Category: Rugby Union

Rugby Union News

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Steve Diamond’s season-ending ban was for profanity aimed at match officials

  • Newcastle director of rugby given six-match suspension
  • Told TMO that he ‘should retire’

Steve Diamond’s season-ending ban was meted out because he called a group of match‑day officials “cunts” before telling the television match official he should retire.

The Newcastle director of rugby was given a six-match suspension last week after a disciplinary ­hearing into an incident that took place in the dying throes of the Falcons’ late defeat by fellow strugglers Exeter last month.

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Bonuses for Wallabies wins in Rugby Australia’s new $240m TV broadcast deal

  • Improved deal struck with Nine Entertainment over five years
  • Extra money to reward key wins during 2026-2030 period

Rugby Australia has signed a five-year extension to its broadcast rights agreement with Nine Entertainment in a deal worth up to $240m. It runs from 2026-2030 and includes performance incentives linked to Wallabies wins, Nine-owned newspapers reported.

“[It] represents a significant uplift on Rugby Australia’s current broadcast agreement and follows a successful organisational reset in 2024,” RA said in a statement.

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Saints’ Dowson says English clubs hampered by ‘dysfunctional’ schedule

  • Director wants fewer club games in international window
  • Cardiff on the brink of entering administration

English club rugby is being undermined by a “dysfunctional” fixture schedule that is making it harder to compete with other top European sides, according to Northampton’s director of rugby, Phil Dowson. Saints are the only English team still involved in the Champions Cup this season but Dowson believes Premiership teams are being handicapped by their own domestic calendar.

Northampton were crowned Premiership champions last season and also made the Champions Cup semi-finals, but Dowson believes it will require a “monumental effort” for any Premiership club to challenge successfully on two fronts given the current structure and salary cap restrictions.

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‘I’d like to be on that tour’: Chandler Cunningham-South on the Lions, ball-carrying and Love Island

While Harlequins forward focuses on Saturday’s Champions Cup test at Leinster, future opportunities are on his mind

There is a colossal game looming in Croke Park on Saturday afternoon and Chandler Cunningham-South’s pre-match routine is now established. First he likes to step into a cold shower to wake himself up properly. Then the big Harlequins and England forward will open the notebook he carries everywhere with him, pick up a pen and write down exactly what he plans to do to Leinster.

The precise wording – “It’s quite personalised to me” – is less important than the confident mindset it encourages. The basic idea is to reinforce one of two key objectives – “It’s just confirming what’s in my head already,” he says – and ensures he goes into battle “with a clear mind”. Unthinkingly following the herd has never been his style.

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Regan Grace’s long road back to rugby: two codes, four clubs and 979 days

The Welsh winger injured his achilles in 2022 while playing league for St Helens. He’s back – playing union for Cardiff

By No Helmets Required

Regan Grace’s career – and life, in many ways – changed on the last day of July 2022 in the final minute of a Super League game between St Helens and Salford. Returning the ball inside his own half in the dying seconds of a shock defeat for the league leaders, Grace collapsed on to his chest, untouched by another player. His left achilles had ruptured. His St Helens career was over, having scored 300 points from 75 tries in 128 Super League games.

Three years later, he’s been at four clubs in three countries and two rugby codes. No wonder he’s not the player he was. Yet. But last Saturday night in the Italian city of Treviso, he completed a competitive rugby match for the first time in 979 days. The last time Grace had completed a game, in July 2022, his try helped St Helens come from behind to beat Wakefield by a single point. This time, Cardiff let a lead slip and lost by a point in Treviso. But there was more at stake for Grace than the result.

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Former Wallabies star Jordan Petaia signs NFL deal with LA Chargers

  • Ex-rugby union player impresses Chargers at IPP trial in US
  • ‘A great career move for him,’ says Super Bowl winner Jordan Mailata

Former rugby union international Jordan Petaia is a step closer to realising a long-held dream of playing in the NFL after signing with the Los Angeles Chargers as a tight end.

Petaia, who earned 31 caps for the Wallabies, turned his back on union late last year after being handed a prized spot on the league’s international player pathway (IPP) programme.

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Lions set to face Japan-based All Blacks in Anzac clash but Folau’s hopes over

  • Invitational Australia & New Zealand side to play in July
  • Players who have switched nationality will not be eligible

The British & Irish Lions are set to face a number of former All Blacks with Rugby Australia’s chief executive, Phil Waugh, confident players based in Japan can be recruited for the Anzac fixture in July. Waugh also confirmed that players who have represented Australia and New Zealand but subsequently switched nationality will not be considered, ending Israel Folau’s hopes of appearing in another Lions series and ruling out Charles Piutau.

The Lions will lock horns with an invitational Australia and New Zealand side for the first time since 1989. When the fixture was announced in 2023, the then Australia head coach, Eddie Jones, turned his nose up, saying: “I don’t want to be involved with the Kiwis.” With the former All Blacks head coach Ian Foster leading the combined side, Waugh believes the fixture in Adelaide will have star appeal.

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MPs deliver warning over DCMS chase to recoup tens of millions in Covid loans

  • Loans scrutinised by public accounts committee
  • ‘Gap in oversight’ over £123.8m paid to rugby teams

There remains a “high degree of uncertainty” over whether tens of millions of pounds paid to rugby union clubs and other sports teams during the Covid-19 pandemic will ever be repaid, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee has warned.

In a report published on Wednesday, the committee also criticised the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for being “overly optimistic” in believing it will recover most of the £474m it paid out to 120 organisations in the sport and culture sectors to help them survive the impact of the pandemic.

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New Zealand Rugby and Ineos settle sponsorship contract dispute

  • NZR had launched legal action over missed payment
  • Details of settlement to remain confidential

The Manchester United co-owner Ineos and New Zealand Rugby have announced a settlement has been reached in their sponsorship contract dispute.

In February NZR, the federation responsible for the All Blacks team, said it had launched legal action against Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos after accusing the chemicals firm of failing to pay the first 2025 instalment of a six-year deal. Ineos at the time said it had looked to “adjust” its sponsorship, with it having to implement “cost-saving measures” due the impact of “high energy costs and extreme carbon taxes” on its European businesses.

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Richard Wigglesworth: ‘I’ll be honest … and think of nothing but the Lions’

Newly selected British & Irish Lions assistant on his journey as a coach, picking Steve Borthwick’s brain and Andy Farrell breaking the news

Richard Wigglesworth was in the garden with his five-year-old daughter, two days after England’s thumping win over Wales, when the phone rang. It was Andy Farrell and as much as Margot was not happy that her father was on the phone, it was a call he had to take. England’s storming finish to the Six Nations may not be the only reason Wigglesworth has been seconded to the British & Irish Lions but it can only have helped, and so the 41-year-old completes Farrell’s lineup, the first England coach to do so since Steve Borthwick in 2017.

It is easy to forget that more than two years ago, Wigglesworth was still playing for Leicester Tigers. He was a player-coach when Borthwick got the call from England in December 2022 and as a result, Wigglesworth immediately hung up his boots and took interim charge at Welford Road.

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