shifters, the labourers who clear the way for the players Mick Skinner... 

A to Z of the IRB Rugby World Cup 2015

Less than a week remains until the 2015 Rugby World Cup arrives on England’s shores, and more than six years of preparation culminates in one of the greatest showcases known to sport. More than 600 players representing 20 different nations head to the tournament, each holding the common goal of lifting the Webb Ellis trophy come October 31. But a long road awaits those taking part. The Rugby World Cup brings with it a long list of questions, stories and unravelling controversies ready to advance once the competition gets underway, but it’s simple to get lost among the headlines. We... 

Rugby World Cup 2015: Why Samu Manoa Will Be USA’s X-Factor

The Eagles land in England for the 2015 Rugby World Cup with an improving team looking to take a scalp or two in their pool matches. Mike Tolkin’s United States are in a group with South Africa, Scotland, Samoa and Japan and showed glimpses in their latest outing, against Australia, that they can ruffle a few feathers of the more fancied sides. This ability to unsettle is spearheaded, as you might expect, by the one-man demolition crew that is Samu Manoa. Northampton Saints fans will know exactly what this man is all about. They bade him farewell at the end of the recent season. He is off... 

Rugby World Cup 2015: Why Nehe Milner-Skudder Will Be New Zealand’s X-Factor

New Zealand’s World Cup squad carries a huge amount of experience into the defence of the trophy they won in 2011. The likes of Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu, Conrad Smith and Kieran Read have all tasted World Cup glory before, and many of these players are still the outstanding names in their positions in world rugby. Any one of those men could prove the decisive element to a second consecutive Webb Ellis Cup for the world’s No. 1 team. But we are searching for the X-factor here, and by its very definition, we must look beyond the household All Black names if we are to... 

Rugby World Cup 2015: Why Bismarck du Plessis Will Be South Africa’s X-Factor

The role of the hooker has been under the spotlight in the northern hemisphere during the Rugby World Cup warm-up phase before the tournament starts 18 September. Both England and Scotland have a first-choice man in the role whose work around the field is outstanding, but Tom Youngs and Ross Ford have major issues with their throwing into the lineout for their respective teams. With Dylan Hartley absent for England and no real contender to Ford’s spot as Scotland’s first choice, both sides seem rather stuck with the men in possession of the shirts, regardless of how many throws... 

Rugby World Cup 2015: Why Kurtley Beale Will Be Australia’s X-Factor

Australia arrive at the 2015 Rugby World Cup with the tag as perhaps the most dangerous side in the tournament. An unimpressive few years in the Rugby Championship was ended in style this summer when Michael Cheika’s men took the crown, beating the All Blacks along the way. They got stuffed by the New Zealanders a week later in a Bledisloe Cup rubber, but they did enough with wins over South Africa, Argentina and their trans-Tasman neighbours to alert the world that they can beat anyone on their day. Much work has been done to strengthen their traditionally weak scrum, and behind the pack... 

Australian Rugby Team Help Clean Up in Chicago

The Wallabies might be just a matter of weeks away from the Rugby World Cup, but a fan video from their match against the USA in Chicago shows the side still remains grounded. Australia, ranked second in the world, beat the Eagles 47-10, but footage after the final whistle shows the squad cleaning up rubbish from around the benches. [Facebook (Rugby Banter Page)] Read more Rugby Union news on BleacherReport.com  Read More →

Rugby World Cup 2015: Why Jonny May Will Be England’s X Factor

England finished the last World Cup with Chris Ashton and Mark Cueto as their first-choice wings. It was a fair bet that, given the wreckage of that adventure under Martin Johnson, there would be wholesale changes to the setup. The team manager was one of the first casualties, replaced in an interim capacity for the start of the 2012 Six Nations by Stuart Lancaster, who set about securing the job permanently and overhauling the playing staff to boot. The wide men of the Johnson era were perhaps not immediately on Lancaster’s chopping list. But the tries from out wide then started to run... 

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