The News Review:
- Canadians hoping to make mark at inaugural Rugby World Cup women’s …
- Dulaney alum Bernstein tosses aside foes doctor’s advice
- Rugby keeps Tongan teens out of trouble
- All not as it seems at Waratahs and Reds draw battlelines
Canadians hoping to make mark at inaugural Rugby World Cup women’s …
The Canadian Press
The upgrade was courtesy of Emirates Airlines a tournament sponsor. It was a rare luxury ride for women who have dug deep into their own pockets since their sevens program was started in January 2007. Each of the players paid $1800 to cover their costs at their first tournament in San Diego in February that year and just about every trip since has come with a similar personal cost. That sacrifice was all made to get to the 2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens which is running a women’s competition simultaneously with the men’s event for the first time this year.
Related from Macmedal: Canadians earn four more medals at Junior Pan Pacific Championships
Dulaney alum Bernstein tosses aside foes doctor’s advice
Baltimore Sun
A friend told her about women’s rugby. “I was always a very aggressive soccer player so rugby was the perfect fit” said Bernstein who lives in Cockeysville and is taking graduate courses at UMBC. Bernstein 25 is in Dubai this week playing for. Women’s National Rugby team in the first Women’s World Cup representing her country in a sport unfamiliar to most Americans.
Rugby keeps Tongan teens out of trouble
San Jose Mercury News
The occasion is the State Juvenile fficers’ Association Conference. All of the police and community people involved in thinking up and running the two-year-old rugby program must be beaming. This isn’t a typical PAL program (PAL sponsors activities ranging from ballet to volleyball with the objective to not only give kids from 5 to 18 years old something to do but also to build relationships between cops and their communities). Instead the rugby program was designed specifically to help Polynesian or Pacific Islander youth of high school age avoid the downward spiral of becoming gang members.
All not as it seems at Waratahs and Reds draw battlelines
The Australian
When Reds five-eighth Quade Cooper described the Waratahs as boring earlier in the week it turned the perception of the two great rivals on its head. But like many perceptions the reality is very different. Traditionally Queensland has been labelled conservative while NSW has been regarded as the more adventurous rugby state. This view stems back to 1976 when Queensland who were then known as the Maroons ended almost 100 years of NSW dominance with a 42-4 win at Ballymore which heralded a golden era. Under coach Bob Templeton Queensland played an uncompromising brand of percentage rugby and the Maroons dominated the interstate series for seven years in the era of the “Holy Trinity” of Mark Loane Tony Shaw and Paul McLean. For Templeton control was the key to success. He believed strongly in playing in the opposition’s half even if it meant McLean kicking the leather off the ball to get there.