Adam Coleman escapes from rugby purgatory to the peaks with Bordeaux
Bordeaux Bègles lock says Champions Cup holders are primed for Sunday’s clash of cultures against BathThere are in truth few Union Bordeaux Bègles players better qualified to explain just how it feels to be in the eye of the storm with European rugby’s newest force than Adam Coleman.Three years ago their paths collided with almost perfect timing, with Bordeaux mid-table and Coleman unceremoniously dropped into rugby purgatory.Coleman’s career looked to be over when London Irish went out of business in the summer of 2023 before a move to France with Bordeaux.It has proved to be an inspired decision for both parties, with Coleman playing a pivotal role in UBB’s rise to the top of the club game, culminating in their Champions Cup final triumph over Northampton last year.As a dual-international with the Wallabies and Tonga, as well as experiencing rugby in almost all corners of the sport’s geographical footprint, Coleman is used to the unconventional.
So being one of the few non-French speakers in the Bordeaux squad will hardly feel too challenging: and it is something the 34-year-old lock has taken in his stride to give his career fresh impetus.“When London Irish went down I genuinely didn’t know what was going to happen next for my career,” he says.“But to come here, to meet the people and live in Bordeaux: it’s an incredible place.You get this incredible lifestyle and the opportunity to play with so many great French internationals.There’s all the benefits of playing overseas.
”This is no end-of-career French sojourn bubbling away here, though.There is history aplenty to be made in Bordeaux, with the reigning champions now just two wins away from joining the elite list of clubs who have gone back-to-back in European rugby’s premier competition.Bath are the obstacle in their way on Sunday.It promises to be an intriguing affair.Styles make fights and while Bath are perhaps more renowned for staying in the fight and hanging tough, Bordeaux thrive on a more unstructured and chaotic game.
“They like to control the game, put a lot of structure into the game and we like to play a brand of more elusive rugby,” Coleman says.“It’ll be a good game of rugby.“The first and most important thing was winning last year and being the first team ever from Bordeaux to put the star on the jersey and to be in a position to play this weekend and have a chance to do it again … we’re very grateful for that.But we can’t look too far ahead.The quality of player they’ve got with guys like [Finn] Russell means it’s going to be a real challenge.
“We’re taking nothing for granted but if you asked us at the start of the year where we’d want to be, this is exactly where we’d have said.”Coleman’s arrival at Bordeaux in 2023 came at the same time Yannick Bru joined as head coach and while a first Top 14 title is still not in the trophy cabinet, Bordeaux’s success in European rugby suggests more silverware is not too far away.“I can’t comment on the last coach because I wasn’t here but maybe it was a fresh start that UBB needed,” Coleman says.“It’s really showed in the way we’re playing and the professionalism of the team and really taking that step forward from where we were when I joined.”With the likes of Louis Bielle-Biarrey in their ranks – who Coleman describes as a “once-in-a-generation player” – it is perhaps no surprise he has found such enjoyment in his rugby again in France.
Coleman turns 35 in October but there is no sign of him slowing down.Nor, it seems, is there a chance of a return to his native Australia to finish his career in Super Rugby, with the French lifestyle and the journey Bordeaux are on having got under his skin.“If the opportunity came to finish my career here I’d love that,” he smiles.“Who knows what the future holds, but I’d love to finish here.My family is really settled, my kids are in school and it’s just been a great move for me.
