Lyon

With the weather being so lovely in Aberdeen these past few days, we don’t have to be jealous of those in warmer climates – we got a taste of it for ourselves. Got your Scotland cap yet?

But it is the weekend we turn our attention to Lyon, France. Friday we see the Harlequins go against Montpellier. And then on Saturday we see Saracens against Racing 92. Check out the Harlequins jersey on our website.

The Champions Cup and the Challenge Cup finals will be the first major rugby occasions staged at the state-of-the-art Grand Stade de Lyon which will also be one of the venues for the UEFA Euro 2016 finals hosting six games including a semi-final.

The second-biggest agglomeration in France is famous for its 2,000 years of history (once Lugdunum, capital of the Gauls), its cultural events and its fine dining. UNESCO has recognised the exceptional nature of Lyon by listing it as a World Heritage site.

 

The weather for the French city this weekend isn’t actually that great, Aberdeen had it better this week!

Things to see according to Trip Advisor:

• Presqu’île: the narrow strip of land between the Rhone and Saone rivers, Presqu’îleis home to the most popular shopping streets, from Place Bellecour to Place des Terreaux at the foot of the Croix-Rousse hill.
• The old town: Vieux-Lyon features Renaissance buildings and townhouses, medieval streets and narrow passageways that host some of the best bouchons – typical Lyon restaurants.
• Lyon’s lungs: Parc de la Tête d’Or in the north of Lyon acts as the lungs of the city. Extending over an area of 105 hectares, this is one of the largest urban parks in France

More can be found at the Discover Lyon website.

Women’s rugby

Yes – in other news, the girls of Irish rugby have taken over their Facebook page as the logo was revealed for the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup taking place in Dublin and Belfast #BringIt

 

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As the Rugby Plus team here in Aberdeen is 75% female we believe it’s important to draw attention to the girls in the sporting world! Drawing specific attention to rugby for women!

The history of women’s rugby is actually really interesting. Historians don’t actually know when it first started because of the secretive nature of the early years of all women’s sport – especially rugby union. Some girls played the game unofficially as part of their school teams — and the earliest confirmed record of any female definitely playing rugby at any level anywhere in the world comes from a school game. This happened at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Ireland. Emily Valentine’s brothers were responsible for the formation of the school’s first rugby team in 1884. Emily practised with the team and in 1887 she played for the school, scoring a try.

How Rugby for Women progressed…

Rugbyfest pointed the way to the next big leap forward—the first women’s rugby world cup, which took place in Wales in 1991. Timed to coincide with the second men’s world cup being held in England it did not meet with official approval from the IRB, a decision which threatened the competition and was a factor in the New Zealand RFU not supporting their entry. However, this did not stop the New Zealanders from taking part—nor Wales, USA, England, France, Canada, Sweden, USSR, Japan, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands.

In 1994 a second world cup was awarded to the Netherlands, but constant prevarication by the IRB about whether they would (or would not) give the tournament official status caused huge problems for the hosts, in fact the IRB went so far as to threaten sanctions against any unions that did take part. Faced with this the Dutch withdrew as competitors and hosts, and who was it that saved the second women’s world cup? The Scots! The second world cup was held in Scotland.

Widespread acceptance of the game leads to women’s versions of other major rugby union tournaments (the women’s Five Nations begins in 1999), and growing numbers of headlines. In 2000 the Irish WRFU affiliate fully with the IRFU.

Women’s teams are now being accepted on the main stage. In 2002 Scotland play their first women’s match at Murrayfield and in 2003 England stage the first women’s international at Twickenham

In 2012 The IRB launches the IRB Women’s Sevens World Series, analogous to the men’s IRB Sevens World Series.

Women’s Rugby Sevens at the Olympic Games…

And in 2016, women’s rugby sevens will be played alongside men’s sevens at the Rio Olympic Games.

So now, after all that it is actually socially acceptable for women to play rugby! The girls who play are still breaking the social stigma of the ‘manly’ sport and becoming brilliant athletes.

Both Aberdeen University and RGU have women’s rugby teams – that recently played together for the first time in the Granite City Challenge.

Our lovely Anna who works in the shop played for the Aberdeen University side when she was at uni, and now she plays for Aberdeenshire Quines.

So we’ve got an experienced player in women’s rugby – maybe I should follow in her footsteps? Let’s have two female rugby players on the Rugby Plus team? Pretty sure I wouldn’t have the stomach for it but maybe I should try!

