Nations Cup: Witness rugby's fiercest rivalry

Tonight's games in the Nations Cup promise a few contrasts. England will start things off (9.30pm) with their game against South Africa who they have met twice before and, well not exactly been troubled by. Scores of 101-0 and 74-8 would - with all their opponents improvements - tend to point to and English win. Indeed if South Africa get within 50 points they would probably could it a triumph. However, England may well hold back a little with Canada and a possible battle for the title.

Meanwhile Canada desparately need to bounce back from their shock defeat in Sunday (and, aside from the opening 20 minutes, unconvincing win last Thursday as well). Trouble is that the team they need to bounce back against are their deadliest rivals in what must be women's rugby's greatest internatonal "derby" - the "CanAm" (kick-off 11.30pm - if you can stay up to watch it, available as a recording tomorrow morning if you can't).

Canada and the USA have met 22 times since 1987. Few match-ups have a longer history and none are closer - 13 wins for the USA, 9 for Canada. This is North American rugby's Calcutta Cup, their Ashes, the one that matters more than all the rest. It promises to be the best game of the tournament so far. Canada should be favourites, but USA are coming into the game on the high of their first win for three years. Not to be missed!

Nations Cup: France fail to follow the script.

Considering the Canadians have not beaten France since 1998 the almost universal assumption that they would beat (and beat quite easily) their international nemesis seems odd. But the fact is that France have, over the past few years, been in a downward spiral. After finishing fourth in the last Six Nations behind Ireland and Wales, their performance in the first round against South Africa did not hint at any improvements while accounts of their second-half performance against England appears give the impression that they demonstrated all the defensive capabilities of a colander.

So - even with Canada resting a number of players from their first game - it didn't appear that they had much to fear. An early French lead from a penalty was soon overturned by a Canadian try and the crowd and commentary team settled down to wait for the inevitable Canuk points fest.

It didn't come.

What did come was a second French penalty. And then a third. France were ahead again and things were getting tense. Passes were not going to hand, and the French seem to have learnt how to defend.

Half time came at 9-7. And so it stayed in a stalemate, broken only by another French penalty. More and more desperate Canadian play - but to no avail. Even with France reduced to 14 players for the final five minutes Canada never really looked like breaking through and France pulled off a famous victory.

The earlier game went far more to plan - USA beating South Africa 39-0, and rarely being troubled. No more to be said really.

So - aside from England sailing to the title - the battle for second place is now as wide open which should mean an exciting climax to what has been an interesting tournament. Round 4 is on Wednesday - but for now the standings are:

Position	Nation	Games				Points		Bonus points[2]		Table points
		played	won	drawn	lost	for	against	Tries	Losing
1	England	2	2	0	0	79	15	2	0	10
2	France	3	1	1	1	37	67	0	0	6
3	Canada	2	1	0	1	42	29	1	1	6
4	United States	2	1	0	1	46	36	1	0	5
5	South Africa	3	0	1	2	34	91	0	0	2

Games to come:

Wednesday: England v South Africa; Canada v USA

Saturday: France v USA; Canada v England

Nations Cup Round 3 tonight. If the feed works...

Canadian generators permitting, there is live international rugby on this evening - and at a reasonable time too. No England - who sit out this round - but there is South Africa vs USA at 7pm, and Canada v France at 9 (just follow this link).

In practice these games should not produce any real surprises. The USA may not have won a game since 2006, but they have only played England and Canada in that time so its a little misleading. South Africa should be no problem - though it will be interesting to see how their performance compares with Canada's on Thursday. Will they go for a big win - as a minimum aiming to beat Canada's 35-17 win - or will they take the win but otherwise back off and hold things in reserve for their match with Canada on Wednesday?

Canada against France could also be revealing for both sides - and tricky one for the hosts with USA and England still to come in the next six days. Apart from the opening 15 minutes against England, France have been pretty woeful in this tournament - can they wake up and play for the full 80 minutes (or even 40?). Canada will still win, of course.

• Meanwhile in East African yesterday Kenya absolutely thumped Uganda - 35-7 - the largest win ever in the Elgon Cup it means that Kenya look like being odds of to take the trophy for the first time. The second leg is in two week's time in Kampala.

Meanwhile, in the corner of a different foreign field...

While five nations play in Canada in preparation for the World Cup next year - all automatic qualifiers - on a different continent two countries who were not even given a chance to attempt to qualify meet today in what must remain the pinnacle of their rugby until at least 2014. Assuming the IRB allows them to take part then, of course.

Uganda and Kenya are not big names in rugby (clearly not as big as South Africa, who were given Africa's only place at the World Cup without their having to set foot on the field and despite finishing comfortably 12th of 12 last time round), but they have been active on the international scene since 2005 and this will be the third time they have met each other for the Elgon Cup.

