Rugby

9:40 AM BST Senior players will take a significant pay cut believed to be at least 60 percent, after Rugby Australia and the Rugby Union Players’ Association finally reached a resolution on an interim pay deal. Negotiations started almost three weeks ago and RA has yet to determine when a mooted replacement competition for the

Apr 14, 2020 The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) said it would discuss a salary reduction programme for higher earning players and staff with the governing body’s finances badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend and the SRU board have taken a 25% wage deferral until Sept. 1 to help ease the

Apr 14, 2020 New Zealand Rugby says the concept of Australia staging every match in a rapid-fire Rugby Championship this year is a long way from becoming a reality. NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said a host of options are being considered around what form domestic and international rugby in the southern hemisphere could

Apr 14, 2020 An anticipated Easter resolution to the pay talks between Rugby Australia and the players’ union hasn’t eventuated by early Monday evening, with the clock now ticking especially loud for the NSW Waratahs. Going into Easter RA had been optimistic of getting a deal on salary cuts done with the Rugby Union Players’

3:50 PM BST Agustin Pichot will run against incumbent Bill Beaumont for the top job in World Rugby this month, the former Argentina international announced on Sunday. Pichot, who won 71 caps for the Pumas and has served as a World Rugby vice-chairman under former England skipper Beaumont for the last four years, promised radical

2:38 PM BST England wing Jonny May will rejoin Gloucester from Leicester Tigers at the end of the season, both clubs announced on Saturday. May, 30, has scored 30 tries in 44 appearances since joining Leicester three years ago. With his contract set to expire this summer, May said he would consider a move away

1:53 PM BST England’s summer tour of Japan could be postponed to October due to the coronavirus pandemic, Rugby Football Union (RFU) chief executive Bill Sweeney said on Friday. England were to play Japan on July 4 in Oita and July 11 in Kobe, the first time they will face last year’s Rugby World Cup

6:40 PM BST South Africa captain Siya Kolisi and his wife, Rachel, have donated 1,000 masks to a Cape Town hospital’s neonatal unit for mothers who are breastfeeding their babies amid the coronavirus crisis. The 2019 Rugby World Cup winner said that he made the donation to the Groote Schuur hospital to acknowledge the role

3:09 PM BST The Gallagher Premiership has been suspended indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers said on Wednesday. The league was originally scheduled to restart on April 24 but it has been announced that it will not resume until safe to do so. Coronavirus: Postponements and cancellations in sport “Following a series of constructive

11:21 PM BST Wales’ top rugby players will take a 25% pay cut after the Professional Rugby Board (PRB) said on Wednesday it had reached an agreement with the Welsh Rugby Players’ Association (WRPA) to reduce salaries during the coronavirus crisis. The PRB, which represents the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the four professional regional

8:50 AM BST British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland wants his team to play a warm-up match against the All Blacks before their tour of South Africa next year. Rugby, like most other sports, has been halted due to the coronavirus pandemic and Gatland, who coached the Lions in their drawn series in New

3:45 PM BST The European Champions Cup could be replaced with a Club World Cup featuring teams around the world, French Rugby Federation president Bernard Laporte has said. Laporte, who is aiming to become World Rugby vice-chairman next month, has said he plans to develop a six-week club competition to be held every year, featuring

10:10 AM BST Associated Press The Fiji Rugby Union has criticized two of its top professional players who have been arrested for failing to self-isolate after returning to Fiji from overseas. Fiji media named one of the players as backrower Semi Kunatani who plays for the London-based club Harlequins. He was a member of the

12:44 PM BST Scotland fly-half Finn Russell has said that his feud with head coach Gregor Townsend, which kept him out of this year’s Six Nations, was blown “out of proportion.” The Racing 92 fly-half left Scotland’s training camp for disciplinary reasons a week prior to their Six Nations opener against Ireland after he breached

2:59 PM BST Newcastle Falcons’ promotion back to the Gallagher Premiership has been confirmed with Saracens relegated to England’s second tier. The Falcons are at the top of the Championship, 18 points clear of second-placed Ealing, and following the Rugby Football Union’s (RFU) decision to call off the rest of the 2019-20 season due to

7:41 AM BST Eddie Jones is set to extend his contract with England to take him through to the 2023 Rugby World Cup, according to ESPN sources. Jones’ contract was due to finish in 2021, but he is now poised to take England through another World Cup cycle, having led them to the 2019 final.

3:22 PM BST With rugby facing an indefinite hiatus due to the coronavirus, professional players are keeping fit from their homes and trying not to lapse into off-season mode. In England, the Gallagher Premiership is postponed until the weekend of April 24-26. As rugby waits for that deadline to likely shift further into the summer,

7:18 AM BST New Zealand Rugby has offered a grant of $[NZ]250,000 to each of the country’s five Super Rugby teams to help them get through the next three months while the game remains suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic. The intercontinental Super Rugby competition was shut down after round seven when the New Zealand