Misc

The Barbarians were resplendent in their new Rhino kit as they trained at St Pauls School in Barnes where they prepared this morning for their forthcoming match with England at Twickenham on Sunday. The kit has been well received and warmly praised by the Barbarians management and players. See their final scrum practice on the St Pauls Rhino Premiersled on the video below.

You can purchase the new Barbarians kit online from Rhino Teamwear.

Coach Dai Young, Captain Mike Tindall and Manager Derek Quinnell.
Imanol Harinordoquy of Biarritz and France

A couple of great videos from Red Bull - featuring Rhino Rugby training equipment and balls.

Rhino is very proud to be supporting the memorial game being played tonight at Cardiff Arms Park between the Welsh Medicals and the Welsh Academicals in honour of the legendary Dr Jack Matthews who died last year aged 92.

The match is also being supported by Jamie Roberts who in addition to recently qualifying as a doctor has also emulated Jack in playing for Cardiff, Wales and the Lions and being a Grand Slam winner. Rhino marked the Lions link by supplying the same match balls for the memorial game which will be used in the opening Lions tour match on June 1st against the Barbarians in Hong Kong.

Jamie has this to say about one of the hardest tackling centres ever to play the game - a man tough enough not only to win 17 caps for Wales, including a Grand Slam in 1950 and play all 6 Tests on the 1950 Lions Tour, but also to fight 4 exhibition rounds with Rocky Marciano:

Rhino has a longstanding partnership with Browns Sport & Leisure Club in the Algarve, Europe’s foremost warm weather training facility for rugby, and our training equipment at Browns was heavily used by the participants in the recent Algarve Rugby Festival held there, including the Dictator scrum machine which was used by England in France when reaching the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final.

The Army warm up with Rhino hit shields

London Irish work on Rhino tackle bags

The British Army, CDUL of Portugal, Krany Yar of Russia and London Irish all joined the festival - London Irish defeated the Army 41-17 in the opening game on Saturday April 6th, and the following day Krany Yar defeated CDUL 45-24 before going on to defeat the Army 31-20 on Wednesday 10th.

Proprietor Alan Brown expressed himself delighted with the progress of the Festival, which has more games to follow – ‘the games to date have been strongly contested and entertaining and the atmosphere amongst spectators at the games and the live music events afterwards has been tremendous. We are looking forward to building on this next year’.

Rhino Rugby Asia based in Singapore has recently become an Official Supplier of training equipment to both the Hong Kong RFU and the renowned Cathay Pacific - HSBC Hong Kong Sevens.

The Sevens, arguably the world’s leading annual rugby event from a fans point of view, took place from March 22nd to 24th and featured Rhino hit shields and Collision Kings in the warm up areas for the players to use before each game.

The tournament was won by Fiji for the second consecutive year beating Wales 26-19 in the final, but only after a heroic Welsh performance in leading 19-0 at half time, before a hat trick of tries by Osea Kolinisau saw Fiji home.

Another epic event enjoyed by a full house on all three days of the tournament, with a level of fan engagement and hysteria which has been imitated by the other HSBC Sevens World Series events in Dubai, Wellington and Las Vegas, but not yet matched. It helps of course in this respect to have a set played in between rounds by The Beach Boys on late Saturday afternoon!

Well done to the HKRFU, Cathay Pacific and HSBC – Rhino was proud to be involved and we are looking forward to next year already.

Osea Kolinisau pulls away for the winning try against Wales in the final.
England warm up using Rhino hitshields	The Cook Islands using the Rhino Collision King

The scrum machine given to the Jungle Crows rugby club and its associated charity Khelo Rugby in Kolkata as a result of the RAF Spitfires Golden Jubilee Sevens at Iffley Road , Oxford and other fundraising activities supported by Rhino Rugby in the summer, was recently blessed in a Puja ceremony at their Maidan training ground.

The Rhino Premiersled which reached the Jungle Crows via the British Consulate in Kolkata was blessed by a local local Pandit and witnessed by the Jungle Crow players including Sailen Tudu, the Indian national fly half who recently spent a couple of years at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire and helped Rhino in their fundraising efforts to support the RAF Spitfires in their sponsorship of the scrum machine and other equipment delivered with it.

Rhino has strong personal ties with Japan as a result of which we have strongly supported the current tour to England by the rugby club of Boei Daigaku - the Japanese National Defence Academy. The tourists are very grateful for being hosted by Old Actonians, where they trained today in preparation for their set piece 1st XV game tomorrow against the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

The NDA 2nd XV played an OA Invitation XV on Sunday, going down 34-21 in an excellent match in cold conditions. Their short trip has also taken in a visit to Rugby School and the London Irish - Worcester Warriors game at the Madjedski Stadium on Saturday.

Rhino CEO Reg Clark with Professor Takumi Yamamoto and the NDA squad at the Old Actonian ground today.

Rhino was delighted to feature strongly in the ‘car rugby’ face off game between Jeremy Clarkson and James May at Twickenham as featured in the latest episode of Top Gear. Check it out on:

We can only hope that the hallowed turf has been renovated for the England vs France game this Saturday!

Rhino is pleased to inform you that there is a 2 for 1 offer for the Barbarians game against Fiji to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Fijian Rugby Union at Twickenham on November 30th. See: 2 for 1 on Barbarians Tickets

The game follows those on the Barbarians Summer Tour for which Rhino is the official supplier of teamwear and apparel to the club – against England at Twickenham on May 26th and the historic game against the British & Irish Lions on June 1st in Hong Kong, for which Rhino is also providing the match ball.

All in all quite a year for this most famous of invitation clubs which has played the Lions once before in 1977 for the Queens Silver Jubilee celebrations, a game in which current Barbarians Team Manager Derek Quinnell played.

Derek Quinnell of the Barbarians and Reg Clark of Rhino
launch the new Baa Baas shirt in Hong Kong.