From The Vaults

02 November 2020

International Triplets

There have been around 30 known cases of "triplets" appearing for their country, but only a select group of six families have produced siblings who have appeared alongside at least two other brothers in the same international team on the same day.

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02 November 2020

International Triplets

There have been around 30 known cases of "triplets" appearing for their country, but only a select group of six families have produced siblings who have appeared alongside at least two other brothers in the same international team on the same day.

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05 October 2020

Ernie Crawford - a legendary Irish full back

The Irish selectors alighted on the Lansdowne and Leinster player William Ernest ‘Ernie’ Crawford as their full back when they chose the team for the first post-war Ireland international against England at Lansdowne Road, Dublin on February 14th 1920.

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14 September 2020

The Stellenbosch Three-quarter line

If asked to name the most illustrious three-quarter line from one club or country, northern hemisphere rugby historians are most likely to name the Oxford University and Scotland three-quarter line of the 1920s...

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10 August 2020

Alan Rotherham - the Original Half-Back

When international rugby began in 1871 it was a twenty-a-side game dominated by forward play and protracted scrummaging. In 1877 the number of players was reduced to fifteen. Over the following decade and a half the number of forwards slowly decreased as the number of backs slowly increased and teams discovered the benefits of a more attacking, open game, utilising running and passing backs.

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08 June 2020

Dai Gent's All-Star XV

Swansea born Dai Gent twice trialled for Wales before being selected for England. A prototype scrum-half at a time when the English were playing half-backs, he memorably partnered Adrian Stoop in the English midfield in the first test-match to be held at Twickenham, in 1910, where England beat Wales for the first time in 12 years.

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01 June 2020

The Incomparable Christophe

Some rugby grounds inspire great performances and Twickenham is no exception. The great deeds of English players tend to dominate in the collective memories of English fans – think Richard Sharp or Andy Hancock in the 1960s – but there have been players from other countries who have reserved some of their finest performances on the rugby field for this part of south-west London.

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13 April 2020

Remembering Graham Budge - the Evergreen International

Aidan Taylor shares his research on Scotland International, Graham Budge…

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29 March 2020

Remembering Prince Alexander Obolensky

Born in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) on 17th February 1916, Prince Alexander Obolensky was the son of an officer of the Tsar’s Imperial Horse Guards and his wife Princess Luba...

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27 January 2020

Weighing up the Competition

Rugby is a very physical contact sport, and as such the physicality of the players has been of great interest to supporters for the majority of the game’s history. Some programmes for tours and matches have listed player weights and heights ever since the early 20th Century...

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17 January 2020

On This Day 100 Years Ago...

On this day 100 years ago, one of England’s most iconic captains donned an England jersey for the first time...

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16 December 2019

Spotlight on Dan Carroll

Dan Carroll was born in Australia in 1887 and holds the honour of being the only rugby player to be a dual Olympic gold medalist for different qualifying nations...

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09 December 2019

Lions on the High Veldt

The Lions forwards of the 1938 party were widely admired for their refusal to give up despite the first two Test defeats...Off the field Bunner Travers struck up a friendship with Blair “Paddy” Mayne...a loose cannon and a constant disciplinary headache for the tour manager.

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