Opinion: Chiefs imperious as they bring home Super Rugby title

You've got to salute the mighty Mooloo Men. To leap from 10th to Champions in just twelve months is quite an achievement and all the more impressive when one considers their coach, Dave Rennie, was enjoying his debut season in Super Rugby this year.

How the Cowbells must have been ringing overnight in Hamilton, as they celebrated their 37-6 demolition of the Sharks... or should I say how they must have been ringing from Counties Manukau to Taupo - as 2012 was the year that the whole catchment area, not just Waikato, got behind the Chiefs in their bid to become Super Rugby Champions..

There is no doubt that Chiefs had been the most impressively balanced team in this year's competition. A fine attack masterminded by young conductor Aaron Cruden at fly half and a ferociously mean defence had led many assured judge in the southern hemisphere to predict Chiefs glory in the final. If anyone deserved the title, they did, it seemed. 

Argentina vs Stade Francais Preview

Argentina will enjoy its first ever match in 'the Rugby Championship' in fifteen days time but just which personnel will be chosen to front up against the Springboks remains to be seen. Santiago Phelan's 34 man squad enters the final stage of their preperation this weekend with Argentina taking on Top 14 club Stade Français in Buenos Aires in the first of two matches against the Parisien outfit.

It is an interesting choice of an opponent but a sensible one. Argentina could have tried to secure an international test match, but the callibre of teams avaliable would have been unlikely to match that of Stade Français. It is the European pre-season after all and no national teams are actively training at the moment, aside from the four who will dispute the upcoming 'Rugby Championship' - Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Stade Français is not just any French club either. It is the same club that transformed Juan Martín Hernández into a superstar, the same club that Agustín Pichot captained to the 2007 Top 14 Championship and has been in essence the spiritual home of many Pumas over the last decade. Of the team that defeated France to spectacularly open Rugby World Cup 2007 for example, five players adorned the Parisien's colours in domestic rugby at the time; Hernández, Pichot, Lucas Borges, Ignacio Corleto and Rodrigo Roncero.

Opinion: Chiefs looking to Aaron Cruden for inspiration in Super Rugby Final

Aaron Cruden has come a long way since his formative years kicking rugby balls around the local parks of Palmerston North. Back then, pulling on his beloved Manawatu jersey was the primary aim for a boy whose enthusiasm was entrenched in his country's national sport.

Even a year ago, Cruden had been struggling to make Mark Hammett's stuttering Hurricanes team. A number of erratic performances had seen him fall out of favour with his coach as he failed to replicate the form which had seen him awarded 'IRB World Junior Player of the Year' two years earlier in 2009. How quickly things can change...

This weekend, Cruden has the opportunity to become a Super Rugby champion, as his Chiefs face the Sharks in the final of the Super 15. His performances thus far in 2012 have also had him touted as Super Rugby's potential 'Player of the Season'.

What a  meteoric rise to stardom for the flyhalf.  It is even more astounding though, when one considers the struggles he endured as a young man. At the tender age of 19, Cruden received the news that no man wants to hear; diagnosis - testicular cancer.

Prospect of Olympic Gold could lure talented 'crossover' athletes

Rugby union's tectonic plates are shifting and that shift could accelerate dramatically over the next few years if promoters get their way.

While rugby sevens, may seem to some like a glorified drinking festival, chock a block with students and party-goers more interested in their choice of fancy dress attire than the action taking place on the field, its' admission into the Olympic arena has at least changed the way the rest of the world looks at the sport.

Asia, Russia and the Americas are taking a fresh look at Sevens now that a glint of Olympic gold is discernible. Major economies such as India and Brazil have also publicly stated their intention to improve their national rugby programmes, in order to achieve future competitiveness in the sport.

While Sevens won't be showcased in the Olympics until Rio 2016 (it was only admitted by the IOC in 2011), promoters hope the shortened version will have the same impact on the sport as the popular Twenty20 format had on cricket.

The spectator friendly nature of Sevens seems to suggest that the likelihood of this is high, so who is to say that Sevens rather than 15s  won't churn out rugby's first truly global superstar? Could a Julian Savea for example be as recognisable as Lebron James, Lionel Messi, Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt in four years time?

Fancy training with England Fullback Ben Foden?

Do you fancy training with a shining light from world rugby? Leading European Sports Food company, Multipower, are offering just that; a truly 'once in a lifetime' opportunity...

All you have to do is enter their competition on Facebook by clicking 'like' and your club could be enjoying a pre-season training session with one of their Sportsfood ambassadors; Northampton Saints and England fullback, Ben Foden (pictured above).

Foden has been capped 27 times for his country since his debut against Italy in the 2009 Six Nations, scoring 7 tries in the white shirt of England and is widely regarded as one of the best counter-attacking rugby players in the world.

 Voting for the competition will be activated on Monday 6th August 2012 at 9AM (GMT).

 Good luck to all who enter!

Sharks world class pack need one last lung busting effort to secure 'greatest ever' tag

While backline stars such as JP Pieterson and Freddy Michalak won many of the headlines following the Sharks unlikely victory over the Stormers at Newlands last week, it was the Sharks' tireless forwards who ultimately laid the foundation for their victory and secured their franchise a much coveted berth in the Super 15 final.

Attempting to silence 48,000 parrochial supporters (who had not seen their Stormers lose once at home all season), the Sharks managed to defy the air miles and logic to bamboozle their South African rivals 26-19, just a week after dishing out the same treatment to last years winners, the Queensland Reds, in Brisbane.

Deputy captain, Bismark Du Plessis, may have been brutally handed off  by young Stormers locking sensation Eben Etzebeth early on, but it was in the physicality stakes that the Sharks gained ascendancy over their opponents and that was what left Alistair Coetzee's Stormers searching for answers, which they ultimately couldn't find. At no other point in the season have the Stormers been left so utterly flummoxed by an opposition pack.