Team Talk

I'm delighted to be writing about our second success on our tour - on Wednesday we played an Australia A Schools side and beat them 27-0 in what was, at times, a scrappy hard-fought match.

Ian Keatley is an Irish fly-half who has shown plenty of promise in his early career; first within the Leinster Academy and more prominently over the past two seasons at the Sportsground with Connacht.

On Sunday 14th August, myself and the rest of the England U18 squad set off on our early season tour from Heathrow and touched down in Sydney on the Tuesday 16th.

Since rugby union introduced professionalism in 1995, the sport has seen many changes over the years to help the game's worldwide growth.

Most rugby fans will tell you when their team are playing, everything stops and there is nothing more important for those 80 minutes.

Football on the other hand is a game requiring more finesse than rugby. To be a good footballer you don't need to have a physical advantage over your opponent

I've never seen the Simon Pegg film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, nor have I read Toby Young's 2001 memoir on which it was based

The following is my own 'Rugby Dream Team' based on over 10 years of watching the sport I love

Tony Woodcock - A great prop who i'm a big fan of, he has been around the circuit for a while and staying in the All Blacks team for that amount of time takes something

World Cup fever is starting to grip the Rugby world, which of course means endless debate about the top players in world rugby

Ground Sharing may not be the hottest topic of discussion in rugby circles. However in the current financial climate it is incredibly relevant

It is though that Steele stood down from his post on Friday following an emergency board meeting on Thursday night.

A great thing about rugby is that it runs in almost exact cycles. Four years followed by a World Cup, a presidential like term after which a coach's fate is decided

Tuilagi landed three big punches on Aston that caused him to need stitches. This wasn't unprovoked as Aston pushed Tuilagi

In The Telegraph, England's former captain Will Carling once named a player 10th in his list of '50 greatest rugby players'

Talking Rugby Union caught up with Ulster Ravens centre Michael Allen