Good job

Sadly think the higher prices for next year's RWC are because RFU (stupidly?) guaranteed that they would generate £80m for the tournament.

The cheapest tickets are around £15, but they are the exception.
A game at Gloucester or Exeter are the cheapest, but even then, the top tickets there are around £85.

Perhaps it's because they don't think they'll be able to grow the game massively outside the usual fans so they are cashing in.

Good game developing on SS4 between New Zealand and Australia

Nice to see a referee with the B*****s to yellow card Richie McCaw's , only the 2nd yellow of his 100+ game career,Unbelievable for someone who continually gives away tactical penalties

I take back the good things I thought about the ref

Obvious high challenge on aussie player ignored which resulted in a field length try for the All Blacks

Wallabies are getting caned

Awesome stuff from the All Blacks destroying the Aussie's pack

Well that was a bashing

All Blacks rattle up 51 points in a 51-20 victory

Might Impressive

IRB goes all snazzy with its name change:-

Meet 'World Rugby'

Peace breaks out in Wales

Doesn't this kind of discrimination usually fail due to EU law? Even if they can get away with favouring local boys for selection I would have thought that

Breeches

I think sport may have an exemption or something, as cricket has a similar rule in place

I'm not so sure. The premiership for instance has a "foreign player limit" but states

http://www.premiershiprugby.com/premiership/faqs.php

Don't know for certain but you can discriminate against non-EU citizens and there won't be many cricketers from outside the UK and Ireland who are from elsewhere in the EU.

Domestic rugby returns tonight

BBC Rugby fixtures

Guscott's predictions

Indy: RFU close to deal with Premiership club over Rugby World Cup

Guardian preview

Telegraph preview

It's going to be an intetresting season.

I think we'll be top six. I can't see us pushing for top 4 this season, maybe next year.

At this moment in time I'll be happy with Wasps finishing top 6 (as well as sorting out our ground issue).

Think the Premiership title will be between Sarries and Leicester (Saints for some reason have been quiet on signings front).

I'll be lazy and predict Leinster for Pro 12, though Glasgow might surprise me.

Based on their performance on Friday, and our abysmal one, they are in with a shout this season!

We were poor but with so many changed it was pretty much inevitable.

but with Sale and Exeter at home next two games and then London Welsh away, if we can scrape three wins out of four I'd take that!!

Yeah it does look like I was very premature in dismissing Saints, not really looking forward to seeing them against us this Sunday.

Gloucester were a bit unfortunate in not scoring at least one try and the interception by Burrell really made the score look horrorific.

Still it could be worse, imagine being a London Welsh fan today.

That's true - at least they are keeping uss off the bottom!

There seems to be three sections to the Premiership now.

A top three: Sarries, Tigers, & Saints
A middle six: Bath, Gloucester, Sale, Exeter, Wasps, Harlequins
A bottom three: London Welsh, Newcastle, London Irish

The difficulty for the bottom nine is generating the consistency to move up to break in to a top four.

For relegation, anyone betting against London Welsh for the drop?

Toulon, for champions of Europe again ?

It depends on how poor Irish really are, they've bled talent over the last few seasons. London Welsh at least have tried to address the quality of their squad with their mass influx of players.

As for Toulon - I think maybe they'll trip up and won't win European cup, not sure who will though

RWC tickets are on sale now, incase anyone's interested.

It is done on a ballot basis, not first come, first served. So if you apply for tickets today or wait a week you should still have the same chance of getting the tickerts you want.

I just applied for £1200 worth of tickets.........in the hope that I get a third of what I have applied for.......I am slightly frightened if I get all of my allocation I will be broke for a year.......

I did the same with Olympic tickets, would have cost me the best part of a grand if I'd got the lot. In the end I only got about £150 worth.

I've applied for the England game in Manchester and England-Australia at Twickenham.