Rhino Rugby News
OXFORD UNIVERSITY ENTER RHINO POWERHOUSE COMPETITION
Rhino’s search for the oldest surviving Powerhouse scrum machine still in regular use has produced a response from Oxford University RFC who have nominated their 1985 vintage machine.
The machine, which crucially receives an annual service by Rhino, has as a result been in continuous use since being acquired and adds weight to our claim that our equipment lasts longer.
Rhino CEO Reg Clark called by the Iffley Road ground today to present OURFC General Manager Tim Stevens and current tight head Ian Williams with a Rhino RaboDirect PRO12 match ball for entering the competition.
Williams commented: ‘This Rhino Powerhouse scrum machine may seem like an antique but it played a full part in preparing our scrum for the Varsity Match last year’. Oxford registered their 4th consecutive win over Cambridge, a decisive 33-15 victory.
Right, who’s next to enter?
Reg Clark, Tim Stevens and Ian Williams at Iffley Road, Oxford today. |
RHINO COLLISION KINGS 2014 – SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED.
GLASGOW WARRIORS, CONNACHT AND BENETTON TREVISO VIE FOR PRESTIGIOUS AWARD
The Rhino Collision Kings Award is awarded each year to the team in the RaboDirect PRO12 which has shown most improvement at the breakdown throughout the regular season. The trophy is a replica of the groundbreaking Collision King machine invented by Richie Gray, Rhino skills consultant and brand ambassador who was recently appointed breakdown coach to the Springboks through to next year’s World Cup. The selection panel for the Award is chaired by Galashiels-based Gray, who in addition to other duties has been a BBC Radio Scotland commentator throughout much of the PRO12 season.
This year the three teams on the shortlist for the Award are Glasgow Warriors, Connacht and Benetton Treviso. Comments Gray: “The Warriors have continued to maintain the form at the breakdown that has underpinned a great deal of their success in recent years. Both Connacht and Treviso have however shown tremendous improvement in this vitally important phase of the game throughout the season, and this again has been a big factor in some outstanding performances from these two sides”.
The Rhino Collision Kings Award was won in 2011-12 by Glasgow Warriors and in 2012-13 by the Llanelli Scarlets. Together with the Rhino Golden Boot Award for the competition’s leading goalkicker, it will be presented at the RaboDirect PRO12 Awards on May 11th in Edinburgh.
Richie Gray presents the Award in 2012 to Sean Lineen of the Glasgow Warriors.
RHINO EXTENDS LIONS LEGACY PROGRAMME FROM HONG KONG AND SYDNEY TO.....WEST HARTLEPOOL.
Rhino were delighted to work with fellow partners HSBC on their legacy programme on the triumphant British & Irish Lions tour to Hong Kong and Australia last summer.
As part of the programme a full set of training equipment was donated by HSBC, with Rhino’s assistance, to grass roots rugby activities in both Hong Kong and in Sydney.
Rhino still has a small amount of equipment left over from the tour, and when Group CEO Reg Clark received a request from his former school rugby coach John Mullen at his home town club West Hartlepool for assistance with a new set of post pads for their Brinkburn ground, the temptation to extend the programme to one more exotic location was too great. Clark played for West Hartlepool, initially as a schoolboy and then whilst at Oxford University, during their emergence as a first class club in the late 1970’s.
West have managed to stabilise their fortunes after losing their previous Brierton Lane ground to a developer during a spectacular fall from First Division status in the early professional era and are once more flourishing in this hotbed of grassroots rugby in the North East.
John Mullen at West Hartlepool RFC |
Brian O’Driscoll donates training equipment to St Gregory’s school in Sydney. |
Students at Lingnan University in Hong Kong with HSBC-Rhino Lions legacy equipment. |
RHINO SPONSORS VARSITY CUP IN USA
Rhino is a major sponsor of the Varsity Cup Rugby Championship in the US. The final was played last Saturday in Salt Lake City between defending champions Brigham Young University and the University of California. Last Year BYU beat Cal Rugby 27-24 with the last kick of the game and they went on to record back to back wins with a 44-33 win this time.
As for the Las Vegas USA Sevens leg of the IRB HSBC World Sevens Series in January, the Rhino Vortex Elite was the Official Ball of the Championship.
RHINO COLLISION KING MAN RICHIE GRAY APPOINTED BY SPRINGBOKS THROUGH TO WORLD CUP.
Richie Gray, the inventor of the Rhino Collision King, brand ambassador and international skills coach for Rhino, has been appointed as specialist breakdown coach to the Springboks for a two year period which will encompass the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
Galashiels based Gray will continue to clock up the miles in this period as he has done on two recent short term appointments in this role for The Rugby Championship between South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina through last summer, and the Springboks Autumn international series in Europe, which included a 20-0 victory over his native Scotland for whom he played at under 20 level.
Gray won the Technical Innovation Award at Rugby Expo in 2011 with the ground breaking Rhino Collision King machine, and has gone on to develop a whole range of breakdown products (available exclusively from Rhino) which are now attracting the attention of a vast number of leading coaches around the world as the tremendous importance of this phase of the game is increasingly appreciated.
All at Rhino send heartiest congratulations to Richie on this seminal appointment.
