Also kicking off the Guinness Premiership, Harlequins could only just hang on to win 24-21 against the Saracens on Saturday at Twickenham.

Nick Evans who recently signed scored 11 of the 24 points to secure victory in the opening match with Strettle taking only 53 seconds to score his first try proving to Martin Johnson his strength on the field.

After being dropped from England’s Elite Player Squad on New Zealand’s tour, he needed less than a minute to show his prowess with the first try of the game kicking off the season with a bang.

The points kept coming from Evans and Monye from a try in the 2nd half holding off Saracens efforts.

A poor attempt to a late drop goal cost Saracens the game at Twickenham with Strettle being warned by the RFU being included in a kiss and tell story in New Zealand in the Sunday papers.

Unfortunately the Saracens could not manufacture a drop goal and settled for losing by just 3 points.

The scorers:

For Saracens:
Tries: Powell, De Kock
Cons: Jackson
Pens: Jackson 3
Drops:

For Harlequins:
Tries: Strettle, Monye
Cons: Evans
Pens: Evans 2, Luveniyali
Drop: Evans

Wasps bury the week’s interesting events to kick off the Heineken Cup beating Castres 25 - 10.

Both England first team players Josh Lewsey and Danny Cipriani provided a strong combination smashing the French visitors. Especially after coming to blows earlier that week when some punches were thrown at a training session.

Sending Lewsey over the line for the 3rd of Wasps tries, both celebrated with a spot of play fighting entertaining the crowd. the game was pretty much at a close at the 22 minute mark with Sackey and Voice scoring tries as well as Cipriani who scored a total of 10 points.

The incident from the week before became front page news as both Wasps coaches both knew what a flare up in training meant and saw that Cipriani would deliver.

Losing a man to the Sin bin Cipriani and Lewsey delivered a commanding performance seeing the french visitors to a heavy loss.

Scorers:

For London Wasps:
Tries: Sackey, Voyce, Lewsey
Cons: Cipriani 2
Pens: Cipriani 2

For Castres:
Try: Nallet
Pen: McIntyre 2

It has been confirmed that head coach for the Leicester Tigers, Heyneke Meyer has signed up Winger Scott Hamilton from New Zealand for an astonishing 2 year deal.

Hamilton, who himself has won the Ranfurly Shield twice as well as a super Rugby title with the Crusaders is cannot wait to show off the kiwi’s skills once he has arrived at Welford Road.

Stating that he is both an amazing player who often eases in the position of Full back is known as a very proffessional player, a ‘great guy’ and a major asset to any team he plays for.

Once reunited with a former team mate from the Crusaders Aaron Mauger, Hamilton will be missed as he was thought of as a backbone to the team and yet had to move on.

Leicester Tigers begin a campaign this weekend with the Ospreys.

Australian lock James Howill has been ruled out of the Wallabies Spring, end-of-year tour due to ligament problems in his foot that have been ongoing.

Ever since the wallabies beat South Africa 16 - 9 in July in Perth, the 23 year old has had troubles with his left foot.

A diagnosis for Horwill has been confirmed in Brisbane after seeing a specialist and after being able to play on, a pain which was recurrent revealed a tear in the ligament needing surgery.

“Unfortunately the verdict of the specialist was that James is
going to require surgery immediately to get the ligament repaired,”
said Wallabies coach Robbie Deans.

Facing a period of rehabilitation after the surgery which could last six months, stresses he won’t be
available to return to the field for the until potentially next year’s Super 14.

After a brilliant campaign in the super 14’s which saw Horwill take the captaincy to over 39 appearances before he even became 23 years of age.

Harry Ellis and Dan Hipkiss who are both England internationals will return from injury and begin at Leicester Tigers on Wednesday’s Guinness Premiership fixture against rivals Northampton at the ground, Welford Road.

They both missed the trip to Worcester and last weekends defeat to Wasps, but have been named in the starting 15 by Head Coach Heyneke Meyer in the first East Midlands derby since the last season as well as  Tigers’ second home game over 5 days

Matt Smith has begun every game of the season so far, moving over to the wing, Hipkiss comes in to centre, with Ellis taking over from Julien Dupuy at the base.

Loosehead prop Stankovich will make his initial senior appearance of the season with Benjamin Kayser and  Julian White in the front row, with Ben Herring returning at openside flanker after starting among the replacements last week.

The teams:

Leicester: 15 Geordan Murphy, 14 Johne Murphy, 13 Dan Hipkiss, 12 Aaron Mauger, 11 Matt Smith, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Harry Ellis, 8 Jordan Crane, 7 Ben Herring, 6 Tom Croft, 5 Marco Wentzel, 4 Martin Corry (c), 3 Julian White, 2 Benjamin Kayser, 1 Boris Stankovich.
Replacements: 16 George Chuter, 17 Marcos Ayerza, 18 Ben Kay, 19 Ben Woods, 20 Julien Dupuy, 21 Tom Youngs, 22 Tom Varndell.

