O'Sullivan walks away, Ashton stays put (for now)

As the Six Nations came to a dramatic end, there was no real surprise to see some managerial casualties. After falling two years short of his remaining contract, Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan packs his bags and waved goodbye to the ten-time Six nation champions

This week, the BBC offered a "team of the six nations", where youthful talent David Strettle was the only English player to make it into the side. This really shows the poor tournament England had. Yes, "poor" is the best way to describe an England team that struggled to find any confidence and determination. Now not to be pessimistic, Brian Ashton, has done a great job. He picked up a team which has many retiring stars and turned them into a world cup finalist outfit. This is something people forget. However, his decision to replace England's starlet Jonny Wilkinson with young superstar Danny Cipriani caused the most controversy

The Rugby Blog gave a good view to this, of which many people have commented. It seems that the overall standing is that Ashton made the right choice. Cipriani looks like a player who was made for the top level. Rallying his troops at the start of the Ireland game proved how focused this young man is.

The Guardian published a great post, although back in August, discussing whether a Six Nations team can win the world cup. Now everyone is thinking "what about England", but this argument between Gavin Hastings and Michael Lynagh proves a good read

So Ashton's job looks safe for now, but if England are going to mount a serious challenge for any other major trophies, they will have to start building as soon as possible

What the Blog are you on about?

picture courtesy of robinhamman

As promised, this weeks blog is devoted to....blogs. Now when the word "rubgy blog" is typed into a search engine such as google or dogpile, the links are endless. So these blogs have been picked out as some of the most factual, interactive and accessible to the user

The first link that is most likely to appear is the RugbyBlog, this is an official site set up for the public to offer their views about all that's going on in the rugby world. This website seems well produced, as well as offering tickets, clips and photos from the fans.

Blogging is a great way to get involved with media consumption. Although the target audience may not be reading your enthusiastic update to Rugby Union and/or League, it is available for the world to take a quick glance

Now the dropkicks blog is a great example of how Blogs can become interactive. It has various videos, subject to availability with shockwave of flash media players. This means a comment which is published can be backed up by images, rather than just the word of mouth which is a rather easy form of spreading news.

Times are changing and it won't be too long before most, if not all, blogs have a numerous ammount of videos, pictures and audio quality available

Blood and Mud is another site which is simple and easy to access. A key character to this one however, is its "Blog of the week", which this week went to http://ruggerblogger.blogspot.com/, similar to this format, also on blogspot

So the world of blogging is here: quick, easy and simple to navigate, anyone can get involved. Finallly, a player for the Austin Valkyries manages to spare some of her time to write a blog. It offers a better view to Rugby over in America, especially with womens involvement over there


Thanks for reading