The Rugby Post

New Zealand Rugby’s decision to sack Scott Robertson mid‑cycle  –  less than two years into his tenure and 27 Tests into the job  –  has sent shockwaves through world rugby and opened up uncomfortable questions about power, politics, and planning at the top of the New Zealand game. Robertson left with a 74% win rate…

In the brutal ballet of international rugby, where muscle meets mind, a pattern has emerged that’s as predictable as it is provocative. Every time South Africa’s Springboks rise to dominance with a new tactical edge, World Rugby seems to respond—not with admiration, but with rule changes. Officially, these tweaks are about making the game “more…

It was a long year. A hard year. In the world of rugby, it was a year of high stakes, deep debt, and some of the most brutal collisions ever recorded on grass. If you like numbers, 2025 had them. If you like stories, it had those too. Mostly stories about survival. The Lion and…

You sit down for 80 minutes of Test rugby.You get 20 minutes of lawyers instead. That’s where the sport is right now. A game built on collision and courage, hijacked by card colours and judicial PDFs. We wanted safety. We got chaos. The 20‑minute red card was supposed to fix things. Instead, it’s become the…

World Rugby says it wants discipline to be clean, predictable, fair. Regulation 17 and Appendix 1 are supposed to make that happen. Fixed entry points. A mandatory three-step process. A checklist of factors to weigh. On paper, it looks watertight. But step away from the handbook and into the real world – into the cases,…

The mist at Twickenham rolled in like second thoughts. Not thick enough to hide anything, just enough to make the floodlights smear and the edges blur. England versus New Zealand under one set of lights. Somewhere else, South Africa were tightening tape and jawlines. In Paris and Dublin, in Sydney and Lyon, other teams were…

How Rassie Erasmus Turned Ref‑Bashing into Rugby’s Biggest Culture War On a cold northern night, the clock hits red and the stadium noise drops an octave.The Springboks trudge off. The scoreboard glows against the dark like a verdict. Somewhere under the stands, Rassie Erasmus is already replaying it in his head. Not the missed tackle….

The clock was winding down on the first half in Paris. Saturday night. Springboks up against France. It was a heavyweight bout, the kind that reminded you rugby is a collision sport, not synchronized swimming. Then came the 40th minute, and everything went sideways for Lood de Jager. De Jager, the 6-foot-8 Springbok lock, went…