Northampton: 15 Stephen Myler, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Joe Ansbro, 12 Chris Mayor, 11 Bruce Reihana (c), 10 Carlos Spencer, 9 Ben Foden, 8 Roger Wilson, 7 Scott Gray, 6 Mark Hopley, 5 Christian Day, 4 Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe, 3 Euan Murray, 2 Dylan Hartley, 1 Tom Smith.
Replacements: 16 Paul Shields, 17 Soane Tonga’uiha, 18 Alex Rae, 19 Ben Lewitt, 20 Lee Dickson, 21 Nils Mordt, 22 Sean Lamont.

After speaking to Lions coach Ian McGeechan, there may be a role for next year’s tour and potentially waiting on an official approach.

Also among the names are backroom staff Rob Howley and Shaun Edwards maybe touted for the trip to South Africa.

A formal approach will need to be made by the lions to the Wales Rugby Union which has not been done yet however the first steps are made and some have been finalised.

The New Zealander added - “It’s a great honour and I’d love to have that opportunity.”

WRU group chief exec Roger Lewis has  given his personal backing for Gatland to go on tour who dissmissed fears of Graham Henry’s 2-1 defeat.

Running the Welsh team who’ll be touring North America will have to be in place and Dai Young has ruled out he will caretake risking the Blues and his own job by going on the Wales tour.

It’s a great opportunity to tour with one of the real icons of rugby in terms of the Lions and for me it would be a great highlight.”

From being 20 - 8 up at half time Harlequins made too many mistakes in the second half giving the ball away to London Irish who finished the game at 28 - 27.

The Exiles were lagging behind before half time as Harlequins raced into a 20-3 lead with Ugo Monye and Tom Guest both scoring tries.

A vital counter-punch was landed shortly before half time with a breakaway try and the Exiles then dominated the second half to finish the game on 28 points.

Hewat kicked 18 points for the Exiles making them two scores clear though Harlequins’ scrum-half Danny Care set up a cheeky late converted try - but London Irish held out and returned to winning ways after two straight defeats.

The Scorers:

For Harlequins:
Tries: Monye, Guest, Care
Cons: Malone 2, Luveniyali
Pens: Malone 2

For London Irish:
Tries: D Armitage 2, Hewat
Cons: Hewat 2
Pens: Hewat 3

The new utility back, toby Flood is settling in nicely at the tigers not necessarily even knowing what position he should be in.

Raising a few eyebrows with his move from newcastle to leicester particularly with the reputation of new starters at Leicester, though with a try and an assist in his debut he was soon to be accepted.

Out of four games, Flood has been on the winning side for each and proven his skills in the number 10 shirt

Playing at Leicester he has realised a large amount of culture behind the sport and winning consecutively pushes the tigers into strong position and are fast becoming a formidable opponent!

Organising the team around Flood has become one of the larger challenges making the first line calls though with experience, he is to become an increasingly talented player.

After a career threatening injur, Danny Cipriani has been been predicted to overturn Wasps appalling start to the season.

The defending champions of the guinness World premiership, Wasps have lost 3 games out of 3 however with the return of Cipriani after a horrific ankle injury only 6 months later, will be making a remarkable comeback to the side.

With Dallaglio going through a similar situation as Danny, some advice has been given to the young fly-half,

Wanting to get back into the action, Cipriani will join England against an arduous November playing against Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Pacific Islanders on consecutive weekends.

Leicester is the next game and not exactly who they will enjoy playing after 3 consecutive losses however Ciprianin is expected to make a full comeback similar to Dallaglio when in his own career.

leicester play Wasps on 26th September at 8:03pm - Welford Road

The international Rugby board has announced the USA will play in all eight of the IRB World Sevens series.

Replacing Canada, the USA will be a core team joined by England, Argentina, Australia, Fiji, France, Samoa, Scotland, Kenya, Wales, South Africa and of course, reigning champions New Zealand.

This is a huge testament to USA rugby being a core team proving the growth of Rugby worldwide after strong performances over recent years.

At each tournament, 4 extra teams will be added to join the core teams apart from in Hong kong which will have an extra 12 teams competing for the crown.

The 10th Anniversary celebrations will be kicked off on the 28-29 november in Dubai with the next as soon as the 5-6 December in george, South Africa.

Sevens Rugbyis an integral part of  the world’s sporting community especiallywith the IRB continuing its campaign to have rugby re-introduced into the Olympic Games