Chris Hewett

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

Australian rules must have Boon crying into his beer

6 March 2022 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT BACK in the day, when men were men and Australians considered themselves more masculine than the rest of the planet, flying and drinking […]

F-bomb was careless but Deano had a case

27 February 2022 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Some of the things Ron Atkinson said during a long and lavishly rewarded career as a football manager were politically incorrect. […]

Good on Diamond for telling it like it is

27 February 2022 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT HATS off to the straight-talking Steve Diamond, “lead rugby consultant” – aka “new boss” – at Worcester. In this paper last weekend, Diamond […]

It’s not who you play, it’s where you play them!

20 February 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Auckland and Rome are rugby poles apart: the Arctic and Antarctic of the Union game, its top and bottom, its alpha […]

Roberts adds more glitter to his CV

20 February 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THE title “Renaissance Man” is a big one to bestow on a mere rugby player, but all things considered, there is nothing “mere” […]

Allow me to leap to Eddie’s defence!

13 February 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT WHENEVER we talk of Edward I, which admittedly is not an everyday occurrence, we invariably refer to him as the “Hammer of the […]

We must make Italy offer they can’t refuse

13 February 2022 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Hard as it is to sympathise with someone who shoots two men during dinner –a shameful waste of food in a […]

These late, late shows are a test of nerve

6 February 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Funny places, rugby Press boxes. It was comedy gold, listening to the antediluvian correspondent of a middle-market tabloid scream “speak louder, […]

Serendipity enhances Euro Cup’s Round of 16

6 February 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT UNINTENDED consequences? You can’t move for them in the Union game, whether the governing class is ring-fencing the Premiership or fiddling around with […]

The Rugby Paper’s Six Nations preview: Green giants can cast long shadow over rivals

30 January 2022 1 comment

Amid the clinking cutlery and a few chinking glasses, The Rugby Paper’s brain’s trust gathered at Jeremy Guscott‘s favourite Bath watering hole, Walcot House, to […]

It’s time to rethink a British and Irish League

23 January 2022 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST The best we can say for the United Rugby Championship is that the revamped tournament is having a near-life experience: eyes […]

Rugby needs this new ITV audience

23 January 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT WHO out there remembers what occurred immediately after the great Ashes series of 2005? To be clear: pretty much every Ashes series in […]

England don’t know what world class means

16 January 2022 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Will the Arctic icecap last long enough to witness another Italian victory in the Six Nations? Why would anyone in full […]

Keyboard warrior Hepburn hits wrong target

16 January 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT ALEC Hepburn’s energetic campaign to make today’s loosehead prop community more interesting than the majority of their forerunners continues apace. It is a […]

The game is nothing without jeopardy

9 January 2022 2 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Apips-and-core Australian with vast experience of top-end rugby on both sides of the Equator sends his season’s greetings from a sunlit […]

We need Wray back in black as soon as possible

9 January 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT PLENTY of words have been written about Jackson Wray in this corner of the paper but, in light of the Saracens back-rower’s latest […]

Steward can succeed where Billy Whizz failed

2 January 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Famous try: Jason Robinson celebrates his try for the Lions against the Wallabies at the Gabba in 2001 PICTURE: Getty Images […]

Marquee players are licence to bend cap

2 January 2022 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT LEAVING aside Chris Whitty’s festive slideshows – ho ho ho – is there anything less amusing on the planet than the Premiership’s freestyle […]

Suddenly, stability is in fashion for coaches

26 December 2021 2 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST It would be stretching things just a little to describe rugby’s pre-World Cup era as an age of innocence: the mass […]

Griffiths brings fun and games to The Rec

26 December 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT IT IS not yet a mathematical certainty that Bruce Craig will end his long spell of chairmanship at Bath in the way he […]

Perpetual underdogs Connacht do still bite

19 December 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Is there anything funnier in team sport – or in any other walk of life, come to that – than the […]

This rugby vote is just game for a laugh

19 December 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THE right to vote is a deadly serious matter, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good for a laugh: how else would Ann […]

Oh, for those refreshing Heineken Cup years!

12 December 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Heineken Cup rugby was once so vibrant and exhilarating – so spellbindingly good, year after year – it left nostalgia without […]

Why doesn’t Curry cut mustard for best XV?

