6:44 PM BST Former France captain Jefferson Poirot has retired from international rugby at the age of 27 due to a lack of motivation. The Bordeaux-Begles prop said that he made the decision to retire from France duty immediately after his side’s 20-19 defeat to Wales during the Rugby World Cup in October and that
Rugby
3:06 PM BST The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is seeking clarity on whether the UK government’s social distancing rules can be reduced from two metres to one so they can admit 40,000 fans into Twickenham Stadium for the November internationals, chief executive Bill Sweeney has said. Elite sport in England was given the green light
8:36 AM BST The Gallagher Premiership will aim to restart the season on Aug. 15, it announced on Friday. The league was originally scheduled to return on April 24 but has since been suspended indefinitely due to the coronavirus crisis. Last week, the UK government gave permission for elite sport to return behind closed doors
3:17 AM BST Injured rugby union player Michael Fatialofa will be discharged from a British hospital on Friday, his wife said, just five months after breaking his neck and fearing he would never walk again. “My delightful husband is coming home tomorrow night,” Fatialofa’s wife Tatiana said on her Twitter account on Thursday. “5 MONTHS
11:31 AM BST ESPN staff Two-time World Cup winner Dan Carter lobbed at Blues training on Thursday morning, five years after he left New Zealand and Super Rugby. Rumours of Carter’s impending return to New Zealand rugby emerged on Wednesday evening after a WhatsApp message from Blues coach Leon MacDonald was leaked. All that was
11:07 AM BST New Zealand Rugby is “optimistic” about hosting northern hemisphere teams in an international schedule later in 2020 as the country edges closer to lifting social distancing restrictions. New Zealand will decide on Monday whether it is ready to lower its COVID-19 alert system a notch to level 1, which would end curbs
10:00 PM BST New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams will be able to replace red-carded players and drawn matches may be decided by a golden-point tiebreaker when the country’s domestic competition starts on June 13, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) said on Tuesday. The changes are aimed at making the game more exciting for fans and will
12:05 PM BST England’s Gallagher Premiership and second-tier Championship clubs have been given the green light to resume individual training from Tuesday with strict social distancing measures, the Professional Game Board announced. Competitive sport has been suspended in the UK since March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 39,000 people.
5:09 AM BST Rugby Australia is in talks with the government about allowing New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina’s teams to enter the country and be based in a “hub” for a condensed Rugby Championship later in the year. After a two-month lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, Australian authorities have allowed sports to
11:33 AM BST With South Africa moving to Level 3 of the nationwide State of Disaster lockdown on June 1, professional sports teams have been given the green light to resume non-contact training behind closed doors. As of Monday, teams and individual athletes, including rugby and football, will be allowed to train under social distancing