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Sergio Parisse
Sergio Francesco Parisse (; born 12 September 1983) is an Italian rugby union player. He currently plays for French club Toulon and played for the Italy national team from 2002 until the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Parisse is Italy's most-capped player, and currently the fourth most-capped player worldwide. He was the first Italian rugby union player to be nominated for the IRB International Player of the Year, in 2008 and again in 2013. Parisse is widely considered one of the greatest number eights of the modern era, and the greatest Italian rugby player of all time. He also holds the joint record of playing in five Rugby World Cups. Early life Parisse was born in La Plata, capital of Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Italian parents. His father, also Sergio, played for the l'Aquila club with whom he won the Italian club championship in 1967 before his job with the Alitalia airline took him to Argentina in 1970. His family spoke Italian at home and every year Sergio would go on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Plata
La Plata () is the capital city of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. According to the , it has a population of 654,324 and its metropolitan area, the Greater La Plata, has 787,294 inhabitants. It is located 9 kilometers (6 miles) inland from the southern shore of the Río de la Plata estuary. La Plata was planned and developed to serve as the provincial capital after the city of Buenos Aires was federalized in 1880. It was officially founded by Governor Dardo Rocha on 19 November 1882. Its construction is fully documented in photographs by Tomás Bradley Sutton. La Plata was briefly known as ''Ciudad Eva Perón'' (Eva Perón City) between 1952 and 1955. The city is home to two important first division football teams: Estudiantes de La Plata and Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata. History and description After La Plata was designated the provincial capital, Rocha was placed in charge of creating the city. He hired urban planner Pedro Benoit, who designed a city layout based on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'Aquila
L'Aquila ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in central Italy. It is the capital city of both the Abruzzo region and of the Province of L'Aquila. , it has a population of 70,967 inhabitants. Laid out within medieval walls on a hill in the wide valley of the Aterno river, it is surrounded by the Apennine Mountains, with the Gran Sasso d'Italia to the north-east. L'Aquila sits upon a hillside in the middle of a narrow valley; tall snow-capped mountains of the Gran Sasso massif flank the town. A maze of narrow streets, lined with Baroque and Renaissance buildings and churches, open onto elegant piazzas. Home to the University of L'Aquila, it is a lively college town and, as such, has many cultural institutions: a repertory theatre, a symphony orchestra, a fine-arts academy, a state conservatory, a film institute. There are several ski resorts in the surrounding province (Campo Imperatore, Ovindoli, Pescasseroli, Roccaraso, Scanno). Geography Close to the highest of the Apennine s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering . New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2011 Rugby World Cup
The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Africa at a meeting in Dublin on 17 November 2005. The tournament was won by New Zealand, who defeated France 8–7 in the final. The defending champions, South Africa, were eliminated by Australia 11–9 in the quarter-finals. The result marked the third time that the tournament was won by the country that hosted the event (following New Zealand in 1987 and South Africa in 1995). It was the largest sporting event ever held in New Zealand, eclipsing the 1987 Rugby World Cup, 1990 Commonwealth Games, 1992 Cricket World Cup and the 2003 America's Cup. Overseas visitors to New Zealand for the event totalled 133,000, more than the 95,000 that the organisers expected. However, there was a drop in non-event visitors, meaning the net increase i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2010 Six Nations Championship
The 2010 Six Nations Championship, known as the 2010 RBS 6 Nations due to sponsorship by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was the 11th series of the Six Nations Championship and the 116th international championship, an annual rugby union competition between the six major European national teams. The tournament was held between 6 February and 20 March 2010. The championship was contested by England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. France won the tournament, achieving a final 12–10 victory over England to win the Grand Slam, their first since 2004 and ninth overall (including six in the Five Nations). This was also their seventeenth outright victory, including twelve victories in the Five Nations, excluding eight titles shared with other countries. France also retained the Giuseppe Garibaldi Trophy by defeating Italy in the tournament, to whom they had (then) never lost within the Six Nations. Ireland, 2009 Grand Slam winners, came second with three victories and two defeat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2009–10 Top 14 Season
The 2009–10 Top 14 competition was a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR). It began on August 14, 2009 with a match between Toulon and Stade Français at Stade Mayol in Toulon, and continued through to the final at the Stade de France on May 29, 2010. This year's edition of the Top 14 welcomed Racing Métro, winners of the 2009 title in the second-level Pro D2, and Albi, victors in the 2009 promotion playoffs between the second- through fifth-placed teams in Pro D2, thus becoming the first team to achieve promotion to the Top 14 only one year after being relegated. They took the place of the two clubs from Landes, Dax and Mont-de-Marsan, relegated at the end of the 2008–09 Top 14. Mont-de-Marsan, which had been promoted to the Top 14 for 2008–09, finished bottom of the table and went down. The other newly promoted team in 2008–09, Toulon, finished ninth, sending Dax, who had already finished second-to-bottom the pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Blair
