Wallaby Pocock reveals eating disorder

David Pocock, Australia's openside flanker, has revealed that he suffers from an eating disorder that he developed as a teenager. His family fled from their home in Zimbabwe nearly 10 years ago, to start a new life in Australia, and the stress of the move precipitated Pocock's condition. The 23-year-old goes into detail about that period of his life in his book, Openside: My Journey to the Rugby World Cup, which is a diary of his World Cup year. "I was irrationally strict about what I ate and had a very skewed idea of my body image and what I looked like," he writes. "Looking back at photos I was ridiculously lean, but in my head I was still not lean enough. I remember bursting into tears a few times when the family went out to dinner, or when travelling and there weren't any healthy or ultra low-fat options to eat. I was unsure about how to deal with my obvious anxiety towards food." He is still battling the condition.

The naked truth

Zac Guildford, the All Blacks wing who was rarely out of the headlines during the World Cup, appears to be making waves again after a friend's wedding in the Cook Islands. Guildford started the World Cup in indifferent form and when he was forced to apologise for drink problems, it was assumed that he would watch the rest of the tournament from the sidelines. In fact he scored a hat-trick against Canada and has been part of the celebrations that followed the win against France in the final. Unfortunately, such celebrations seem now to have gone a little too far, and Guildford's mother has acknowledged reports that her son was found naked in a bar, where he allegedly assaulted a couple of people. "His eyes were gone, he was completely out of it," said a woman witness, adding that Guildford jumped on to a stage where "he seemed to realise he was naked" and tried to cover himself. The New Zealand Rugby Union said the news was "disappointing".

Diamond buys at Sale

The revolving doors at Sale have barely stilled since Steve Diamond returned. No sooner had he announced the signing of the lock Richie Gray from Glasgow than Diamond said he had his eye on more signings. "We have identified three top-class players," he said. "Richie is one and another is already secured and will be announced in the next week or so. We should be on track to get the bulk of our recruitment for next season done and dusted by around December 1st."

Red letter day for Scarlets

Two young backs who starred for Wales at the World Cup made their Heineken Cup debuts on Saturday, George North and Scott Williams starting the Scarlets' home Pool 1 match against Castres. North went into the game having played as many games, 15, for his region as he had for Wales; Williams had never formed a Scarlets centre partnership with Jonathan Davies before, though the two had played together for the national team. Such unfamiliarity did the Scarlets no harm – they won 31-23.

Numbers game

1 One team in the Heineken Cup took a bonus point for scoring four tries. That was Saracens, against Treviso, on a rather poor weekend for English teams.

23 Points kicked by Dan Biggar, Wales's forgotten fly-half, in the Ospreys' 28-21 victory over Biarritz, one of three wins against French teams for the Welsh regions.

Performance of the week

Ronan O'Gara, Munster v Northampton at Thomond Park

The fly-half dropped the goal that won yet another extraordinary European game between two sides who could be in the mix at Twickenham in May.