“Is the international game under threat? I think it is. Look at the balance sheets of some nations and you can see exactly where we stand. If you ask me as a businessman, the business side of rugby is not working. By the 2019 World Cup we need to have a blueprint for the next 10 years. I’m not going to be an accomplice to rugby’s ruin” – World Rugby’s Agustín Pichot issues a stark global warning.
“I don’t think the natural talent in New Zealand is better than some of the talent we have on this side of the world. Defensively in Europe we are more advanced than they are, most definitely” – Ronan O’Gara, currently Crusaders assistant coach.
Jacob Stockdale: ‘We went after the All Blacks with confidence’
“I can’t say I am surprised. It’s an unbelievably difficult game to play. Only when you’ve been out there at the very highest level do you know how much pain you have to go through and what difficulties you have to deal with” – Shaun Edwards on Lions and Wales captain Sam Warburton’s retirement aged 29.
“We’ve played 23 Tests and we’ve only lost one Test to the scummy Irish. I’m still dirty about that game but we’ll get that back, don’t worry” – Eddie Jones’s less-than-diplomatic prediction to a corporate audience. England trailed in fifth in the Six Nations.
“Call me thick but I can’t understand why he’s been getting grief. What about the job he did after the World Cup? Maybe they’re giving him grief because he’s an Aussie” – Wallabies’ coach Michael Cheika rides to Jones’s defence.
“I have friends working on scaffolding sites back home who are quicker than Jonny May. That’s where football and those other sports have cracked it. Is rugby really grassroots? When I was younger, I never felt comfortable sitting in the clubhouse having my chips and sausage, because I just felt everyone was looking at me thinking, ‘Who the fuck is this’?” – Leicester’s Ellis Genge questions whether union is truly inclusive.
“I was the best club hooker in the world but I never got picked for Australia, because I was never going to be an international player as long as my backside pointed to the ground. Club rugby is club rugby” – Eddie Jones on the difference between Test and club level.
“We need people to start saying: ‘What is this going to look like in 20 years’ time?’ Do we want a more skill-based game that involves being on our feet more and requires tactics and technique over brawn and brute strength. If that’s our goal, let’s look at our laws. Players who are just finishing their careers are already saying: ‘This isn’t fun’” – Ben Ryan, Fiji’s Olympic gold medal-winning sevens coach.
“It’s about encouraging women that you don’t have to look a certain way to play rugby. When we’re out and say we’re rugby players, some people will say: ‘What, all of you?’ Then they point at the wingers and go: ‘Even them? They’re good looking!’” – Shaunagh Brown, Harlequins and England forward.
“Every kid grows up dreaming of playing for Ireland. When you do that the next thing you want to do is win something for Ireland. To win something as captain in that special green jersey is what dreams are made of” – Ireland’s captain, Rory Best, savours a Grand Slam.
“If you’re going to be a bear be a Grizzly. For years I’ve thought like that. What’s the point of being someone who sits in a corner and no one knows who they are? When the big games are happening and the bright lights are on, that’s when I like to shine” – James “Cubby Boi” Davies, the Scarlets and Wales flanker, reveals his personal mantra.
“If you have the best coach available who wants to come back and he’s motivated to coach the All Blacks and he’s the right man for the job, well then you would have to weigh all those things up” – Richie McCaw on the possibility of Joe Schmidt taking over from Steve Hansen as All Blacks coach.
“The main thing was a lack of purpose. Not having a team to coach was really eating away at me, not being able to put anything right and just having to sit there thinking about it. It is very difficult when you are out of work” – Stuart Lancaster on life before he resumed his coaching career at Leinster.
“If he was Johnny Sexton then we’d be able to complain but because he’s Owen Farrell he’s allowed to be hit late. He’s tough so he gets up. He’s a tough rooster, a warrior. He puts his body on the line, he doesn’t play in a dinner suit” – Eddie Jones sings his fly-half’s praises.
“I played like an absolute helmet, which often happened around England time” – Joe Marler reflects on the anxiety he used to feel about going away on international training camps.
“My grandparents were very English and there was a lot of English heritage in the way we were brought up – teaspoons on the wall, chip butties on Sunday afternoon” – England’s new arrival Brad Shields reflects on his youth in New Zealand.
“Guys in New Zealand who are second or third string, we’re not getting paid the same as the Beauden Barretts. I fell into that category. Now, if I’m smart and make the right choices, if I’m not buying stupid cars and stuff like that, this money will be put to good use. Who wouldn’t want that for their family?” – Wasps’ marquee signing Lima Sopoaga.
“I was at a kids’ party and I had no mobile signal. There was a bouncy castle there and I was having a great time. When I finally walked out my phone was going mad” – Exeter prop Ben Moon on his England call-up.
Manu Tuilagi: ‘I always expect to be good and that is the pressure’
“I’d be in situations where I’d be having to get our daughter out of bed at 3am in order to take Tiffany to hospital, because she wasn’t well at all. I’d drop Tiff at the front door, head home again and then be playing against Toulon the next day” – Tom Youngs on helping his wife – now in remission from cancer – through the bad times.
“It’s not uncommon. It’s a high-impact injury – a lot of surgeons find it in people who have come off motorbikes. I’ve met an ex-serviceman who was shot through his brachial plexus and a young lady who was skiing and went off a cliff. My injury is not something I hold against the game in any shape or form, it’s just one of those things” – Rob Horne, the Wallabies and Northampton centre, on his life-changing arm injury.
“You’re asking for unconditional support and only my children get that” – Andy Cosslett, the RFU chairman, on Eddie Jones’s future following England’s series defeat in South Africa.
“I was sipping tequilas in Ibiza” – Schalk Brits on his unlikely Springbok comeback having retired in May.
“The club season is finished and the players are going to be back with their clubs early anyway. It’s a sad indictment on the politics of the game” – Warren Gatland on Premiership Rugby declining to release English club-based players for international training even after their domestic seasons have concluded.
“The women’s game has changed massively. There were a couple of hundred watching and most of them were friends and family” – Katy Daley-Mclean, who won her 100th cap in November, recalls her international debut in 2007.
“Too much violence, too many blows, too much trauma, too many shocks. Let’s go back to the basics of this sport where it is unbearable to think that one can leave one’s life out there” – Former France scrum-half Jérôme Fillol mourns the tragic loss of Nicolas Chauvin, a 19-year-old junior with Stade Français, who became the third young French rugby player to die in 2018.