Sport On The Internet: Net gain to southern hemsiphere

The Rugby Football Union started its own web site last week (promoting it with the worst pun of the month, "World Wide Webb Ellis") just in time for the autumn series of internationals.

It contains a question and answer piece with Lawrence Dallaglio, profiles of England's elite players, a quiz and information on Twickenham. It is disappointing that it does not have anything on England's team for today's match against Australia but, even allowing for its newness, it still is rather a good reflection of the RFU itself.

Just as England are likely to be bested by teams from the southern hemisphere on the pitch, so in cyberspace they also come second. The official Wallabies site is bright and brash as one would expect and includes a daily diary of the tour by Andrew "The Ox" Heath. The post-mortem after last weekend's defeat by Argentina was held by - what else - a kangaroo court.

The official All Blacks site is a model of succinctness and information. It contains up-to-date news of the All Blacks' current tour, even including information of England's enforced team changes for their match against Australia, profiles of the players, (although I rather went off Carlos Spencer when I read that his favourite film is The Lion King, but he is a good rugby player for all that) and links to other sites.

The Springboks site has the usual mix of profiles, news and archive material. All the southern hemisphere sites have details of the recent Tri-Nations and Super 12 tournaments. Of the domestic sites, Scrum has results from all the major European club leagues and cup competitons, a daily news round-up and a promised audio link from Twickenham at the weekend. As a general site dealing with all aspects of northern hemisphere rugby union, this seems to be the best.

The Allied Dunbar Premiership has its own site for the top clubs and this contains full player stats for all the competing clubs.

ADDRESSES

RFU official site

http://www.rfu.com/

All Blacks official site

http://www.nzrugby.co.nz/

Wallabies official site

http://www.rugby.com.au/

Springboks official site

http://www.sarfu.org.za/

Scrum

http://www.scrum.com/

Allied Dunbar Premiership

http://www.rugbyclub.co.uk/