”
‘Your questions are designed to trick me’: combative Musk grilled over battle with Sam Altman
After a dramatic first day of opening statements and testimony from Elon Musk in his case against Sam Altman and OpenAI, the trial continued on Wednesday with a cross-examination of the Tesla CEO. Musk began his second day of on the stand by repeating the accusation that Altman “stole a charity” and would endanger humanity with AI multiple times. OpenAI’s attorneys pressed the world’s richest man on his allegations, resulting in testy exchanges and multiple interventions from the judge.Musk often refused to answer questions as instructed, and the judge interjected several times to tell Musk to simply give a yes-or-no response. At various points, Musk told OpenAI’s counsel, “You’re being misleading with your question,” and “Your questions are not simple, they are designed to trick me, essentially
Maryland becomes first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores
Maryland has become the first state in the US to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores.Maryland’s law bans grocers and third-party delivery services from using a person’s personal data to set higher prices. Wes Moore, the governor, signed the measure into law on Tuesday. “At a time when technology can predict what we need, when we need it, when we’ll pay for it and also – when we’ll pay more for it, and at a time when we’re watching how big companies are then using these analytics against us to make record profits, Maryland is not just pushing back. Maryland is pushing forward because we are going to protect our people,” Moore said at the bill signing ceremony
Tech giants’ results show rosy outlook for AI boom and US stock market
Unusual simultaneous reports of financial results by several of the US’s largest tech companies gave positive indications for the stock market despite widespread fears of an AI bubble on Wednesday.Four of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks, the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, reported their quarterly financial results on Wednesday. The cluster is not typical, as these disclosures do not often occur on the same day, and provides a snapshot of how the tech industry is faring as it rides the AI boom. Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft all revealed double-digit gains in their cloud computing units, which have seen supercharged growth thanks to increasing adoption of AI. Meta, not in the business of cloud computing, failed to meet Wall Street expectations
Claude-powered AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’
It only took nine seconds for an AI coding agent gone rogue to delete a company’s entire production database and its backups, according to its founder. PocketOS, which sells software that car rental businesses rely on, descended into chaos after its databases were wiped, the company’s founder Jeremy Crane said.The culprit was Cursor, an AI agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model, which is one of the AI industry’s flagship models. As more industries embrace AI in an attempt to automate tasks and even replace workers, the chaos at PocketOS is a reminder of what could go wrong
Friendly AI chatbots more likely to support conspiracy theories, study finds
The rush to make AI chatbots more friendly has a troubling downside, researchers say. The warm personas make them prone to mistakes and sympathetic to crackpot beliefs.Chatbots trained to respond more warmly gave poorer answers, worse health advice and even supported conspiracy theories by casting doubt on events such as the Apollo moon landings and the fate of Adolf Hitler.Researchers at Oxford University discovered the trade-off during tests on chatbots that had been tweaked to make them sound friendlier. The warmer chatbots were 30% less accurate in their answers and 40% more likely to support users’ false beliefs
I’m addicted to checking my phone. Could a blocking device stop me?
Wake up, 100 messages from group chat overnight about something – what? another assassination attempt; a village destroyed in Lebanon; the football result in England; the weather in Iran being manipulated; the pesticides causing lung and bowel cancer, so everyone who eats salads is now at risk of cancer; meditate for 20 minutes, then fire up x.com, a place I thought I’d never want to revisit, with its carnival barkers and supplement salesman, and have you seen the Lego thing calling Trump a paedo?, you gotta see the Lego thing, and this is before my first coffee, yet x.com is the coffee and the tea, whatever Elon has done to the For You algorithm is evil genius, it’s like the global collective id, nasty and funny and addictive and compelling – like gawking at a car crash, like soaking in a hot bubble bath of anger, and memes, and geopolitical dramas, and Trump, Trump, Trump – soaking in Trump, and then, For Me (just as Elon promised).So begins the circuit around my phone, that goes all day and night, around the tiny screen with its icons (when a born-again Christian once told me he had favourite icons, for a long time I thought he meant apps, not pictures of the Virgin Mary). I started to feel like I was in Canberra, on one of those enormous roundabouts, rotating between the icons – not Joseph, not Jesus, but X and WhatsApp and TikTok and even LinkedIn for Christ sakes – round and round from one app to the next, just checking, checking in case something is happening
Letter: Desmond Morris obituary
Boom! A melodrama fit for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s doomed love affair
Jon Stewart on White House correspondents’ dinner: ‘We can’t even pull off a dinner that shouldn’t have existed in the first place’
Antiquities dealer who exposed thefts at British Museum dies aged 61
‘Protected for another century’: experts lift 15-tonne foremast from HMS Victory
Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest review – painfully earnest tale of trauma and transition