Rugby Union Today: Six Nations team news

Colin Newboult
Add as a preferred source on Google

England's Ben Te'o and Owen Farrell during the training session at Pennyhill Park, Bagshot

Another busy day in the rugby union game as three countries named their sides for the upcoming Six Nations action at the weekend.

What’s on the site

Ben Te’o will start his first game of the 2019 Six Nations for England against Italy on Saturday. He will play alongside Manu Tuilagi in what will be a heavyweight midfield for the Red Rose.

Elsewhere, Gregor Townsend has been able to name a stronger Scotland line-up with WP Nel and Finn Russell in the XV to face Wales. Hamish Watson is also fit enough to feature but he will open the game on the bench.

Meanwhile, all the Six Nations action is covered in ‘the short side,’ which looks at the main talking points heading into the weekend.

There is a similar feature called ‘super charged.’ Akin to ‘the short side,’ this one discusses what is going on in Super Rugby and the things to look out for during the matches in Round Four.

What’s in the news 

World Rugby has attempted to clarify its plans for a new competition, revealing a Nations Championship, which could potentially start in 2022.

Italy would be part of the ‘European conference’ of that competition and they named their team to face England for this weekend’s Six Nations clash, with captain Sergio Parisse returning to the line-up.

Finally, in domestic news, Gloucester announced some key re-signings with Ruan Ackermann, Jake Polledri and Val Rapava-Ruskin committing their futures to the Cherry and Whites.

What’s on social media

One of the criticisms of the France national team has been a lack of structure and an inability to know what to do when it goes through a few phases, but that wasn’t the case in the Top 14 last weekend.

What’s on TV

The Six Nations returns this weekend with the BBC showing the opening game of Round Four between Scotland and Wales. England v Italy and Ireland v France then follow and they will be televised on ITV.

Despite that annual competition restarting, the Premiership continues with BT Sport airing Bath v Saracens and Harlequins v Gloucester.

Meanwhile, Sky Sports will broadcast all the Super Rugby encounters which take place this weekend, starting with the Hurricanes taking on the Highlanders in an all-New Zealand clash.

 

Features