Richie Gray with the Technical Innovation Award, Rugby Expo 2011
Richie Gray with the Technical Innovation Award, Rugby Expo 2011
TREVOR WOODMAN GIVES RHINO MASTERCLASS AT GLOUCESTER
Rhino have recently concluded a supplier deal with Gloucester in the area of scrummaging machines and contact equipment.
As part of an agreed programme of joint activity, last week England World Cup winning prop and current Gloucester Scrum Coach Trevor Woodman conducted a masterclass at the Kingsholm ground for local coaches on Gloucester’s Rhino Dictator scrum machine and Forward Coach Andrew Stanley ran a session on the breakdown using our special range of contact equipment for that phase of the game.
It was a very well attended event which was widely praised by participants.
RHINO SUPPORT LONDON JAPANESE 35TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
Rhino have a longstanding relationship with London Japanese RFC and we were delighted to support their 35th Anniversary Dinner last week. LJRFC were honoured to have Wales and British Lions legend Shane Williams as Guest of Honour at the event. Shane is currently playing for the Mitsubishi Dynaboars in Japan, continuing the long traditional rugby links between Wales and Japan, witnessed by the fact that the dinner was held at the London Welsh Centre in Greys Inn Road, WC1. Rhino were pleased to donate a boxed and signed Wales shirt from the Dove Men+ Care Autumn International Series as the top item in the auction at the event. |
RHINO SCRUM MACHINES LAST LONGER – WHO’S GOT THE OLDEST!?
The Springboks unveil their Rhino Dictator in Cape Town in 2010 with the venerable old Rhino Powerhouse in the background!
At Rhino we pride ourselves that our contact and training equipment is very well made and lasts longer than rival products. In particular our scrum machines are sturdy beasts, none more so than the original Powerhouse ‘roller style’ machine invented by Rhino founder Tim Francis back in the early 70s/late 80s.
Tim Francis coaching the UCT pack on their Rhino Powerhouse, 1981. Staff of Repton College, Dubai with their Rhino Powerhouse machine. |
Rhino-Turf staff visiting Dubai recently turned up a Powerhouse machine at Repton College in Dubai, and this got us to thinking about what might be the oldest surviving Rhino scrum machine still in action. A strong contender has got to be the machine owned by the University of Cape Town. A big part of Rhino’s early history involved a breakthrough into the South African market in the early 1980’s (see here) and when in 2010 the Springboks unveiled to the press a specially re-branded Rhino Dictator scrum machine which they bought from us following the 2009 Lions tour to South Africa, we were pleasantly surprised to note in the background to one of the promotional photographs the original Powerhouse purchased by UCT in 1981 and still in use. Rhino Powerhouse machines are particularly indestructible and if properly maintained will last practically for ever – in the early years of the company they were despatched overseas to South Africa, France, Japan, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and many other rugby playing countries. Many are to be found rusting away unused in the corner of a training field but some, such as the one at UCT, are still in use. We have decided to run a special competition to find those old Powerhouse roller style machines which are still in use and offer prizes to any club, school or university who can provide a photo of theirs, with a special prize for the oldest. 1981 will take some beating! Watch this space for further details! |
ARMY COACHES RECEIVE SPECIALIST BREAKDOWN EQUIPMENT TUITION
Rhino consultant and ambassador Richie Gray, inventor of the world market leading Rhino Collision King range of specialist breakdown products, gave top Army Rugby Union coaches a tutorial in the use of this equipment in Aldershot today.
Rhino are now an Official Supplier to the ARU of scrummaging machines, contact and training equipment and as part of the deal received a full set of Rhino Collision King products for their central training facility. One thing Rhino is always at pains to stress to purchasers of these products is the importance of coaches properly understanding how they can be used. Tuition from a leading coach such as Richie is ideal, but not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to receive this (albeit we will be developing a series of regional roadshows for this purpose going ahead) – we will therefore shortly be releasing online a series of coaching videos recently filmed by Richie at the Bath Rugby training facility at Farleigh Park. Look out for the details of their launch on our website.
In the meantime the Army take on the Royal Air Force at various levels at RAF Halton Oxfordshire on Wednesday ahead of their showpiece game against the Royal Navy at Twickenham on May 3rd for which 65,000 tickets have already been sold.
RHINO NOMINATED AT SPORTS TECHNOLOGY AWARDS
Richie Gray with the Collision King which won the Technology Innovation Award at Rugby Expo in 2012 |
RHINO COLLISION KING PLAYS VITAL ROLE IN CONNACHT’S HISTORIC VICTORY IN TOULOUSE
Rhino Rugby Ireland’s Barry Brennan and Pam Lam at practice on the Rhino Collision King during Connacht training. |
This was Toulouse’s first home defeat in European competition for 5 years, and Pat Lam afterwards compared it as a career highlight to his role in captaining Samoa to victory over Wales in the Rugby World Cup.
Connacht are already positioning themselves as a strong contender for the ‘Rhino Collision Kings’ title awarded each year at the RaboDirect PRO12 Awards to the side with the strongest performance at the breakdown – won in the last two seasons by the Glasgow Warriors and the Llanelli Scarlets.
Rhino Rugby Launch in Australia
Rhino Rugby has branched out to Australia! So here's a quick video of what happened on launch day.