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In other boring news...

The International Rugby Board is to rebrand itself as 'World Rugby'.

Christ.

Mickey Rourke to play Gareth Thomas in biopic - eh?

This story has been around for ages but apparently Rourke reignited interest in the project on a US chat show this week.

Mickey Rourke is great and hats off to him for wanting to make the film in the first place but surely this is why casting directors play such an important role in Hollywood?

Firstly Gareth is massive, and so can Rourke be to be fair as his showing in the great 'The Wrestler' would attest to. But things, even in 'The Wrestler', were clearly going south for Rourke.

Secondly, Thomas' accent is thick. And niche. And hard to emulate. American actors sometimes have a tin ear for celtic accents.

Five words: Brad. Pitt. The. Devils. Own.

I personally would love to see a rugby film that doesn't blow like the bloody awful 'Invictus' or the B movie standard 'Forever Strong'. This is a great human story about a player dealing with his own complicated feelings about his sexuality whilst playing a hyper-masculine sport and being in the public eye. I hope to god they go for someone like Chris Hemsworth or someone who could be more believable. If not, Rourke will have to call in Jack Nicholson to play Ieuan Evans and Robert Patrick to be Rob Howley for consistency purposes.

RFU smashes down gender barriers...sort of

Off the back of a fine showing at the Women's Rugby World Cup and the media finally waking up to what a special side this England team is, there was some welcome news today as the RFU announced the women's sevens program will now include 20 full time professional, and most importantly, central contracts. Unlike the men's sevens squad, the women's team is used as a genuine development platform for the 15-a-side game so a lot of the those who won the world cup (about 12) will now be able to train and play as professionals, not that they hadn't been already.

Words fail me how much respect I have for this team. They work normal jobs, but train as pros would and still have the energy to give so much back the community they are a part of.

As a father of a young daughter worried about an alarming lack of positive female role models in the British mainstream media, I will definitely be pushing her to the exceptional examples of Alphonsi, Waterman and Scarratt.

She kicks, she scores and I would probably not tackle her.

http://www.espn.co.uk/england/rugby/story/238727.html 

ALS and the ICE challenge

To my shame I didn't have much of a clue about ALS before this whole campaign started. All I know is that famous people having icy water chucked on them is never boring, much like cat videos on youtube...

Here are few of my favourites from the rugby world. However, in a sport in which ice baths are common practice, does it lose some of its impact?

Not really. In other circles, the Rosie Huntingon-Whiteley bird going out with that Jason Statham is worth a look, but we don't go in for that sort of thing here. This is a rugby blog and you can all use google.

Neglectful, moi?

If you are one of the people still checking back at RGN, thank you and I apologise for being a disgrace and not keeping content up. With many false dawns, mine and my wife's first child and a generally mental work life have all kept this blog on the backburner.

For this, I am sorry.

However, with the little one gaining a semblance of differentiation between night and day, my generally oversensitive nature towards lethargy being more in check and my need to talk codswallop about a game so ridiculous in nature that the very ball it is played with is a constant victim to chaos theory, have all led me back to the warm bosom of this blog.

In short, I'm back.

Like Cleggers, I'm sorry. But you know, genuinely.