The league’s relegation favourites, the Newcastle Falcons beat the Northampton Saints by 32-22 with Johnny Wilkinson scoring 22 of its points.

Back from shoulder surgery, Wilkinson showed he was back on 100% form after an early up-and-under seeing skipper Reihana almost offer an early chance to open the scoring but the penalty attempt was short of the uprights.

The Falcons were level as Wilkinson kicked two penalties either side of 3 pointers each from Reihana and Spencer whilst most the posession they had was lost.

After Phillips was sin-binned for going to deck at a ruck before, Reihana missed a penalty chance and Wilkinson finished with two more penalties and a long range drop-goal.

The scorers:

For Newcastle Falcons:
Tries: Buist, Phillips
Cons: Wilkinson 2
Pens: Wilkinson 5
Drop: Wilkinson

For Northampton Saints:
Tries: Lamont
Cons: Reihana
Pens: Reihana 4, Spencer

New Zealand Rugby is at an all time high winning it’s record 4th consecutivethe Tri-Nations trophy beating the Wallabies 28-24.

Australia were 10 points ahead at half time until a match defining 17 minute stint in the second half for New Zealand beating the Wallabies with a dazzling performance to take the crown.

With a patient defence and strong tackle point dominance, New Zealand excelled in order to clinch the title whilst the Wallabies could not follow suit kicking poorly with a weakness passing the ball.

Australia showed something of their efforts scoring a penalty after New Zealands captain, Richie McCaw was caught offside at the breakdown.

The scorers:

For Australia:
Tries: Ashley-Cooper, Horwill, Cross
Cons: Giteau 3
Pen: Giteau

For New Zealand:
Tries: Muliaina, Woodcock, Weepu, Carter
Cons: Carter 4

Ospreys recently played a Welsh Premiership Select XV, and won very decisively.  The final score was 66 - 0.  James Hook scored 2 tries, a penalty and 8 conversions, while Ryan Jones, Filo Tiatia, Gareth Owen, Marty Holah, Sonny Parker, Andrew Bishop and Jonathan Thomas also all scored.

The Ospreys fielded their normal team, while the Welsh Premiership Select XV looked something like this:

Bevan (Swansea)
Connelly (Bridgend)
Thomas (Swansea)
Beck (Aberavon)
Carter (Aberavon)
David (Bridgend)
Noyle (Neath)
Bevington (Bridgend)
Breeze (Aberavon)
Mitchell (Neath)
Rownan (Swansea)
Fisher (Aberavon)
S Jones (Swansea)
Beech (Neath)
Pitman (Bridgend)
N Jones (Swansea)
Whyte (Aberavon)
Downes (Neath)
James (Neath)
Ruddock (Neath)
Pugh (Neath)
J Jones (Bridgend)
S Williams (Swansea)
Watts (Swansea)

Not the most stunning of teams really, so it is no surprise that the Ospreys ran riot.  To be honest, I do not know if matches like this are worthwhile, the Ospreys were always going to win, and the only thing this match achieved was that the Ospreys full back, Gareth Owen, gained an injury and it is not known if he will be able to start the season.  Other than that nothing gained in my opinion - how can you learn about players on a team when the gap between the two teams is so great?

It has been announced that the Magners league is going to adopt a playoff system to decide the winner of the league, copying the system that is currently in use in the Guinness Premiership.  It will not be introduced this season, but at the start of the 09/10 season.

The idea of the championship playoff is that the top 4 teams in the league will play in a knockout stage after the normal season is complete.  If it is exactly the same as the Guinness Premiership, then the team that finishes first will play at home against the team who finished 4th, while the team that finished 2nd will play at home to the team that finished third.  then the two victors will play a final, which will probably be held at one of the larger stadiums - usually at Twickenham for the Guinness Premiership, so possibly the Millennium stadium in Cardiff could be used.

I am not the biggest fan of this type of playoff - as it adds even more games to an already very busy season, and it means that the quality of the games can suffer.  As well as this, I am a believer of the fact that if you finish first, you would win the league, not then have to play another 2 games which if you lose one of them you will then not win even though you came first.

Danny Cipriani hopes to make an early comeback to rugby, following an injury to his ankle in May while playing Bath.  Cipriani suffered a right ankle fracture dislocation, and spent the first 6 weeks of his recovery on crutches with his leg in plaster.  However, he has been running on it for the past three weeks, and hopes to regain full fitness by October.

This is a pretty important year for Cipriani, so it is important he is at full fitness as soon as possible - he has the Guinness Premiership, the Heineken Cup, the Six Nations and possibly even the 2009 Lions tour to play in over the upcoming season - that is a lot of rugby, so his ankle needs to be as good as new if not better as it is going to be covering a lot of miles over the next few months. However, as Cipriani said - “The way I have looked at it is that I’m not going to think about the Lions and I’m not going to think about England, I’m going to think about playing well for my club.”  That has got to be the best way to look at the next few months of rugby.