 

 

We’ve still got some Seven’s matches left and some games in the Champions Cup and the Pro 12. The season may be coming to an end, but Rugby Plus in Aberdeen has still got the things you need for keeping fit and healthy this Spring. Check out our growing ladies collection.

Like navy Canterbury stadium pants, but with a bright orange logo – perfect for Spring and Summer!

And we still have plenty of ladies rugby jerseys to choose from.

-BG.

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The #6Nations is over for another year and this year it really was not that interesting. The rugby wasn’t the same level as it had been over the years, and the best matches were all held on that last day last week. #SuperSaturday was jammed pack with the three last games, and we already knew that England had one the championship, but their hopes of a grand slam was still alive.

Scotland could’ve made it 3 wins in a row if they had beaten Ireland. But 2 days after St Patrick’s day, in Dublin’s city centre, the Scottish had a challenge ahead of them as the Irish crowd and team were in the best of spirits. Ireland ended up beating the Scottish side 35 points to 25.

England won against France, beating them 31 points to 21. This meant that they had won all their matches, giving them the #Grandslam title as well.

And now, less than a week after #SuperSaturday the player of the tournament was named. And it was Scotland’s own Stuart Hogg!

He secured over 30% of the public vote and the full back received the backing of 20,970 fans.

In addition to the public vote, over the last seven weeks of action-packed rugby the Royal Bank and NatWest panel of rugby legends have been analysing the Championship’s best performances.

On receiving his award, Hogg commented, “I’m honoured to receive the RBS Player of the Championship Trophy and join the list of the esteemed players that have won in the past. I’m extremely grateful for all the supporters who voted for me”. 

You can read more of the full story here.

While Cotter’s troops finished off their 2016 campaign with defeat to Ireland in Dublin, Hogg was unstoppable.

The full-back’s first-half score was a thing of real beauty. After collecting a clearing kick in his own half, Hogg isolated two front-rowers in Rory Best and Mike Ross, scorched through the gap and then showed remarkable top speed to beat the covering defence and go over for a sublime score.

Accenture have also released their RBS 6 nations team of the Championship and Hogg is playing at number 15.

With international rugby finished for a while, you can catch up with Stuart Hogg as he plays for the Glasgow Warriors. Check out our website to get yourself kitted out. 

 

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The history of rugby at the Olympics is an interesting one. And now, rugby will once again be played at the 2016 Rio Olympics – but it’ll be 7’s rugby.

It all started in 1900 at the Paris Olympics, rugby was played for the first time at an Olympic Games. It continued to be played at 1908 London Olympics, in 1920 in Antwerp and Paris again in 1924. In 1925 before the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928, a man called Baron de Coubertin stepped down as the President of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the guy that stepped up didn’t really like rugby so it was dropped from the Olympic programme.

So from 1925 onwards there has been major campaigning to get rugby back into the Olympics. It was put forward again for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and for London in 2012 but again the requests were denied and the goal of rugby becoming an Olympic sport was still out of reach.

Then this guy came along – Bernard Lapassest. The World Rugby Chairman made getting rugby back into the Olympics his top priority. The sport made the shortlist and at the 121st IOC Session in 2009 it was overwhelmingly voted in as an Olympic sport for 2016 and 2020. So now, for the first time in 92 years, Rugby is back at the 2016 Rio Olympics – it is actually the first year the Rugby 7’s is being played #RoadToRio .

So – Scottish, English and Welsh players will make up #TeamGB, whereas Ireland will have both players from the North and South.

The question is, why did they decide on rugby 7’s instead of the normal 15-a-side teams? The IOC’s argument is that 7’s is more “fast-paced and action packed”. Because it’s faster, more games can be played so a typical 7’s tournament spreads across two days which is perfect for the Olympic games.

You can find out more about Rugby in the Rio 2016 Olympics here.

The Scotland 7’s team plays all year round, across 10 legs in the HSBC Sevens World Series. In the past 15 years that these series have been played, New Zealand have won all except three.

Rugby 7’s was actually invented in Scotland – wahey! – in the border town of Melrose.

The boys will be back in the UK in London on the 21st and 22nd of May for the last leg of the 2015/16 HSBC Sevens Series, and then hopefully some of them will be heading off to Rio for the summer with #TeamGB #RoadToRio #AsOne.

So head on over to the #RugbyPlus website to kit yourself out to support the 7’s this year at the Scottish boys at the olympics.

