For kicks: Steyn's record

ALL IN THE SCRUM:A rugby miscellany

MORNE Steyn will carry a world record to the Northern Hemisphere in November if as expected he is part of the South African squad. According to eminent rugby statistician and historian John Griffiths, since missing the conversion of Francois Louw’s try in the first half of South Africa’s victory over Italy at Witbank on June 19th, 2010, the Springbok outhalf has made 38 consecutive successful goal kicks, spanning eight Tests.

He’ll look to continue that run against Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in November. The success rates of goal-kickers weren’t logged until the late 1980s. The previous mark was Chris Paterson’s run of 36 successive successful goal kicks for Scotland that came to an end against Argentina in Rosario on June 7th, 2008 when he missed a penalty attempt shortly before half-time.

ON THIS DAY

September 20th, 1893: A motion at the English RFU AGM to reimburse rugby players with "broken time payments" that would basically have constituted a move from an amateur sport to professionalism was defeated by 282 votes to 136 in the Westminster Palace Hotel in Victoria Street, London. Rugby union did not go professional until some 102 years later in 1995.

Henson hiccup: London calls

IT SEEMS Gavin Henson’s desire to move to London – the latest club he has been linked with is London Irish – from the Ospreys when he eventually decides to return to the sport may not be a smooth process. The Welsh club’s director of rugby Scott Johnson is to recommend that the Ospreys board hold the player to his contract.

Henson (28) has been on unpaid leave for more than a year and has nine months left to go on his contract. Johnson said in a recent interview: “It’s a two-party agreement and nobody put a gun to anybody’s head to sign. In Gavin’s case he should honour his part of that deal too and I’ll be encouraging the Ospreys to do that.”

Henson has not played rugby since injuring his ankle in March 2009 and is currently appearing on two television reality shows.

London Irish coach Toby Booth confirmed he would be interested in talking to the Welsh international if he became available.

The Wild Geese

HAVING attempted to list the number of Irish players plying their trade in the English Premiership, this column decided to see what sort of Irish representation there was in the English Championship division. The answer, as you’ll notice from the list below, is quite a lot.

We’ll be trying to keep track from time to time in the column of how some of the Irish players are faring and would be delighted to hear of any other players that we might have missed.

Bedford Blues: Brendan Burke.

Plymouth Albion: Fionn McLoughlin, Gavin O’Meara, Kieran Hallett, Ruairi Cushion, Johnny Coleman (Irish rugby league international), Robin Copeland.

Rotherham Titans: Seán Dougal, James Sandford, Jamie Kilbane, Anton O’Donnell, Stuart Philpott.

Bristol: David Blaney.

Worcester Warriors: Neil Best, Louis Padian, Callum Black.

Esher: Kevin Corrigan, John Downey, Gerard Mullen, Darren O’Reilly.

Coventry: Joe Merrigan.

Cornish Pirates: Paul Devlin.

Doncaster Knights: Matt D’Arcy, Shane Cahill, Zac Farivarz.

Birmingham and Solihull: Ross Noonan, Rob Connolly.

More tales from abroad

PETER Bracken’s career has taken him from St Andrew’s College in Dublin to Munster, Connacht, Wasps, Bristol, Harlequins, Newport Gwent Dragons and now Carcassone in the French Second Division. The Tullamore native is currently on the roster of the French club.

He is joined in the second tier by another former Connacht prop, the 24-year-old Brian McGovern, who joined Narbonne from Italian Super 10 team Venezia Mestre. A third player who wore the green of Ireland’s western province, Christian Short, is currently with Lyon OU.

There appears to be something of a Connacht connection with French rugby as former Buccaneers scrumhalf David Connellan is at Aurillac, Damien Browne (Brive) and ex-Ireland Under 21 international David McGowan plays with La Rochelle.

Mark McHugh and former Ireland Under-21 Paddy Warwick are playing with Nice, while Tralee-born John O’Sullivan (Connacht, Munster and Garryowen) is at Agen.

Sharks bite back: Quins fold

KYLE Tonetti continued with his impressive start to his career at the Sale Sharks when coming on as a replacement and scoring the game-winning try in a hard-fought victory over Harlequins. The 23-year-old former Leinster centre grabbed his side’s third try as they overturned a 17-6 interval deficit to eke out a 21-17 victory.

An injury to England and Harlequins scrumhalf Danny Care meant Karl Dickson started the match but from an Irish perspective, Care’s absence saw former Leinster academy player Dave Moore included among the replacements for the first time in a competitive match since his summer move to London.

Harlequins’ director of rugby Conor O’Shea was livid with his team’s display, particularly their discipline as they had Ollie Smith and Tomas Vallejos sinbinned. “We didn’t even deserve to be 17-6 up at half-time. We didn’t defend from the word go and I’ve told the guys in no uncertain terms what I thought about their performance.

“I talked very comfortably about our first two performances and we didn’t remotely come near that level. We were 17-6 up at half-time but we gave away goodness knows how many penalties and played 20 minutes with 14 men.”

He said what?

“HE’S the best kicker I’ve seen under the cosh. He puts in so much hard work, but it’s important that the team perform around him. The team creates pressure, creating penalties, and it’s his job to knock them over.”

Exeter Chiefs’ assistant coach Ali Hepher praises his Irish outhalf Gareth Steenson after he kicked five penalties and a conversion in a victory over the Newcastle Falcons.