How about this for a score line - South Africa 52 - 8 Australia.  This means that Australia are now not on track to win the Tri Nations, as they are now 1 point behind New Zealand, having played the same number of games.  Australia now have to beat New Zealand in the final game of the Tri Nations on the 13th of September to finish top of the table and win the championship.

There were 4 tries scored by the South African winger Jongi Nokwe, and tries were also scored by Andries Bekker, Adrian Jacobs, Ruan Pienaar and Odwa Ndungane.  Butch James kicked three conversions and a penalty, while Percy Montgomery kicked two conversions.  Australia kicked one penalty and scored a try via Mitchell, and did not look at all like winning, or really even scoring.

At the end of the match, Percy Montgomery announced that he was retiring from international rugby, after playing 102 matches and scoring 893 points.  He will still be playing club rugby in South Africa.

I reckon that New Zealand are going to win the Tri Nations, especially the way that Australia are playing at the moment.

The RFU has admitted that it has given up on its policy of helping to fund the move of league stars to union.  the only cross code move of any success was Jason Robinson, and since then there have been a string of high profile failures, such as Andy Farrell, Henry Paul and Chev Walker.  Farrell and Paul both played for England, but neither of them made an impact - with Paul moving back to League (though he is going to be back in union playing at Leeds soon), and Farrell continuing to play at Saracens, but without making the sort of impact expected of him.  Even the league players who were not funded by the RFU have not made the impact that they were expected to - Lesley Vainikolo anyone? Played for England, made no impression and has now been totally dropped out of the England set up.

I think the thing that everyone missed on is the fact that Robinson was an excellent player that understood both codes, which is something that happens only very rarely - league and union are very different, and no amount of money can make someone as good in union as they are in league - in my opinion they are 2 different sports.

Two more Ospreys have signed new contracts, taking the number that has recommitted themselves to the Ospreys this year up to 14.  Andrew Phillips has signed a new 4 year contract, as has Cai Griffiths.  This means that the players who have signed new contracts this season are:

• Gavin Henson
• Jonathan Thomas
• Shane Williams
• Lee Byrne
• Huw Bennett
• Cai Griffiths
• Andrew Phillips
• Paul James
• Ben Lewis
• Ed Shervington
• Leigh Bevan
• Gareth Owen
• Rhys Webb
• Filo Tiatia

While it is good that the Ospreys are looking towards the future, is it good to have so many players on long term contracts?  I suppose it isn’t such an issue as it would be if they played in a league where they could get relegated and lose out on a lot of money (such as Leeds did this year), but it still seems quite risky to me.  Handing out 4 year contracts like they grow on trees seems a bit at odds with the ways that sports work.

Plus, it has to be said that I wouldn’t give Gavin Henson a new contract if he paid me for it - I think he is rather overrated, and hasn’t been anywhere near as good as he once was for many years (pretty much since he released his autobiography…)

Here is a list of how all the Guinness Premiership teams have done pre season - remember, this wont really give any tips as to how the premiership is going to unfold, but they are still interesting results.  Most teams still have 1 or 2 more games to play.

Bath
15th August: Ulster W 15-7
23th August: Llanelli Scarlets W 24-16

Bristol
16th August: Exeter L 15-6
20th August: Pontypool W 43-3
22nd August: Glasgow W 15-12

Gloucester
19th August: Bayonne L 9-30

Harlequins
16th August: Connacht L 8-24
23rd August: London Irish W 27-24

Leicester
15th August: BiarritzL 37-35
23rd August: Ospreys W 30-17

London Irish
15th August: Nottingham W 33-12
23rd August: Harlequins L 24-27

London Wasps

14th August: Dax W 13-3
23rd August: Edinburgh L 15-22

Newcastle
8th August: Western Force L 15-25
17th August: Leeds L 21-25
24th August: Racing Metro 92 W 37-10

Northampton
16th August: Clermont Auvergne L 14-5
23rd August: Western Force W 22-3

Sale
6th August: Perpignan D 24-24
9th August: Montpellier L 42-21

Saracens
8th August: Bayonne L 27-29
15th August: Western Force W 19-10
15th August: Toulon W 32-27
22nd August: Newport Gwent Dragons W 23-19

Worcester
17th August: Doncaster Knights W 32-9
23rd August: Moseley W 73-7

Johnny Wilkinson, the England and Newcastle fly half, is expected to play in the first match of the Guinness Premiership.  He had surgery over the summer to repair cartilage n his shoulder, but should be fit to play Sale in the Falcons first fixture of the season on September 7th.

This should be good news for the Newcastle Falcons, as they have lost a couple of their best players - the England backs Tony Flood and Matthew Tait, and have not brought in players of the same quality as replacements.

Due to the new agreement between clubs and RFU that lets England have the players for more days each year, Steve Bates, Director of Rugby at Newcastle claims that  “Certainly part of our strategy was that we could not afford to have four guys in a backline that were going to be missing for 11 games.”  This sounds like it is partially true, but to be honest, I can understand why players like Flood don’t want to play at Newcastle anymore - they are tipped for relegation this year, and are seen as one of the lesser clubs by the top teams - which is a change from when rugby went professional!