Thursday Round-Up

Thursday Round-Up

Lancaster goes with Form: England head coach Stuart Lancaster has been true to his word, as he opted to include those players in good recent form, rather than select players who have proven themselves in the past. Most notably, that rule applies to Saracens winger Chris Ashton, who is left to ponder what he must to do to get the nod, with his place going to Bath flyer Semesa Rokoduguni. Rokoduguni, a member of the British Armed Forces, has lit up the Aviva Premiership in recent seasons, with bis attacking brand of rugby on the wing. The Bath man represents one third of the uncapped players in the squad alongside the pair of Calum Clark and George Kruis, both of whom are rewarded for fine domestic form, so far this season. Elsewhere, there are some more notable absentees, including the trio of Danny Cipriani, Freddie Burns and second rower Graham Kitchener, with the flyhalf duo of Ford and Myler preferred to Cipriani and Burns, and Kruis to Kitchener. There are also inclusions for back row duo Ben Morgan and James Haskell, who have been in fine form this season, although there remains worries around the availability of Haskell who is currently suffering with a viral infection. Just 11 months out from a World Cup, England take on the trio of New Zealand, Australia and Samoa at Twickenham in the coming weeks.



Kenya deny doping: Kenyan Sevens head coach Paul Treu has today publicly denied doping allegations made against him and his back room staff, claiming they are misinformed and unfounded. South-African born coach Treu, moved from the Springbok Sevens outfit to their Kenyan counterparts at the back end of 2013, at a time when Kenyan players were taking off the shelf supplements. Having introduced a no-supplement policy amongst his players, instead opting to focus on purely nutritional gains, Treu had to contend with the proposed introduction of a supplement called Evox, at the behest of the Kenyan Rugby Union around the time of his appointment. However, since then, the Kenyan Government have set up a task force to investigate doping within the Kenyan Sevens outfit and have since made severe allegations and defamatory statements against both Treu and the rest of his back room staff. Despite not being investigated by the Task Force or any members of the Government, Treu and his staff have been accused of providing a banned substance and other concoctions to the Kenyan players in the past year. The national inquest goes on, although the IRB fails to recognise the agency and their findings.

Ryan Sheady


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