12 December 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THIS column does not make a habit of agreeing with World Rugby, but this being the season of goodwill, it may be time […]

Soaked in the stands, rinsed in the wallet

5 December 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Bath have not won a competitive match at the Recreation Ground since early June. As they are currently charging as much […]

Virtuoso Slade may have done for Farrell

5 December 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT THERE’S a question out there that dare not speak its name, but we’ll ask it anyway: is Owen Farrell flirting with the past […]

Woki leads new breed of French super locks

28 November 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST You always knew where you stood with French second row forwards of a certain vintage, even if you didn’t stay standing […]

Kolisi was fall guy in the great jump-off

28 November 2021 2 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THE Springboks are “poison of the month” as far as the referees are concerned. There’s a shock. When your chief water-carrier (second job: […]

Ireland v All Blacks is rugby’s new rivalry

21 November 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Rugby is defined by its great rivalries: Bath- Leicester and Llanelli-Swansea back in the amateur days; Martyn Thomas and his acolytes […]

World Rugby should be in the dock alongside Erasmus

21 November 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT WE HAVE spent more time talking about Rassie Erasmus and his antics during the Lions tour of South Africa than we did about […]

No guff, just gumption from my top XV pundits

14 November 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST It is falling-off-a-log easy to poke fun at the battalions of exrugby professionals who earn a living – or, in the […]

Relegation is not end of ambition in France

14 November 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT THERE are more than a dozen towns and cities in France, from Beziers and Dax in the far south to Grenoble and Oyonnax […]

Flankers see world from other angles

7 November 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST At the risk of offending the Scottish rugby establishment –a serious hazard when you might find Jim Telfer on your case […]

Why send minnows cruising for a bruising?

7 November 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT THE Rugby Europe Championship was back up and running this weekend, with the Netherlands facing Russia in Amsterdam, and it will not be […]

Argentina makes more RWC sense than USA

31 October 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST There is a very good reason why rugby’s dollar-desperate establishment has failed to secure a place for the game in America’s […]

Japan has a yen for showing clubs matter

31 October 2021 2 comments

CHRIS HEWETT ALL that publicity about the setting up of a new “global” 12-a-side tournament and positioning it as rugby’s answer to cricket’s IPL has […]

Strange to snub George like this

24 October 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST WHAT is it with Jamie George? Or, to put the same question in a different, more accurate way: What is it […]

Too much of Wales has become a rugby wasteland

24 October 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT The Rhinogydd range, rough and remote; the micro-breweries of Gwynedd; RS Thomas, the fierce preacher-poet of the Llyn Peninsula whose hard verses might […]

Journeymen Saffers won’t excite the Celtic fans

3 October 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST As the first of this season’s Billionaires’ Row derbies between Bristol and Bath, two wealthy clubs separated by a 12-mile stretch […]

Tethered Ryno has time for a rethink

3 October 2021 2 comments

CHRIS HEWETT YOU can do quite a lot in 12 weeks: walk the full length of the South West Coast Path without killing yourself, for […]

Borthwick will give thanks for Ford axe!

26 September 2021 0 comments

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST No one ever called Leicester a quiet club – lest we forget, Austin Healey and Richard Cockerill played there – but […]

One World Cup is fraught, let alone two!

26 September 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT YOU have to laugh. After years of dissing football as a “below stairs” kind of sport, wholly bereft of the values that made […]

Monye can waltz into a whole new world

19 September 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST When Ugo Monye squeezes himself into a sequined toreador’s jacket, spangly tights and a feather boa for the paso doble round […]

Welcome to mad, mad world of modern rugby | Chris Hewett

12 September 2021 0 comments

A single English Premiership campaign is an interesting bunch of competitions. We’ve been treated to old-style fights for the title in April, even if they […]

Latest twist in Sam Burgess saga can’t be ignored

12 September 2021 0 comments

THE controversy surrounding Sam Burgess, the Rugby League maestro who took to Rugby Union like a fish to concrete but still found his way into […]

Matson is welcome addition to melting pot

5 September 2021 1 comment

CHRIS HEWETT GUEST COLUMNIST Younger readers will find this hard to believe, but the art historian Kenneth Clark knew so much about so many things […]