Ruby Tui: ‘I’m going for France – the game needs someone to stop England’
Thousands will descend on Bordeaux’s Stade Atlantique on Sunday to watch the Women’s Six Nations grand slam decider between France and England, among them the New Zealand legend Ruby Tui.The World Cup winner and Olympic gold medallist, who has been working for the BBC as a pundit, says she would love to see the French come out on top in Le Crunch to end England’s seven-year trophy hold.Tui attended her first Six Nations match in round one of this year’s competition at Twickenham, as England took on Ireland.The match felt like an extension of the World Cup party for the 34-year‑old, who witnessed last year’s groundbreaking event through her media duties.The Red Roses will want to deliver the same outcome as that final last September and if they did so they would extend their Six Nations winning run to 39 games in a row and become the first team to win the tournament after claiming the World Cup.
But Tui is backing the women in blue.“Absolutely, I am definitely going for France,” Tui said.“I can’t go for England.I am not allowed to.France lost by one point [in the Six Nations decider] last year, that was crazy.
It is well and truly up to France.That quarter-final against Ireland at the World Cup kind of summed them up.They were 13-0 down at half-time and turned around and won 18-13.The way they play, it is very much a roll of the dice.“They could beat England and I think England know they are looming there in the background.
But also if England sorted out all of their attack and defensive systems they have, France won’t have a chance,I am very happy it is coming down to a banger in Bordeaux,“There are a few French players who I thought would give Zoe Harrison a run who are out so it will be a big ask but the last country to do it was France in 2018 and we need someone to stop this seven, eight run,So fingers crossed France [can do that],”Players such as Gabrielle Vernier and Joanna Grisez are out for France but England have been contending with worse.
The Red Roses have more than 10 players unavailable to them through injury or pregnancy but they have continued to win, and for Tui that is proof they are a world-class team.She added: “The only way to test if your systems are what they truly are is by chucking in debutants, third- and fourth-string positionals coming through, which is what is happening.What happens is you have your team and you have your bench but the most interesting thing to me is the next layer down: the travelling reserves, the players in camps – those are the standards that you can’t let slip.“It is hard because there is no one there that is experienced, they are all brand new.So what are they doing in camp? Are they keeping up the standards?“Are they living and breathing the systems because people think it is about the starting team but you can’t put the pressure all on them.
You have got to have these guys carrying.If you want this 37 [game‑winning run] to turn into 67 you need that stuff.”Tui has also been impressed by the crowd numbers across the tournament and says she did not expect England to be able to continue their attendance momentum quite in the manner they have.She also credits the individual players for being a huge draw for supporters wanting to go to games.“I am in awe of what the players are doing,” Tui said.
“We often look at everyone else and what they can do more but it is hard to imagine what more the Red Roses themselves could do,[They are] doing all of these amazing things that we as the Black Ferns didn’t even think of,I am learning so much from being here,“I think the game needs personalities, characters,We need people to follow it.
But to me they are more than personalities, they are turning up for things and they are putting in hard work, they are really present.I am really glad I didn’t know this when I was playing them because I wouldn’t have been able to get angry on the field at them so easily! The game needs them but they are doing above and beyond.”Tui hasn’t played since not being selected for the Black Ferns’ 2025 World Cup squad, with media work becoming front and centre of her professional life, leading to her being nominated for several punditry awards.But she is not ruling out a return to the pitch, with England’s Premiership Women’s Rugby one league she is looking into.“I have been having some conversations,” she said.
“I have been going to a couple of teams.We went through Bristol, Trailfinders, Harlequins … This punditry stuff is a lot.I am not shutting the door.Definitely not the USA but there are a few places I could end up.I am not really sure, I am excited to find out.
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Google announces raft of free upgrades for Android phones
Google has announced a range of features coming to Android phones this year, including a new Gemini Intelligence AI system and a tool to help users avoid distracting apps.Revealed in a livestreamed “Android Show” event, the free upgrades are scheduled to arrive in waves over the next year for high-end new and old phones alike, including Samsung and Pixel devices. Google also revealed that a new lineup of laptops will arrive in the autumn.Gemini Intelligence will combine the company’s top AI tools into one system aimed at being more proactively useful.It will be able to automate tasks by directly interacting with the apps already on a phone
Head of Microsoft’s Israel branch to step down after inquiry into dealings with Israeli military
The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military.Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used the company’s technology to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected Palestinian civilian phone calls on a mass scale.The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found the military’s elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank.The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded. Its findings are unclear; however, sources familiar with the situation said they prompted an announcement last week that Microsoft Israel’s general manager, Alon Haimovich, would leave the company
GameStop’s $55.5bn bid for eBay rejected as ‘neither credible nor attractive’
The board of eBay has rejected the US video games retailer GameStop’s surprise $55.5bn bid (£41bn) for the online marketplace, describing the proposal as “neither credible nor attractive”.Earlier this month, GameStop made an unsolicited bid for eBay, publishing a letter on its website outlining a half-cash, half-stock proposal.This was despite the US games company – which became a global household name during the meme stock craze of 2021 – being worth far less than its takeover target. GameStop had a market valuation of roughly $12bn before its bid, almost a quarter of eBay’s $46bn valuation
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian.Donald Trump is headed to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, would join Trump
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech while emulating Xi Jinping on AI
Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO – who is close to Trump but criticized the US’s limitations on chip sales to China in an April interview, saying that he didn’t want a “loser mentality” to cost the US its edge in AI – will not be joining the president
Molière Ex Machina: AI used to create ‘new work’ by beloved French playwright
Molière is to the French what Shakespeare is to the English: the last word in historical literature, drama, wit and satire.Now, more than 350 years after his death, the 17th-century dramatist has been revived after scholars at the Sorbonne University in Paris used artificial intelligence to help write an experimental play in his style.L’Astrologue ou les Faux Présages (The Astrologer, or False Omens), a three-act comedy, made its debut at the Royal Opera at the Château de Versailles last week.The two-hour play tells the story of a wealthy bourgeois Parisian who, under the instruction of a charlatan astrologer called Pseudoramus, insists his daughter Lucile marry a debt-ridden and elderly wigmaker.While the theme could well have been dreamed up by Molière, the dialogue, music, costumes and scenery were all created with the help of a French AI tool called Le Chat (The Cat)
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