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If your look at the statistics for the number of players in the 6 Nations countries, there is one country that sticks out. England has over 2 million total players, but only 6.5% of this number are senior males. Scotland has over 38,000 registered players, and 30% of this total are senior males. Does this prove there is a difference between how English and Scottish players are brought into seniority? Obviously England has more players because it is a bigger country, but more Scottish players are at a senior level. Read on to find out more – it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of rugby facts.

All of the other 6 Nation countries, Italy (23%), France (35%), Wales (44%) and Ireland (16%) all have percentages of senior males that are significantly higher than England.

So here’s the question…

This data also leads to the question, does a country need more players to perform better in official competitions? There are two answers to this, one is yes the more players means a better pool of talent, for example England. But then there is the no argument, for example Wales has one of the smallest numbers of total players, but they have won the 6 Nations several times.

With any sport many people think that starting young is best, and rugby is no exception to that! It has been proven that training programs such as #minirugby prove to be successful in promoting a child’s interest in the sport, and they are more likely to continue with it. Obviously only if your kid enjoys it.

I didn’t actually know the history of women’s rugby, it started off by being shamed by society, and then more girls got into it, and the women rugby union associations were set up, and now the women’s teams are under the same association as the men. Scotland was one of the last countries to unite the women’s rugby with the men, it was June 2009 that the Women’s Rugby Union merged with the Scottish Rugby Union.

Rugby has obviously become more popular over the years and many people believe the growing popularity of women’s rugby has contributed to it. More and more girls are fighting the ‘manly’ stigma of the game and are playing. More hometown clubs have a female side, and now many universities’ have one too leading to more girls getting into the profession.

Keep one eye on our blog for more rugby facts – there’s plenty to learn. Make sure you’re up to date with everything that’s been going on, Six Nations is a huge event and you’d be daft to miss out.

 

 

 

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The Six Nations and what Ireland have to say…

Ireland’s #6Nations campaign hasn’t started out the way we all were expecting to. With the chance to win the championship for a third time in a row, the team haven’t really stepped up – or maybe every other team has simply learnt Joe Schmidt’s ways and are now proving tough competition to the men in green. Read on to find out more about how Six Nations has impacted Ireland.

With a draw against Wales in the first match, and it being one of the least exciting games of rugby I have ever watched didn’t really set our Irish hopes up but you know there was still the belief. Then came the next weekend and by narrowly losing to France by one point, the supporters have started to worry a bit.

Ireland captain Rory Best came out and admitted that the hopes of Ireland winning the 6 nations for a third year in a row are now in jeopardy after losing to France last Saturday. Second row Devin Toner has said that the position Ireland are in now is not ideal,

“it’s obviously out of our hands now, but there’s still always a chance. Look at last year – it came down to the three final games”.

Ireland are currently placed at number 4 in the table, with England and Wales above us and Scotland below. We have one point to our name and with only 3 games left to play, we must win each and hope and pray to the rugby Gods out there that the other results go our way.

It’s an uphill battle this weekend with the men in green travelling to Twickenham, known as the devil’s quarters by some. I think to beat England at home, we need to keep composure and not let the pressure get to us. With England playing well in the first two matches of the championship, the pressure is on! But if you look at the history between these two sides, in the RBS 6 Nations playing head to head, Ireland have won 9 times and England only 7 – so who’s to say this Saturday’s match won’t be Ireland’s 10^th win? And who doesn’t love to see England getting beaten? #ShoulderToShoulder

Legendary Irish fly-half Ronan O’Gara #ROG says that the title dreams are still alive in the Irish camp, but now is not the time to experiment with the team especially with the next match being against England.

He said, “You can’t wreck their heads, as in ‘I’m giving this fella a go’ – you don’t give a fella a ‘go’ in Twickenham.”

So it looks like even Irish Rugby royalty has some concerns. But from the first two matches we can see that obviously something is not working out for the Irish team. I agree that experimenting before match against England is not ideal, but if we lose this match then something has to change.

Ireland’s women’s team are in the exact same boat as the men, they lost too to France last weekend. This defeat means that it ends the Irish hope of a Grand Slam, and France moves up to joint first with England.

So now it’s down to the boys to carry the Irish dream of winning the 6 Nations three years in a row, come on you boys in green! #COYBIG.

Why not check out some of our latest deals to help you look the part during all the rugby festivities?

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“Scotland will start as favourites”… Rugby… Mind Games…

“There is an enormous pressure on Scotland to perform and not so much on us!” So says the new England rugby coach, Eddie Jones.

