2 August 2014: The NSW Waratahs win the 2014 Super Rugby title for the first time after defeating 7-time champions, Crusaders 33-32.
27 July 2014: The South Africa sevens team wins gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games after defeating reigning champion, New Zealand in the final.
28 June 2014: Fiji defeat the Cook Islands to qualify for the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
25 May 2014: Japan win the 2014 Asian Five Nations to qualify for 2015 Rugby World Cup.
24 May 2014: Toulon defeat Saracens 23–6 in the final of the 2013–14 Heineken Cup.
... that the iconic guerilla Che Guevara (pictured) played fly-half for Club Universitario de Buenos Aires and edited a rugby fanzine?
... that women's rugby union dates back to at least 1884, possibly earlier?
... that Alfred Clunies-Ross was the first non-white rugby international, and played for Scotland in the first ever rugby international?
... that snow rugby is played in many parts of the world including Afghanistan?
... that rugby union footballer David Gage played in 68 of 74 matches played by the 1888–89 New Zealand Native team during their tour of the British Isles?
... that Stephen Fry was an engineer and aspiring jazz pianist before he captained South Africa's rugby team against the British Lions?
... that the English actor Nick Frost known for Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul, Attack the Block etc used to play for Barking Rugby Football Club?
After an All Blacks surprise loss to the French in the 1999 Rugby World Cup: "The French are predictably unpredictable."
Thomas Ellison (c. 1867 – 1904) was a New Zealand rugby union player. After being educated at Te Aute College, where he was introduced to rugby, Ellison moved to Wellington, and played for the Poneke Football Club. He was subsequently selected to represent Wellington province, and was later recruited into Joe Warbrick's privately organised 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team. Ellison scored 113 points and 43 tries on their epic 107-match tour of the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand. On his return he continued with Poneke and Wellington, and from 1892 started to refine and popularise the wing-forward system of play, which was a vital element of New Zealand rugby's style until 1932. At the first New Zealand Rugby Football Union annual general meeting in 1893, he proposed that the playing colours of the New Zealand side should be predominantly black with a silver fern—a playing strip that inspired the team’s name of All Blacks. That year he captained the New Zealand side on their tour of Australia. He retired from playing afterwards, but continued as a coach and administrator. Ellison was the author of a coaching manual, The Art of Rugby Football, published in 1902.