The tournament began as a men-only event in 2004 but women's teams joined in very quickly and have been playing side-by-side on the same day and the same ground with the men ever since. "Double headers" are nothing new then - they were invented in East Africa some years ago, it seems.

Its also worth remembering that Uganda's women are the country's most successful rugby team - indeed probably the most successful team in any sport. They reached the finals of the World Cup Sevens this year - the men didn't even get close.

The Cup is competed for over two legs, home and away, and the defending champions for the women's series is actually Uganda (you cannot blame the hosts of the opening leg missing this bit of information off their poster). However, there is little to choose between the sides - last year the series end one match all, Uganda only retaining the trophy thanks to an overall 31-22 aggregate - and from all accounts this year should be just as close.

The only downside of all this is that these two countries - like the Caribbean nations - have to exist in a weird isolation from the rest of the rugby world. Occasionally they may get to play other neighbouring nations, like Rwanda, but that is about it. They might as well be playing on Mars. Can a game develop - or even sustain itself - in such circumstances? That is, of course, why you need World Cups - to give players and teams something to work for and aim at. Which is, of course, where we came in.

• IRB match preview (with carefully worded regrets about the World Cup!)
• More background, from Rugby in Kenya
• (Unofficial) Uganda women's blog
• Ugandan reaction to South Africa's selection for the World Cup

Tell RFUW what you think!

The RFUW's latest annual survey has been launched today (well, it seems like they do one each year!), and this year the subject is the "Player Pathway".

No - don't turn away! Really. Though it sounds dull and irrelevant to anyone not in the regional squads or even the TDGs it isn't. The survey is possibly the most important to date as it is asking questions about what YOU think about the structure of the game. Like whether county and regional and TDG and England U20 and the whole multi-level multifaceted world of girls' rugby works, and what you think of it, and how you think it could be improved (curious the very subject of a post on here almost exactly a year ago).

The survey asks what role you have - player, parent, coach, "volunteer" - but other than that it is anonymous so you really can say what you think without any fear of - a-hem - consequences.

Please complete a survey. It doesn't matter whether you have played for England U20 or never so much as attended a county trial, this is hugely relevant. With RFUW joining RFU within the next year the whole structure of the girls' and women's game is in the melting pot for the first time in years. You can influence as never before the game that you play - and it'll only take a few minutes.

Bottom line - you can't complain in the future about there being too much regional rugby (or whatever) if you miss the chance to change things today!

There are two surveys - choose the one that applies to you:

• Players
• Coaches, Managers, Volunteers, Parents

(And just in case any Over 18s are reading this - it applies to adult players as well!)

Nations Cup: Round 2 goes to form

Fairly straightforward wins in the end for both England and Canada tonight, though both games started rather differently.

England seemed to struggle to get going against France, falling 5-0 and then 8-5 behind until well into the first half before they finally broke the French defence. 19-8 at halftime eventually became 43-8 by the end... though the loss of the video feed (due to a generator failure apparently) for most of the second half means that details are about exactly how the last 30 minutes went is a bit shady at the moment.

Canada, on the other hand, stormed to a 25-0 lead after less than 20 minutes and seemed unstopable. However, they then seemed to stall going into halftime at the same score before allowing South Africa back in the game in the second half. 35-17 was a comfortable win, but no-where near as comfortable as it should have been.

Next round of games is on Sunday - but England have a rest. USA play South Africa (7pm BST) and Canada take on France (9pm BST).

• RFUW match report
• Rugby Canada match report

Current standings:

Position	Nation	Games				Points		Bonus points		Table points
		played	won	drawn	lost	for	against	Tries	Losing
1	England	2	2	0	0	79	15	2	0	10
2	Canada	1	1	0	0	35	17	1	0	5
3	South Africa	2	0	1	1	34	52	0	0	2
4	France	2	0	1	1	25	60	0	0	2
5	United States	1	0	0	1	7	36	0	0	0

Olympics: Rugby makes the cut

Rugby Sevens is one step away from the Olympics. The IOC Executive announced this afternoon that it and golf will be recommended for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic Programme - the final decision being made by the the full IOC in Copenhagen in October.

Rugby, in fact, stormed to selection on the second round of voting - in fact it almost won on the first ballot. Each sport needed a majority of committee members, and rugby picked up 7 of the 14 votes first time around (karate got 3, baseball 2, and golf and softball 1 each. Roller sports and squash got nothing). Golf eventually came through as well, but another five rounds of voting were needed to separate it from karate (golf seemed to be almost everyone's second choice). You can see the results of all the votes here.

There is no guarantee that rugby will get through in Copenhagen, but with such strong support behind it the chances look very good indeed. Golf may find things a bit harder.

Details of the proposed format of the Olympic Sevens have also been released, and its rather different to the Sevens World Cup - fewer teams for starters.

