Chris Hewett

This is where you will find all of The Rugby Paper’s Chris Hewett news, views, opinion and other content.

Howzat! Azzurri are left stumped

9 March 2025 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Box office: England’s Elliot Daly scores against Italy in last year’s Six Nations match PICTURE: Alamy AS the BBC’s top brass […]

Lytchett Minster 2s? Now they were decent…

9 March 2025 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED ANYONE seeking to capture the essence of rugby’s transformation over recent decades need not wrestle with the demise of the ruck, […]

A win’s a win for England? Up to a point, my lord…

2 March 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed If England intend to make a habit of winning games on their backsides, they should make a block booking […]

The time’s ripe for a summit of the egos

23 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Summits are all the rage right now, “rage” being the operative word, and as the union game has finished […]

Scrums in danger of falling off the stage

23 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett We do not yet know whether the Sabercats or the Seawolves will emerge the stronger, or whether the Sharks will eat the […]

Goggleboxers must not lose sight of reality

16 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed There was an overpowering whiff of something significant in the air as the 1984 John Player Cup final – […]

Let us permit No.8s freedom of expression

9 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed The great and good of World Rugby are clearly intent on turning scrum-halves into the union equivalent of goalkeepers, […]

The best Six Nations? Here are my top three

2 February 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed The turn of the century was as notable for the things that failed to happen as it was for […]

Six of the best who deserved a chance during the Six Nations

26 January 2025 0 comments

Thinking Allowed by Chris Hewett A great rugby coach is rarer than radium, as England have discovered in recent decades. Precious few people are blessed […]

Captains don’t have to play the full 80

19 January 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed It seems your columnist’s hotline to the England head coach Steve Borthwick has turned positively polar. “Don’t take the […]

We need to watch rugby in the raw

12 January 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed According to Inkoo Kang, a leading critic at The New Yorker magazine and, almost by definition, a writer whose words […]

A star-studded XV that would lead by example

5 January 2025 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Like “business ethics” and “military intelligence”, the phrase “rugby leadership” is not an oxymoron. Almost, but not quite. Even […]

Let’s hope Brizball can stay in fashion

29 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed This is not obviously the time to be talking balls – the Twickenham elite have cornered that particular market […]

No Franco Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake

22 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Here’s a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby sites on the worldwide web super information highway thingy […]

No Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake

22 December 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby […]

No Mostert? That’s got to be a mistake

22 December 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Class act: Franco Mostert scoring for South Africa PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a funny thing: one of the more prominent rugby […]

The global travellers who light up game

15 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed There is nothing especially funny about short-term memory loss, but it may just have an upside when it comes […]

Oh, for a one-stop TV shop for the lot

8 December 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Gogglebox: Bath taking on La Rochelle on Friday night PICTURE: Getty Images HERE’S a brain teaser: if you happen to be […]

Scotland deserve fair share of British & Irish Lions

1 December 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed We may be exaggerating here, but not by much: since the wonderful Tom Smith made the last of his […]

Kolbe’s majesty is a delight to behold

24 November 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CHESLIN Kolbe won the “man of the match” award for his two-try contribution to South Africa’s victory over England, thereby proving […]

We will all suffer in the land of the giants

17 November 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed It was the rugby version of Easy Street, the 1917 silent movie in which Charlie Chaplin, playing a policeman, […]

Pundits need that forward thinking

17 November 2024 0 comments

Ian Robertson put it most colourfully. “I work with backs,” said the celebrated BBC radio commentator on being asked to coach the Cambridge students into […]

When value for money is not part of the deal

10 November 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED ENGLAND’S bench strategy against New Zealand – goodbye “bomb squad”, hello “squib squad” – has been investigated, psychoanalysed, convicted on all […]

Shame that Georgia are kept out of sight

3 November 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed The most significant contest of the November international series? Take your pick. Ireland-New Zealand in Dublin on Friday night? […]

Bath’s ‘bomb squad’ needs to be defused

27 October 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CLOSE your eyes and imagine batting on a fiery Caribbean track in the 1980s, when West Indian fast bowlers ruled the […]

It would be grand for Wasps to return

20 October 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Prize assets: Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and, inset from top, Tom Willis, Gabriel Oghre, Alfie Barbeary, Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Greg Fisilau and […]

Worldwide Springboks still get it together

13 October 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Assuming those with their ears to the ground haven’t gone deaf, Handre Pollard, the Springbok with the Midas toecap, […]

Wallace Sititi is following in father’s footsteps, but for how long?

