New Zealand's wonderful victory over close rivals Australia in the Twickenham final brought to close a thrilling 2015 Rugby World Cup which saw southern hemisphere teams dominate and playing a style of rugby which left the northern teams wondering how they can compete in future. This 395 page book concentrates on the 2015 tournament, detailing each pool and knock-out phase match, full information on all the qualifying competitions, each country's squads with changes made, plus a 10 page section filled with records and statistics from both the latest tournament and for the history of the world cup. The book also has match details for every game played in the world cup since 1987.

EasiCoach Rugby Skills Activities contain ready-made, age-appropriate, safe training activities. This volume covers the older age groups U11-U12 and U13-U16, helping coaches and young players understand the basic concepts, and is part of the EasiCoach Rugby Skills Curriculum. If you are new to coaching and not sure what to coach, or even how to coach, help is at hand, even for "non-rugby" volunteers. They are called EasiCoach activities because they are simple and easy to follow. EasiCoach will help you to quickly understand what it is you're trying to achieve and see what you need to do from just a few words and pictures. You can grasp the key do's and don'ts at a glance. The activity sheets tell you the equipment you need (never more than basics), and allow you to cater for more or fewer players at your session. Using EasiCoach helps you to speak to your players with confidence, and in addition, by following all the materials in each manual, your players will be learning the right skills for the right age group every season, because all the activities are part of a curriculum.

With a foreword by former England manager Sir Clive Woodward, Everything You Need To Know For Coaching Rugby is Dan Cottrell's best-selling manual created for new and aspiring coaches of junior and senior players. Anxious about coaching rugby to children? Maybe you're already coaching, but sometimes struggle to get your points across to your players? Perhaps you find yourself frequently running out of preparation time or think your sessions are becoming dull? This comprehensive book, which contains more than 100 drills and games for coaching all the basics, is designed to help you build your players' techniques, skills and understanding of the whole game from ages 8 to 16. Divided into two parts, part one focuses on the basics of working with young players in a safe and rewarding environment. Part two contains more than practical training sessions, games and activities to coach and enhance all the basic skills of rugby union.

My book, or memoir, is mainly a very light hearted look at my rugby union experiences both on and off the field. My stories began in 1958 when I was 10 and a pupil at George Heriot's school in Edinburgh. As I started to recount my early experiences in rugby union lots of other general boyhood, adolescent and later more adult moments came to mind. Some stories have nothing to do with rugby but I thought they might bring a smile to the faces of some people as they may see themselves in similar circumstances. My Rugby stories include my times at Heriot's School, Heriot's Former Pupils Rugby Club, Nottinghamians RFC, Aberdeenshire RFC and Mackie Academy FPRFC in Stonehaven. I was president of Mackie Academy FPRFC twice and in that period I met many famous International players from all of the then Five Nations as they kindly agreed to speak at the club dinners. They include Scottish stars Andy Irvine, Jim Telfer, Jim Aitken, Iain Milne and his brothers Kenny and David. Fran Cotton of England and Gareth Edwards of Wales also graced the Mackie dinners. Jo Maso the famous French Centre also features in the book as I recount an amazing story involving him and Mackie Academy FP's . I was employed as Secretary and General Manager of Heriot's Rugby Club from 1998 to 2004 and in that time I had the privilege of meeting players from all over the world as they trained with their International colleagues at Heriot's school playing fields, Goldenacre. Towards the end of my tenure at Heriot's I was close to much of the turmoil that beset the Scottish Rugby Union and Scottish club rugby. Heriot's were largely responsible for halting a likely meltdown of the Scottish Rugby Union in 2004/2005 and I tell that story at the end of my book. Rugby kicks of the book and closes it too so I have called my memoir Wrapped in Rugby.

Leeds Rhinos and Great Britain forward Barrie McDermott is a modern rugby legend. Often described as notorious by the press, he admits he has had more punch-ups than hot dinners. McDermott has been at the very top of British Rugby League for more than a decade, starring for Oldham, Wigan and Leeds and earning caps for England, Ireland and Great Britain. But what is not widely known is that McDermott has achieved all this despite having lost an eye in a shooting accident when he was just 15. Away from rugby he has had regular brushes with the law - and in 1996 made headlines when he was the first person in the country to be arrested by police using CS gas. He later spent time behind bars after skipping bail to play for Leeds in a match in Paris, being arrested as he got off the plane on the homeward journey. He has appeared before the Rugby Football League's disciplinary committee many times, missing over 40 matches through suspension. This outspoken autobiography of one of rugby's hardest men lifts the lid on one of the most remarkable careers in British sport.