• It will last between two and four days.
• 12 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams would be split into two pools of six.
• The two top teams in each pool would qualify for semi-finals.

At the World Cup there were 16 women's teams (and even more men's) so this format would require more (or tougher) qualification tournaments. However its also worth remembering that there would be one Great Britain team (assuming they qualify!) - not separate England, Scotland and Wales teams (as in all sports Northern Irish players could play for GB or Ireland).

And in related news, women's boxing looks like being part of the 2012 Olympics.

Nations Cup: Leading players rested for France game

Captain Catherine Spencer is rested, along with several other leading players, as England prepare for their second game in the tournament against France (tonight, 9.30pm our time - free live feed here - don't miss it!).

Monday's team against USA was probably England's strongest possible starting line-up - virtually the same as the team that demolished France and Scotland at the end of the last Six Nations - and it is clear that England's management see France as rather less of a threat than either of the North American teams.

Overall only five of Monday's starting line-up will be starting against France. Fiona Pocock, double try scorer in the USA game, also gets a complete rest while Emily Scarrett (who also scored two against USA, as well as a hat-trick in the Six Nations game with France) starts in the bench. Only hooker Amy Garnett remains from the forwards, and while Charlotte Barras starts again she moves from full-back to wing.

It is a sensible move. With USA out of the way the big game now will be against Canada on the 22nd. The "1st XV" destroyed France 52-7 a few months ago and it was clear from Monday that Europe's 4th best team haven't exactly improved much in recent months. They will be expected to raise their game for England, but even so it is sensible to rest key players now ahead of tougher games to come. With the World Cup ahead it is also important that the entire squad gets game time, and finally it also means that Appleby College will not have to invest in a wider scoreboard.

Canada also start against South Africa in the second game. Reports suggest that they have called up a number of Sevens specialists for this game and will be targeting South African fly-half Zandile Nojoko, who demonstrated some real turns of speed and excellent kicking when she scored 12 of her teams 17 points against France. If the home team can neutralise her then it is possible that the scoreboard officials will have to reach for the woodworking kit after all!

NZ girls' school rugby campaign makes headlines

I'm not quite sure what to make of this article. Its about a group of girls in a school in New Zealand who are campaigning for the right to play in an inter-house school rugby tournament.

On the one hand the school authorities seem to be jaw droppingly inept - "Let them play netball" being a response just as sensitive and just about as likely to be as effective in dealing with the protest as "Let them eat cake" was 220 years ago. And while it is possible that the statement

"18-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl were at different stages in their physical development and it would be unfair on both to have them tackling each other on a rugby field"

may have been taken out of context, its a pretty stupid thing to say in the first place. I mean it would be pretty damn dangerous for 13 year old boys to play against 18 year olds (in fact probably more so, given "different stages in their physical development").

On the other hand they are asking to play mixed teenage rugby - which is "illegal" in this country and (for all I know) probably in New Zealand as well (though not Sweden, from what I read recently), a ban that there has never been any pressure to overturn so presumably there are good reasons for it. We also do not know how much support they have - or even whether they would be good enough players to get into their house teams. Reading the comments the suspicion is also that it is actually part of a campaign against an unpopular new head.

However, it is impressive to see the level of publicity the girls have managed to achieve - can't see a similar protest getting regional or national press coverage here.

There's a breathless hush in the IRB tonight...

... as all eyes turn towards Berlin. Not normally a city that features high in the minds of rugby followers, though it was the site of the last rugby tournament to have any association with the Olympics (an unofficial pre-games tournament - and ironically the best organised there had ever been).

Which is a neat coincidence that it can be assumed the IRB will have mentioned, because tomorrow sees the start of an IOC board meeting that will decide whether the bid to get rugby back into the Olympics ends here - or goes on to the "final". Because this week's meeting will slim down the seven sports currently competing to get into the games down to just two that will go forward to the full IOC meeting in October.

The IRB have thrown everything into this - a good thing after the shambles of an effort they organised last time round. The bid they have put together has been impressive and has achieved a degree of unity within the sport that few of its competitors can match. Compared to golf, where the leading players are at best luke warm (if not actually opposing that sports bid), and karate which is far from united, rugby (and possibly squash) have made most powerful cases for inclusion. Now they will learn whether it has all had any effect.

It has to be remembered that we are talking about Sevens rugby here - not fifteens - but this has helped the bid as Sevens is played more widely than the full game (especially in women's rugby) and far more countries are competitive. There is no guarantee that any of the seven sports will be selected (none were in 2005), but none have made a better case than rugby.

And why should you care? Well, first it is likely that any British team for 2016 (and certainly for 2020) will be largely made up of girls currently playing junior rugby, and secondly because, if a British team were to win gold medals, the game will change at all levels - Sevens would have to become much more than a bit of end-of-season fun.