6 October 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Cast your minds back, those of you who are sufficiently long in the tooth, to Melbourne in late October […]

Fiji deserve to play with best in world

29 September 2024 0 comments

By Chris Hewett – Thinking Allowed Every underdog has its day, as Daniel Dubois reminded us in knocking an entire cathedral’s worth of bells out […]

Too much of a good thing can be overkill

8 September 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED “People might think it’s arrogant,” said Rian Oberholzer, the chief executive of the Springbok domain, just the other day, “but we […]

Energetic thinking urgently required

1 September 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED CRITICAL supporters of Bristol in the late amateur era believed their team was being straitjacketed by a rigidly traditional committee structure […]

Robertson needs to redress the balance

25 August 2024 0 comments

Chris Hewett Thinking allowed It was a cheap shot, admittedly, but only a pacifist or a fool would spurn the opportunity to kick the New […]

Age of protectionism must come to an end

18 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Powered up: Argentina scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou celebrates victory over the All Blacks last weekend PICTURES: Getty Images THE late Jack Rowell […]

Glad to see clock ticking on scrum

18 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THOSE of us who have spent our entire careers writing against deadline know all there is to know about the tyranny of the […]

What counts is how the money is spent

11 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED IT WAS a close-run thing but, after crunching the numbers harder than a caffeine-fuelled psephologist on election night, we can now […]

Why SVNS makes sense for the future

4 August 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Rugby sevens – or SVNS, as a London-based team of funkily-dressed marketing executives have somehow succeeded in rebranding it – used […]

Day when the Real McCoys stood up

28 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED THE governing bodies of the union game are not renowned for their speed off the mark – the average tectonic plate […]

A drop of magic is just what we need

21 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED STRANGE as it may sound to generations of rugby lovers raised on a fizzy-drink, dopamine-heavy diet of high-scoring matches, there was […]

European elite keen to exclude outsiders

14 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Whichever way you care to define the i-word, it was an interesting few hours for Canadian sport. On July 6 in […]

Slipper deserves place at top table

14 July 2024 0 comments

Wallaby props? How we used to snigger at them over here in England as Jason Leonard, Phil Vickery and Andrew Sheridan chucked their weight around […]

Trio who tempt us to search for genius

7 July 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED What do we mean when we talk of genius? It is a question as old as Noah, an early candidate for […]

Whistler’s authority must be protected

30 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED In the middle: Sara Cox took charge of the Women’s Premiership final between Gloucester-Hartpury and Bristol last weekend PICTURES: Getty Images […]

Cheika’s first job: to speak ‘Tiger’

30 June 2024 0 comments

As top-flight English clubs go, none are as English as Leicester, with their grizzled battalions of steadfast Midlands yeomanry – all those Johnsons and Garforths […]

Why less might not be more for stars

23 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED MARTIN Johnson spent a rugby eternity perfecting his survival skills in the engine room of the scrum – the nearest thing […]

Sorry, but Obano did not have to do that

16 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED The best definition of madness in rugby? There are several contenders: picking a fight with Eben Etzebeth springs immediately to mind, […]

Another lesson from the French

16 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT Now that Vannes have made it into the top tier of French rugby and the people running things across the water are preparing […]

Let the ‘waterboys’ just get on with it

9 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED It’s the burning question of the moment: what is Jacques Nienaber? Not “who is Jacques Nienaber”, or “why is he here”, […]

Then and now: It’s tough to compare

2 June 2024 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THINKING ALLOWED Whenever the incomparable Antoine Dupont does the kind of things he did in dragging Toulouse over the line in a Champions […]

Talk of jeopardy is wide of the mark

26 May 2024 0 comments

THINKING ALLOWED It happened during the early stages of the 2003 World Cup in Australia, when two of the union game’s leading administrators – Syd […]

Time for us to see some new thinking

26 May 2024 0 comments

Remember the elderly joke about the flight from Australia to New Zealand? “There’s a time difference between the two countries,” the captain tells his passengers […]

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