Birmingham Post - Sports Columnists - Sports Comment

Rugby Notes: Licensing is no way forward for RFU

Birmingham Post — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:01:00 GMT

Doncaster’s unfortunate plight at the bottom of the RFU Championship has added a previously unheard voice to some of the well-aired issues extant at the most perilous of professional rugby’s precipices.

Rugby Notes: British Lions fail to roar in Six Nations

Birmingham Post — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:38:00 GMT

In most Lions years, the preceding Five or Six Nations championship has been a two-month audition with players literally clambering over each other to bring themselves to the selectors’ attention.

Rugby Notes: Moseley RFC planning fitting tribute to Alan Adam

Birmingham Post — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Rugby correspondent Brian Dick pays a personal tribute to Moseley shareholder Alan Adam

Rugby Notes: Moseley deserve a lucky break

Birmingham Post — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

To borrow a line from New York Giants quarter-back Eli Manning – I am not superstitious, but maybe I am a little-stitious.

Rugby Notes: England's rose shows signs of blooming again

Birmingham Post — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

There’s an interesting dichotomy extant in professional rugby where England are being eulogised for playing badly and winning, while Worcester Warriors are lauded for playing well and losing. Go figure.

Rugby Notes: Moseley's Olly Robinson looks forward to family reunion when Bristol visit

Birmingham Post — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Proof that the sporting gods have a sense of humour came earlier this week when Andy Robinson was unveiled as Bristol’s new director of rugby.

Rugby Notes: Muddy hell for players - and the kit man

Birmingham Post — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

There were quite a few amusing incidents during last weekend’s rain-affected rugby matches, most of which left the combatants either destroying playing surfaces or disappearing beneath them.

Rugby Notes: IRB can't pretend it is immune to match-fixing

Birmingham Post — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The murky world of sport betting has once again been in the news following the revelation that several high profile football matches may have been fixed.

Rugby Notes: British Lions hopefuls aiming to shine in the Six Nations

Birmingham Post — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

With the RBS Six Nations kicking off on Saturday, rugby correspondent Brian Dick discusses what will unfold and who needs to do what in their last audition for the British Lions.

Rugby Notes: Charlie Hayter more valuable to Moseley than London Wasps

Birmingham Post — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:50:00 GMT

Kevin Maggs’s insistence Charlie Hayter was always a Premiership player in waiting was proved correct as London Wasps lured Moseley’s most dangerous attacker away from Billesley Common.

Nigel Redman presses Semisi Taulava's England claims

Birmingham Post — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Worcester forwards coach Nigel Redman has pressed Semisi Taulava’s England claims and believes that the giant back rower should be considered among the best in the Premiership.

Rugby Notes: Fourie debate raises questions for IRB over nationality

Birmingham Post — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

When I first saw Hendre Fourie on a rugby field he played like a man who allowed nothing and no-one to stand in his way.

Rugby Notes: Community work will pay dividends after RFU's Sport England funding cut

Birmingham Post — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There have been some interesting announcements in the oval world over the past few days, none more so than the decision by Sport England to reduce rugby union’s grassroots funding by 30 per cent.

Peter Sharkey: Ecclestone finds right formula for selling grand prix racing

Birmingham Post — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:00:00 GMT

The so-called gentrification of sport has created a widening strata of well-heeled sports fans, each keen to enjoy the action up close accompanied by a clutch of friends, and often a gaggle of hangers-on.

Rugby Notes: England still on spin cycle

Birmingham Post — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

If the hyperbole leading up to England’s Twickenham appointment with New Zealand was impressive – and if you go in for over-exaggeration and soundbites it certainly was, then what’s followed has, in Olympic year, been nothing short of Olympian.

Rugby Notes: England still on spin cycle

Birmingham Post — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Rugby Notes: Time for a rethink and a reschedule of British & Irish Cup fixtures

Birmingham Post — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Under normal circumstances a day in Richmond, a morning at Kew Gardens, lunch by the river, and a rugby match at any one of the area’s handful of welcoming clubs is an exceedingly pleasant way to pass time.

Peter Sharkey: Low-cost gyms gathering momentum

Birmingham Post — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Prolonged spells of economic uncertainty are, almost inevitably, periods when people develop an enhanced sense of budget consciousness.

Worcester Warriors wing Nikki Walker aims to inject momentum into his Sixways career and return to Scotland duty

Birmingham Post — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Bill McLaren used to call them ‘perambulating man mountains’, rugby’s giants who run like the wind and adopt a wrecking ball mentality to their carrying.

Comment: England's plodding forwards likely to be too strong for Australia's wobbly scrum

Birmingham Post — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

England opened their autumn international series with a routine, almost perfunctory victory over Fiji, that just about saw them scrape par with a performance that was inspired by a few individuals but was collectively uninspiring.