Who does he think he`s kidding. With a huge number of players to select from, in comparison to Scotland, surely the pressure is on Eddie to make sure that he gets the selection right. Is he just making vibes so that if they do finish second in this weeks Calcutta Cup #calcuttacup match he will be able to say that `the favourites won!!

The rivalry between the Thistle and the Rose will be at its highest when the teams take to the paddock at Murrayfield but in todays new climate of `modern rugby` this will also be an experience for a Kiwi & a Wallaby.

Eddie Jones #eddiejones was born in Australia and Vern Cotter #sternvern was born in New Zealand. This will be the first time since the cup was competed for in 1879 when the intense rivalry will have such a Southern Hemisphere input. How will they find it? – Watch their lips for who sing their ‘new’ National Anthem and does it justice!!

Whether you support England #carrythemhome or Scotland  #asone let`s hope that, in the year after the Rugby World Cup #RWC2015, the interest in this wonderful sport will continue.

France v Italy and Ireland v Wales are the other matches in this first weekend of `the greatest rugby tournament` in the world, but surely neither can compare with the intensity of a Calcutta Cup match.

So with this 123rd meeting of these intense rivals and with the added `down under` input it will surely be the best team that wins. However who will win the pre-match ‘mind games’?

While the Northern Hemisphere kicks of the RBS Rugby Six Nations the Southern Hemisphere is contributing to the World Sevens Series. New Zealand won their own 7s #Welly7s with a fantastic one score victory in the final. Next week sees the Australians play hosts to the Tournament. For the first time, after several years in the Gold Coast, the venue is Sydney.

It’s a massive year for sevens rugby with their appearance at the Olympic Games #rio2016.

Thoughts:-

New Zealand to win Aussie 7s

France to beat Italy

Wales to beat Ireland

Scotland to beat England

So whatever your fancy in rugby, and with all this windy weather in the UK, fasten your seatbelt, batten-down-the-hatches and get ready for a rollercoaster of emotions.

 Why not stock up with your Six Nations Supporters gear at www.rugbyplus.com

 

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IT`S NEARLY EYE`S DOWN

FOR

THE KICK-OFF OF THE

BIGGEST ANNUAL RUGBY FESTIVAL

The #rbs6nations is the annual rugby union competition involving 6 European sides – England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland & Wales. Part of this competition involves the Calcutta Cup #calcuttacup which is played for between Scotland & England. Started in 1879 this cup is  for the oldest rugby international in the World.

In 1993 when it was {pre-Italy} only 5 teams involved, a new trophy was commissioned. It had 15 sides to it – representing the 15 players. 3 handles – representing the 3 officials. A concealed drawer in the mahogany base of the trophy with 5 replicas, one each of the team emblems which could be screwed on to the detachable lid. A prize for that years winner.

The Tournament now has one of the largest TV audiences it has ever had and generates millions of pounds/euros into the economies of the countries and cities where the matches are held. It’s a numbers game!

In 2015 a new trophy was made.

Well think about it >> in todays  terms. At least 22 players in the squad, and goodness knows how many officials – 4^th referee, TMO, TMO assistant, citing officer plus, plus, plus……….. (how was it done in `the good old days`?)The old trophy had to go!

Results overall, including in the Home Nations Tournament – what it was called before the Five Nations – England and Wales have won the Championship outright the most. 26 times each.

It’s the Grand Slam that is everyone`s goal! To date; England have won 12, Wales 11, France 9, Scotland 3, Ireland 2 and Italy 0!

 

In 2000 when the 6 nations started 803 points with 75 tries were scored. Last year {2015} we had 660 points, with 62 tries being scored. There are suggestions that the games are not as exciting as things used to be! Well read this!

In the first 3 years of the 6 Nations a total number of 2364 points were scored which included 245 tries!……………….The past  3 years has seen a massive drop in these totals. Only 1797 points and 160 tries!!

Any ideas of what`s gone wrong?

I notice somewhere very recently where it said that the best way to celebrate scoring a try in the #rbs6nations is by hugging your teammate #nationalhugday.

I think that we will continue to see a lot less hugging of 6 Nations rugby players.

 

However, like most of you, I will be at the matches, or watching on TV at the Rugby Club, or watching at home in a `sound-proofed` room but I will really be looking for more hugs from these muscle-bound rugby players!

 

So, its `eyes down`, and get ready for the 2016 rollercoaster of the :–

 

2016 SIX NATIONS RUGBY TOURNAMENT!

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