Team Talk

International rugby will now take the backseat to domestic and European competition until the 2015 Six Nations kicks off in February, but we have one last offering of trans-hemisphere competition for you in 2014.

After an intense final weekend of Autumn internationals, with big wins for the Northern Hemisphere sides, as well as domestic rugby being played, there was no shortage of talent to choose from.

The autumn internationals came to a thrilling conclusion this weekend as England and Wales put some much-needed gloss on their campaigns with wins over Australia and South Africa respectively.

This week’s edition of Stock Watch has a front row flavour to it, with the men at rugby’s coalface catching the eye, though not all for the right reasons.

It was another interesting weekend of international rugby, as Ireland and Scotland finished their very impressive autumn series, Wales maintained their trend of coming up short against the big southern hemisphere sides and England stuttered to an unimpressive victory over Samoa.

Over a week on from a thoroughly disenchanting loss to New Zealand at Twickenham, England found themselves in the same situation once again, underperforming and losing to one of the best sides in the world on home turf.

There has been a significant shift in the form of international teams over the weekend, so to in our XV. South Africa's win against England, along with a impressive victory for France, sees some well deserved mentions throughout.

The second week of the autumn internationals rolled around this weekend, with England and Wales both looking for much-improved performances, and Scotland and Ireland keen to build on very impressive outings last week.

We turn to the second week of Autumn internationals and its pretty much the same story….

The opening weekend of the autumn internationals, there are few more exciting weekends in the global rugby calendar. Ireland and Scotland carried the flag well for the home nations, whilst there were crumbs of comfort for England and Wales in defeat too, most of which revolved around their well-functioning set-pieces.

The autumn internationals began this weekend in spectacular fashion and we cast our eye over the best performers of the weekend to come up with this XV. As ever, let us know if you agree or disagree. Enjoy.

The All Blacks team to play England in the November Internationals is due to be named shortly, who would you select?

The Webb Ellis Cup continues the journey around South America in Argentina, with Argentinean international Felipe Contepomi.

This week, we take a look at one of the most scrutinised positions in the modern game, the openside flanker. Given the weight that the breakdown battle has on determining results, the focus on opensides, whose duty it often is to boss this area of the game, is understandable.

Europe’s premiere club rugby tournament returned this week in its new guise, the European Rugby Champions Cup. As close to international-standard rugby as you can find in the club game, it often proves the perfect testing ground for players looking to establish their international credentials.

Another jam-packed weekend of domestic rugby has given international coaches Stuart Lancaster, Warren Gatland, Joe Schmidt and Vern Cotter plenty to think about.

'Carbonyte is a new and unique all-weather Functional Base Layer which provides a level of scientifically researched performance and comfort you would expect from a company renowned as the category leader in compression sportswear.' SKINS

TalkingRugbyUnion has its base in Lancashire, it’s staff have played for Lancashire and they are currently plying their rugby trade with North west based teams. This affection for rugby union in the north west runs deep.

Referees at Aviva Premiership matches have been instructed to take greater responsibility for decisions by avoiding unnecessary use of television match officials.

Rugby royalty Brian O’Driscoll has announced one of the next steps in his career will be working as a rugby presenter for BT Sport. Brian has agreed to carry out various roles for BT Sport, acting as a rugby expert and a BT Sport ambassador.