Rugby Stories...and other misadventures was incredibly enjoyable. I'm a bit of a history buff and the one area of American rugby history I always wanted to know more about was the period in the 1960s and 70s, when the Eagles were just formulating. The generation of players that came of age during that period is only getting old and some of the stories from that time are getting lost. The greatest triumph of "Rugby Stories" is that it preserves that part of history for future generations. Written by former Eagle, UCLA, and Santa Monica player Dave Stephenson, "Rugby Stories" offers a unique take on a crucial period in U.S. rugby history. Stephenson's writing style is like his play on the field, solid with a touch of bravado. He tells the story of his emergence as a school player in England, to immigrant in Los Angeles where he finds rugby once again. Stephenson has an interesting life that in and of itself is well worth a story and when you throw in rugby, it makes a great combination. The inside knowledge Stephenson provides of the early Eagles is invaluable. It was a different time back then, and while things didn't always run smoothly, the passion that all of those involved had was impressive. If there is one disappointment, it's that Stephenson isn't around for years and years with the team, but that's something you'll have to read about in the book. It's more than just the early history of the Eagles that makes "Rugby Stories" valuable for the American rugby fans, it's the early history of UCLA and Santa Monica as well. Stephenson was part of Dennis Storer's legendary Bruins squads that challenged for the World Cup with Cal and UBC, as well as in the Monterey Tournament, the unofficial national championship at the time. He was also a founding member of Santa Monica Rugby Club. This is a crucial part of American rugby history and that should make "Rugby Stories" a crucial part of your rugby book collection. I can't recommend this book highly enough. I learned so much about American rugby history that I couldn't find anywhere else. ThisisAmericanrugby.com

Inspiring and irreverent by turns, Brian Levison's new anthology has drawn on rugby's wealth of excellent writing. Frank Keating, P. G. Wodehouse, Alec Waugh, A. A. Thomson, John Reason and Mick Imlah are among the distinguished names who have written movingly, amusingly and entertainingly about the game they loved. Great players such as Brian O'Driscoll, Willie John McBride, J. P. R. Williams, Chester Williams, Colin Meads, Gavin Hastings and Brian Moore give us a fascinating insider's view, as does World Cup Final referee Derek Bevan, who reveals what it is like to try to control thirty powerful and often volatile men in a highly competitive situation. But some of the best writing and the wittiest insights come from those who played their rugby at a much less exalted level. The origins of the game - sometimes true, sometimes fanciful - are explored as are some of its rituals like the haka. There are amusing tales including that of the four Tibetan boys sent by the Dalai Lama to learn the game at Rugby School and an account of New Zealand scrum-half Chris Laidlaw's hostile reception at a village fete in Wales. Along with barely believable stories about the game's hardest men, including the French coach Jean 'le Sultan' Sebedio, who used to conduct training sessions wearing a sombrero and wielding a long whip, and 'Red' Conway who had his finger amputated rather than miss a game for South Africa. One section 'Double Vision' looks at the same incident from opposing viewpoints, such as when the then relatively inexperienced Irish immortal Willie John McBride took a swing at the mighty All Black Colin Meads in a line-out. Another, 'Giving it Everything', shows how exceptional courage was not restricted to the rugby field but extended to the battle grounds of the First World War. From the compiler of highly acclaimed All in a Day's Cricket, this selection covers the game from virtually every angle and is sure to delight any rugby fan.

WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'Brutally honest . . . A moving, candid tale of a coach taking the plunge with a rugby ball as his only buoyancy aid' DAILY EXPRESS 'An engrossing account of a remarkable story' EVENING STANDARD 'An excellent read covering a brilliant journey' Sir Clive Woodward It is late summer 2013. Ben Ryan, a red-haired, 40-something, spectacle-wearing Englishman, is given 20 minutes to decide whether he wants to coach Fiji's rugby sevens team, with the aim of taking them to the nation's first-ever Olympic medal. He has never been to Fiji. There has been no discussion of contracts or salary. But he knows that no one plays rugby like the men from these isolated Pacific islands, just as no one plays football like the kids from the Brazilian favelas, or no one runs as fast as the boys and girls from Jamaica's boondocks. He knows too that no other rugby nation has so little - no money and no resources, only basic equipment and a long, sad history of losing its most gifted players to richer, greedier nations. Ryan says yes. And with that simple word he sets in motion an extraordinary journey that will encompass witchdoctors and rugby-obsessed prime ministers, sun-smeared dawns and devastating cyclones, intense friendships and bitter rows, phone taps and wild nationwide parties. It will end in Rio with a performance that not only wins Olympic gold but reaches fresh heights for rugby union and makes Ben and his 12 players living legends back home.

This title presents the story of the spread of rugby league throughout the universities and colleges of Great Britain.

The story of the search by the author to discover the truth about the death of his uncle, a pilot in one of Churchill's Special Duties Squadrons during WW2. The parallel descriptions of the RAF career of F/Lt John Menzies and his nephew's dogged determination to find out what happened to him culminate in the discovery of the wreckage of his aircraft. Information discovered along the way raises many questions, not all of which have been answered. In the 10 years that have passed since the first publication of this book many other families have found out the truth of the careers of their relatives in the Special Duties Squadrons, largely through the continuing work of the author, who has become an authority on the subject.