Here are the latest rugby headlines on Monday, June 5.
Player stabbed by spectator at match
A player has been stabbed by a spectator at a club rugby match in South Africa's Boland region.
The incident happened on the field during the half-time break of the League A match between Never Despair and Porterville at the Alfa Street stadium in Malmesbury, according to News24.
The Boland Rugby Union said the incident, in the town around 40 miles north of Cape Town, saw a Never Despair player stabbed on the field. The alleged culprit was pursued by players and detained before being handed over to police. The injured player was taken to hospital and discharged on Sunday.
The full Boland Rugby Union statement says: "The Boland Rugby Union mourns the shocking incident during a League A match between Never Despair and Porterville at the Alfa street stadium in Malmesbury where a player from the home club (Never Despair) was stabbed with a knife on the field during the half-time break.
"The union immediately reached out to the Never Despair rugby community to assist in any way possible. The chairman of Never Despair chased after the culprit, and with the help of players, the person was detained and handed over to SAPS.
"The vice-chairman of the club, Mr James Davids, a paramedic, attended to the wounded player until he was taken to hospital by ambulance. The player was discharged from hospital [on Sunday].
"After a discussion between management of the two clubs and match officials, the match was called off because the referees were too traumatised to go ahead.
"Randall Swarts, the chairman of the visiting club, confirmed to Boland Rugby that his club was satisfied that the host club's safety procedures were in order, with security visible. The traumatic events, even though isolated, are viewed in a very serious light by the union. The union immediately discussed the incident with the club in order to obtain a detailed report."
Wales warned about World Cup opponents Fiji
Cardiff-raised rugby administrator Mark Evans is backing Fiji to surprise Wales and Australia at the Rugby World Cup, with the Welshman seeing first-hand the talent available to the Flying Fijians through his role as chief executive of the Fijian Drua Super Rugby franchise.
The former Harlequins, Saracens, Western Force and Melbourne Storm boss took over in Fiji last year on a three-year contract, with the aim of making the franchise financially viable.
Significant strides have since been made in only the side's second season in the competition, newly named Super Rugby Pacific last year, when the Drua joined alongside Moana Pasifika, a team made up of players with Samoan and Tongan heritage. Both teams finished in the bottom two places last season, but the Drua have found their feet this term and have made history by earning a quarter-final against the Crusaders, who are chasing their fifth successive title, in Christchurch on Saturday.
Evans believes it all bodes well for Fiji at the global showpiece tournament this autumn, with the Drua expected to provide a large contingent of the squad's players alongside Europe-based players who will have time to prepare across five warm-up games. As well as Wales and Australia, Fiji's World Cup pool is completed by Georgia and Portugal.
"Part of the project here was to improve the national team and while I have divided loyalties when it comes to the Rugby World Cup, the Drua will have an impact on how the Flying Fijians go in France," Evans told RugbyPass. “Of course Australia and Wales are the big teams in the pool but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Fiji qualify for the knock out stages. Certainly, they have a chance and what has been missed by many people is that the Flying Fijians have five warm up games; Tonga, Samoa, Japan, England and France.
"Fiji do well at World Cups because it is the only time the players get time to prepare and this time you have the cohesion of the Drua players plus those games to integrate everyone before you even get to the tournament. They are going to be a good team and Drua will probably have 13 or 15 of the 33 man squad and that is a big change for Fiji to have nearly half the squad playing regularly together – just as like the Super Rugby Jaguares side helped Argentina." Read the full RugbyPass interview here.
Evans was in an apparent two-horse race with Gareth Jenkins to succeed Steve Hansen as Wales coach in 2004, only for the job to go to Mike Ruddock, while he has twice applied to be WRU chief executive, including the most recent time there was a vacancy, following Martyn Phillips’ exit in 2020. You can read his full back story here.
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Dragons prepare for first of three pre-seasons
The Dragons are preparing to kick off the first of three pre-season camps next week, four months before the United Rugby Championship kicks off. Many of the players will return to the club’s Ystrad Mynach training base on June 12 as the long countdown to the new URC and Challenge Cup season begins.
The 2023-24 league campaign has been pencilled in to start on the weekend of October 21-22, which coincides with the World Cup quarter-finals.
Scrum-half Rhodri Williams, 30, insists the Dragons will "dig deep" to build their game in the off-season and also acknowledged it will be an unusual pre-season for the squad.
“Pre-season is always hard and this year we’ve got three of them in total! It is very different - definitely the longest that I’ve done,” said Williams. “It’s in the hands of the strength and conditioning coaches, physios, Dai [Flanagan] and rest of the coaching staff and there will be a clear plan in place.
“We will probably break the game down into small areas and this gives us time to dig deep and look at how we want to build our game moving forward. We will come back for day one with open minds so that we can make steps in the right direction for October. It’s exciting and we have got a lot of work to do.”
Williams will this season see himself up against even more competition with Dane Blacker among the new faces set to arrive at HQ. But it is a challenge that Williams – who has been a key figure since arriving from Bristol in 2018 – is ready to embrace.
“There's more competition and we are fortunate with that at No. 9 here with me, Gonzo, Lewis Jones, Dane coming into the fold plus Che Hope and Morgan Lloyd coming through,” he said. “We are stacked in that position, but we learn bits off each other because we each have areas of our game that are strong.
“We have good working relationships as No. 9s and help each other out as much as we can. If you see something that another player hasn’t then you try to open their eyes up to it. It’s that one goal as a team and it is positive competition. There are things that I have learnt from Gonzo plus the extra bit of motivation to get your best game out on the park.”
RFU to appoint first woman president in two years
England's Rugby Football Union is set to appoint Deborah Griffin as its first woman president in 2025, according to reports.
The landmark appointment of Griffin, an RFU council member since 2010 and one of the first female representatives on World Rugby’s council, will come in the same year that England host the Women's Rugby World Cup.
The Telegraph report that the presidential succession plan for the next three seasons will be ratified at an RFU council AGM on June 16. Rob Briers will succeed incumbent Nigel Gillingham on August 1, with Rob Udwin taking over from Briers as senior vice-president and Griffin his junior. From August 2024, Udwin will move up to president before Griffin makes history in 2025.
Griffin, whose rugby journey started as a player at University College London 45 years ago, is a pioneer of the women’s game, having founded the Women’s Rugby Football Union in 1983, which eventually integrated with the RFU in 2012, and chaired the organisation of the first Women’s World Cup in 1991.
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