Spain was only one step to win over Romania, one of the teams that recently participated in the 2007 France World Championship ranked seventh amongst the European powerhouses disputing the Rugby Six Nations tournament.

The Romanian team has clearly been a strong force as they have won twenty-four of the twenty-five games played in the tournament; the team is completely renewed after the Rugby World Championship.

During the first part of the game the Spaniard team played one of their best games in the last seasons; being able to take advantage over the Romanians, but remained without forces in the second part. At the end they did not know how to pull through their best tricks despite the rival had one less player.

The Romanian forward always kept one step ahead of the Spaniard player. Gratton failed two blows and a transformation in the first part but overall the Spaniards knew to put up a fight against the Romanians. Spaniard Bohorquez, who was injured, had to be replaced by Serrano.

During the first twelve minutes Poparlan opened the scoreboard for the Romania and Camacho answered with the first point for Spain before the first half an hour. The Romanian coach changed his two midfielders, Calafeteanu and Dimofte, and opened the entrance for Andrei and Dumbrava, and he proved to be right.

On the other hand, Spain’s forces failed in the second half. Spain’s English Coach Ged Glynn tried to change strategies but were the Rumanians who managed to do it the task. The Spaniards not ready to yield yet were on the verge of adding five points but were stopped just one meter from the mark line.

One of Romania’s players Mersoiu was asked to leave the field but this wasn’t too advantageous for Spain that continue to struggle and returning the ball to the Rumanians.

At the end of the game, the Spaniards had the last opportunity to score, Sempere shot the ball out the band and the Rumanians recovered the ball again.

In spite of the loss, Spain gave again a good image and a great environment and managed to show that the road ahead since the arrival of the English coach is the right move for the sport of rugby at a national level.

Rugby Union is a very demanding game, placing very rigorous demands on players physical and mental attributes. Most amateur players however perform very poorly in respect of rugby-specific fitness tests, due predominantly to poor training habits and lack of correct skills training by coaches. It’s stop-start nature demands that players have high levels of speed and explosive power, as well as having the ability to recover quickly between sprints.
Rugby is such a simple game – score more tries than your opponents. To achieve this, your team must win possession of the ball by dominating lineouts, scrums, rucks and mauls, and every other facet of the game where the ball is contested. For YOU to dominate a game, you need to be competent in the skills of evasive running, kicking, passing, catching and tackling.
Strength is an obvious requirement to play the game, however it is not the only goal for a player. Exposive power is equally as important to develop speed and acceleration and to develop the fitness demands for tackling and jumping.
As a player, it is your responsibility to put in the time and effort needed to master the basic skills and be in best physical condition. As in life and other pursuits, absolute commitment is required if you want to be the best you can. To excel nowadays, players must master the basic skills AND improve speed, strength and power. Fitness, strength, power and mastery of the basic skills is what makes one player stand out from the rest of his team-mates.

Attention rubgy fans! Are you an aficionado of “the ruffian’s game played by gentlemen?” Are you thinking about heading to France for the 2007 Rugby World Cup? Surely you want to be on hand to see if England will keep their champion standing, or watch as some other country wrests the top spot away from them. France, Australia, and New Zealand were right in there for the 2003 Cup; they will surely be back in force. And who knows? There is always the possibility that a team could come out of nowhere and prevail. No way you want to miss any of that action!

If the thought has turned into a definite plan to attend some if not all of the September 7-October 20 mega-event, you better get your tickets (one place you can try is the main event site at www.france2007.fr). But don’t stop there! Now is also the time to nail down your living arrangements. Wait too long, and the search for good accommodations will make you feel like you’re in the middle of a scrum yourself.

If you are anywhere near serious about getting as immersed in the games as you can, the last thing you want to do is deal with arranging multiple accommodations and then bounce around from venue to venue with luggage in hand. Your best bet for maximum rugby enjoyment is to rent a short term apartment for the duration of your visit and use it as your base camp. And your best bet for base camp is Paris.

With the great train service and central location of the French capital city, having an apartment that you can call home will let you make forays into the countryside to take in however many games your stamina can handle and then return to regroup. You can easily ride the Chunnel train to get the Cardiff and Edinburgh games if you are a real hard core fan. Sometimes, though, you won’t have to travel too far: A number of games (including the semi-finals and finals) are scheduled at venues in the Paris metro area.

With all the advantages of Paris (oh, and there are other interesting things there besides rugby stadiums), there is one disadvantage: vacation apartments will be at a premium, if they aren’t already. Places with good amenities in interesting neighborhoods and enough space for your whole party are getting snapped up as you read this.

If you are any kind of rugby fan, you have a responsibility to be in the best shape possible to go nuts rooting for the team(s) of choice. This means that you need to pay as much attention to your between-game experience as you do to your in-stadium one. Your best strategy? Follow up your ticket purchase by nailing down a place you can hang out between games. Right now.

Rugby has always had a strong core of support in the UK, but the success of England in the World Cup and Wales in the Six Nations has elevated the sport to even higher levels, making household names of many of its stars.

Talking of household names, how many people will struggle to find a suitable and original present for their dads this Father’s Day? GettingPersonal.co.uk, the web-based gift shop, might have the answer for rugby loving dads.

Some dads fantasise about being behind that amazing last-minute drop kick that brings home the cup for their nation or club. Since it’s a fantasy that’s unlikely ever to come to fruition, he can at least have his dreams propped up with a little digital imagination. GettingPersonal.co.uk have launched a rugby-lover’s calendar just in time for Father’s Day.

What makes this calendar special is that the dad’s name or a short message can be made to look like part of a spectacular rugby event with new levels of realism and seamlessness.

So come Father’s Day, dads will be able to see stands and stadiums named after them, themselves as team sponsors, their name in the sports headlines or they could even have their name spelt out in finest Twickenham mud next to a battle-worn pair of boots. And as the calendar starts on Father’s Day, it’s got a whole 12 months till full time.

The Personalised Rugby Calendar is available in either a desk or a wall hanging version and is only £14.95.

Brand new from GettingPersonal.co.uk – the calendar also has a front cover message of up to 150 characters so it’s even more personal!

Go on, make him smile with one of GettingPersonal.co.uk’s fantastic personalised Fathers Day Gifts…