8:54 AM GMT Former Italy coach Conor O’Shea will join the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) as director of performance rugby next year, it was announced on Friday, while director of professional rugby Nigel Melville said he will step down in December. O’Shea left his role with Italy after the team’s pool-stage exit from this

6:53 AM GMT Kurtley Beale is the frontrunner to fill the five-eighth hot seat as the NSW Waratahs prepare for life after Bernard Foley. With Foley, NSW’s most-capped No. 10, among several senior figures to head overseas following this year’s World Cup, the Waratahs will enter the 2020 Super Rugby season seriously short on experienced

1:41 PM GMT England trio Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje and Billy Vunipola will play for Saracens for the first time since the Rugby World Cup after being named in the side to face Bath in the Gallagher Premiership as they seek to repair the damage from their 35-point deduction for breaching the league’s salary cap.

8:23 AM GMT England and Bath back Anthony Watson will be out of action for at least four weeks after sustaining a knee injury in his side’s Champions Cup defeat to Harlequins on Saturday. Watson underwent an MRI scan on Monday, which revealed the 25-year-old will not require surgery, but he is not expected to

2:06 AM GMT AAP with ESPN staff Rugby Australia’s year from hell has been capped off with sacked Wallabies star Israel Folau entering a new multi-million-dollar legal claim against the sporting body just days after it was revealed rugby’s broadcast deal is in limbo. In new court documents, Folau says he is set to lose

7:46 AM GMT Australian Scott Wisemantel, who was England’s attack coach at the Rugby World Cup, has decided to move on after his contract expired and looks set to join Dave Rennie’s staff at the Wallabies. England coach Eddie Jones, who brought Wisemantel into his setup for last year’s tour of South Africa before extending

3:03 AM GMT Matt To’omua is putting his hand up to wear the Wallabies No. 10 jersey in 2020 after the departures of a swag of veteran Test playmakers. The loss of Christian Lealiifano, Bernard Foley and Quade Cooper to play overseas means locking in a new five-eighth will be a top priority for incoming

11:13 PM GMT ESPN staff Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium will host the opening Bledisloe Cup fixture next year, meaning Sydney won’t stage rugby’s trans-Tasman battle for the second straight year. Rugby Australia on Monday unveiled Marvel Stadium as the venue for the Aug. 8 showdown, which is the first of three games set to be played

11:27 AM GMT Former Scotland captain Tom Smith has been diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer, the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) confirmed on Thursday. The 48-year-old prop — who was capped 61 times by his country between 1997 and 2005, and played six times for the British and Irish Lions — has had chemotherapy and

10:49 AM GMT Saracens will not ask their England players to put club before country despite their Premiership status being jeopordised by a 35-point deduction for breaching salary cap regulations, coach Mark McCall has said. English and European champions Saracens were also fined £5.36 million this month and the club has opted not to appeal