Michael Robert Leighton Blair (born 20 April 1981) is a Scottish rugby union coach who was formerly a professional player. He is the head coach of Edinburgh. He played at scrum-half for Glasgow Warriors, Newcastle Falcons, CA Brive and Edinburgh Rugby. He represented the Scotland national side 85 times, as well as the touring with the British & Irish Lions in 2009. He retired from playing on 21 April 2016 aged 35. He then became an assistant coach with Glasgow Warriors and then an assistant coach of the Scottish national team. He was the first Scottish player to be nominated for the title of IRB World Player of the Year. Club career Blair spent most of his club career at Edinburgh, and was named in the Pro12 Dream team at the end of the 2007/08 season. Blair spent the 2012–13 season playing in France with Brive helping them to gain promotion back to the Top 14. Blair then returned to the UK to play for the Newcastle Falcons in the English Premiership. He joined Glasgow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shane Williams
Shane Mark Williams, (born 26 February 1977) is a Welsh rugby union player most famous for his long and successful tenure as a wing for the Ospreys and the Wales national team. He also played scrum-half on occasion. Williams is the record try scorer for Wales, and is fourth on the international list of leading rugby union test try scorers behind Daisuke Ohata, Bryan Habana and David Campese. He is Wales's most capped winger and is considered to be one of the greatest wingers of all time. In 2008, Williams was selected as the World Rugby Player of the Year, then known as the IRB Player of the Year. Since his retirement from international rugby in 2012, Williams has worked as a presenter on S4C's Six Nations rugby programme ''Y Clwb Rygbi Rhyngwladol'', and as a pundit on BBC, ITV and Channel 4 broadcasts as well as third party shows such as "Inside Welsh Rugby", commenting on the grassroots of Welsh rugby. Williams was selected to the Barbarians squad that played Wales in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ryan Jones
Ryan Paul Jones (born 13 March 1981) is a Wales former international rugby union player who played at number eight, blindside flanker or second row. He was involved in three Grand Slam wins, in 2005, as captain in 2008, and 2012. He is one of a small group of Welsh players to have won three Grand Slams including Gerald Davies, Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams, Adam Jones, Gethin Jenkins and Alun Wyn Jones. Early life Jones was born in Newport, and played junior football for Bristol City as a goalkeeper until the age of 14. He took up rugby union at age 17 to be with his friends at Risca RFC. Ryan Jones studied at UWIC, noCardiff Metropolitan Universitygaining a BSc (Hons) from 1999 to 2002. He played over a hundred games for UWIC RFC and captained the firsts in his final year. Jones said of the University: "I was a student at Cardiff Met's Cyncoed Campus for three years. I was really inspired by the ethos of sporting excellence and University rugby was the springboard for m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dan Carter
Daniel William Carter (born 5 March 1982) is a retired New Zealand rugby union player. Carter played for Crusaders (Super Rugby) in New Zealand and played for New Zealand's national team, the All Blacks. He is the highest point scorer in test match rugby, and is considered by many experts as the greatest ever first five-eighth (fly-half) in the history of the game. He was named the International Rugby Board Player of the Year in 2005, 2012 and 2015 (equaling the record three awards of Richie McCaw) and has won three Super Rugby titles with the Crusaders, and nine Tri-Nations and Rugby Championships with the All Blacks. Carter injured his groin while doing kicking practice during the 2011 Rugby World Cup but was a key member of the 2015 Rugby World Cup-winning teams, becoming one of 21 players to have won multiple Rugby World Cups. In the 2015 Rugby World Cup Final against Australia, he kicked four penalties, two conversions and a drop goal, and was named the man of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marco Bortolami
Marco Bortolami (; born 12 June 1980) is a rugby union coach and retired Italian international player, whose career includes experience playing in the national top-level Italian (Petrarca Padova), French (RC Narbonne), and English (Gloucester Rugby) championships, before joining the then recently-born Pro14 (with Aironi Rugby and then Zebre). Praised for his leadership skills, he captained all the teams he played for at professional level. At international level, he also captained the Italian side since 2002 till the 2007 Rugby World Cup, before being replaced in the permanent role by Sergio Parisse. He currently serves as head coach for Benetton Rugby in the United Rugby Championship. Club career Bortolami began his playing career with the team of his native Padua, making his debut as a second row aged only 18. After a two-year spell with RC Narbonne in the French Top14, in the summer of 2006 he joined English Premiership side Gloucester Rugby when he was considered by many to b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Mallett
Nicholas Vivian Haward Mallett (born 30 October 1956) is a former South African rugby union player who played for the Springboks, South Africa's national rugby union team, in 1984. He also coached the Springboks between 1997 and 2000 and was the head coach of Italy's rugby union team between 2007 and 2011. Early life Born on 30 October 1956 in Hertford Heath, England, Mallett moved to Rhodesia with his family in 1956 when he was only six weeks old, and his father, Tony Mallett, took up a post as an English teacher at the recently founded Peterhouse Boys' School, in Marandellas near Salisbury. Nick first arrived in Cape Town, South Africa in 1963, when his father was appointed Headmaster of Diocesan College, after which he attended St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1977 with a BA in English and History. While a student at the university, he was selected to play for the Western Province rugby union team. Playing career In 1979 M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
