Cockerill said ahead of their match with Ireland this weekend<\/a> when asked if he thought it would happen. \u201cWe\u2019re at a standstill because we are an inconvenience as a national team, aren\u2019t we?<\/p>\n\u201cWhere do we go? We keep winning Rugby Europe and we don\u2019t have to play at our best to win that, with respect to all the other teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, sport is about opportunity. It\u2019s Wales at the moment, it could be anybody, but whoever finishes bottom of the Six Nations, if we or Spain, Portugal, Romania, whoever that may be, they should be good enough to beat us, shouldn\u2019t they?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy can\u2019t we be in the Six Nations for a year? And we might get spanked but it\u2019s no different to Italy getting the opportunity and it took them however long to win a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been able to build and we need that opportunity too but where do we get it? Are we just going to sit here winning Rugby Europe until the government gets bored of funding it because where do we go with it? Or are we going to take the next step?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some work to do with infrastructure and all the other bits and pieces but until we\u2019re in it and we\u2019re learning from playing right the way through to the board and administration, it\u2019s all new to us. Rome was the great new Six Nations weekend when Italy first came in \u2013 come to Tbilisi, it\u2019s an amazing place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about expanding the game \u2013 Italy have been allowed into the Six Nations, the Fijian Drua and Moana Pasifika are in Super Rugby. Where do Georgia get their opportunity? A play-off seems fair to me. I\u2019ve said it before, it would be the richest game in rugby \u2013 how good!\u201d<\/p>\n
French teams fined for violent scenes<\/p>\n
French Pro D2 clubs Grenoble and USA Perpignan have been handed fines for their parts in the ugly scenes that marred the end of their promotion play-off last month.<\/p>\n
The two sides met on June 14, with Perpignan winning an extremely close encounter 13-11 to deny Wales’ Sam Davies and Grenoble Top 14 rugby next season.<\/p>\n
But it was events after the final whistle that caught the headlines, with a pitch invasion and physical fights between supporters taking place, with the police forced to keep the peace.<\/p>\n
Grenoble has been fined \u20ac25,000 and banned from playing their opening home match of next season at Stade des Alpes. Perpignan were handed the same financial sanction and also given a one-game stadium ban, although the latter stipulation was suspended.<\/p>\n
Ford set to join 100 club<\/p>\n
By PA Sport staff<\/p>\n
George Ford will make his 100th appearance for England in Saturday\u2019s opening Test against Argentina in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old Sale fly-half, co-captain alongside Jamie George, has been named in head coach Steve Borthwick\u2019s starting line-up alongside Test debutants Seb Atkinson and Will Muir.<\/p>\n
Gloucester\u2019s Atkinson and Bath\u2019s Muir, will win their first England caps at centre and on the wing respectively, while Bath back-row Guy Pepper could make his international bow off the bench.<\/p>\n
Ford, who made his senior international debut in the 2014 Six Nations against Wales, helped England reach the 2019 World Cup final in Japan.<\/p>\n
Borthwick said: \u201cGeorge has been a standout player for over a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cReaching 100 caps is a remarkable achievement and it speaks volumes about both the professional and the person he is. Everyone in the squad is incredibly proud to share this moment with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borthwick named a 36-man summer tour squad 10 days ago for a two-match series against Argentina, who beat the British & Irish Lions 28-24 in Dublin last month, with the second Test in San Juan on July 12.<\/p>\n
They will then play a one-off Test against the United States in Washington DC on July 19.<\/p>\n
Borthwick added: \u201cWe\u2019re excited to be playing in Argentina and to test ourselves against a strong, in-form side.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving beaten the British & Irish Lions, they come into this series as favourites. They\u2019re brilliantly led by Julian Montoya and we know it will be a huge challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borthwick, without 13 players who are currently on tour with the British and Irish Lions, included 10 uncapped players in total in his squad.<\/p>\n
Joe Carpenter, Oscar Beard, Charlie Atkinson, Arthur Clark, Luke Northmore, Max Ojomoh and Afolabi Fasogbon, a late replacement for injured prop Emmanuel Iyogun, are all hoping to force their way into Borthwick\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
England line-up: F Steward, T Roebuck, H Slade, S Atkinson, W Muir, G Ford, B Spencer, F Baxter, J George, J Heyes, C Ewels ,A Coles, B Curry, S Underhill, T Willis. Replacements: T Dan, B Rodd, A Opoku-Fordjour, C Cunningham-South, G Pepper, A Dombrandt, J van Poortvliet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest rugby news stories from Wales, the Lions and beyondWillis Halaholo, right, playing for Wales(Image: \u00a9 Huw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764,14260],"class_list":{"0":"post-236856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales","13":"tag-wales-rugby-team"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114793851576059705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Willis](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_JS251250142.jpg\")
Willis Halaholo, right, playing for Wales(Image: \u00a9 Huw Evans Picture Agency)<\/p>\n